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Many dental procedures also cause patients a high level of
uncertainty about cost and out-of-pocket expenses. Ambiguity
around specific insurance coverage may impede care that has already
been determined necessary by the clinician and patient. AI can
support dental offices in their claim submission by verifying the
completeness of the submission information to avoid unnecessary
back-and-forth between provider and payor.
After a claim is submitted directly or indirectly, via a clearinghouse,
it goes into a queue of tens of thousands of daily claims until it is
assigned to a dental consultant. The "reviewer" has anywhere from
1 to 10 days, depending on the insurance and plan, to log in, verify
procedure coverage, and either approve, adjust or flag it for further
questioning. Some of these procedures, in the short run-and
perhaps all procedures in the long run-can be automated by
AI. This will enable the dentist and team to receive an objective
assessment, almost in real time.

Making the patient experience more seamless

"But could it replace people?"
Even before AI, there have been concerns about efficiency
enhancement leading to job loss for medical personnel, primarily
on the operational or clerical side. Instead of job loss, these AI
tools and capabilities could actually free up office managers, team
members and clinical assistants to utilize and develop other skills
within their practice, or simply to devote more time and energy to
patient care and relationships. Ultimately, the entire point of artificial
intelligence is not to replace dental practitioners and their support
teams, but to enhance the work they're already doing by creating
a more reliable and consistent patient experience.
Many experiences in our future will include the use of artificial intelligence, but its role in dentistry and the doctor-patient
relationship will certainly benefit-sooner rather than later. As
a reminder: Although AI can and will assist clinicians with the
aforementioned recommendations, dentists must always remain
the ultimate authorities and make the fi nal decisions regarding
their patients' diagnoses and treatment plans. ■

AI is also expected to be a game changer for the overall patient
experience, specifically with improved hospitality. AI can predict a
patient's preferred day and time for office visits, desired care preferences
and even the preferred type of music to listen to during treatment.
Artificial intelligence algorithms rely on the underlying data
received. As a result, there are understandable concerns about patient
privacy and bias. However, some argue the potential for greater
privacy using AI systems. In an article for Med City News, Matt
Fisher writes, "While AI poses a risk to de-identification, from a
different perspective it can also create the ability to construct new
means of de-identifying data. Just as AI can pull from multiple
sources to identify individuals from a smaller set of data, the process
could also be used in the inverse to implement new protections that
render data even more de-identified than before."
Fisher adds that another potential enhancement to patient
privacy with AI is improved compliance monitoring. Under HIPAA,
information systems and data should be regularly monitored, but
this is typically a manual process and, as a result, there is always
the potential for human error. In addition, a manual system of
compliance cannot cover nearly as much ground as AI.

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Dentaltown September 2020

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Dentaltown September 2020