Fractional CFO and business advisor for oral and maxillofacial surgery practices
Oral surgery sits right where dentistry meets medicine. So does your revenue cycle.
Sound familiar?
Common oral surgery practice financial challenges
Your schedule is full of procedures most dentists refer out for a reason. Wisdom teeth, implants, grafts, biopsies, trauma, sedation. Each one can land with a different payer under a different set of rules, and somebody has to know which is which.
Why oral surgery finances feel so complicated
The question nobody asks about a full surgical schedule
Most oral surgery owners ask how to fill the schedule. The more useful question is how much of what’s on it actually turns into collected revenue, and how long that takes.
Two coding systems, one patient.
Dental claims use CDT codes. Medical claims use CPT and ICD-10 codes. Biopsies, pathology, TMJ, bone grafts, and trauma often belong on the medical side, and many dental plans exclude some of those procedures outright. A claim sent to the wrong place, or crosswalked incorrectly, doesn’t get paid. It gets denied, quietly, and sometimes never resubmitted.
Workers’ comp plays by its own rules.
Facial and dental injuries that happen on the job go through workers’ comp, with its own fee schedules, documentation requirements, and payment timelines. It isn’t dental insurance and it isn’t regular medical insurance.
Case mix decides your margin.
A schedule full of extractions and a schedule with full-arch implants, orthognathic surgery, or cosmetic procedures produce very different numbers. Knowing which procedures actually pay you best, after costs, changes how you grow.
Car accidents bring in another payer.
When an injury comes from a car accident, auto insurance gets billed before medical. Those claims can sit open for months while the accident case settles.
Anesthesia and the hospital add their own layers.
In-office sedation means equipment, monitoring, and trained staff. Hospital cases and on-call trauma bring in different payers, and sometimes patients without clean insurance at all.
Pre-authorizations slow everything down.
Many surgical procedures need approval before you do them. Every delay is a gap between when you do the work and when you see the money.
None of this is a failure. It’s the most medical corner of dentistry.
Where my background comes in
Why an insurance and workers’ comp background matters in oral surgery
I spent ten years in healthcare finance, including health insurance and workers’ compensation. I watched fee schedule requests come through from physicians and other providers, asking for what it actually cost to deliver care. Most didn’t get what they asked for. I know how payers think, where claims stall, and which ones never come back.
That’s the exact territory oral surgery lives in. Dental carriers, medical carriers, and workers’ comp, all on one schedule.
I also started chairside as a certified dental assistant. I know and I know what it costs the practice when the schedule runs long.
Most CFOs look at your practice from the books outward. I look at it from the chair, the claim, and the books, and how each one affects the others.
Your oral surgery fractional CFO
What changes with oral surgery business advisory support
You know where every dollar is waiting. Dental, medical, and workers’ comp receivables, broken out by payer, so stuck claims surface early.
Denials become patterns, not surprises. We find where claims are going wrong, whether it’s the carrier, the codes, or the authorization, so the fix happens upstream.
You know what each procedure actually earns. After implants, lab fees, anesthesia, and chair time, not just what it bills.
Referral relationships get real numbers. Which referral sources send the cases that sustain the practice.
Big decisions get a financial case. A new associate, a second location, adding in-office anesthesia capacity, or a buyer conversation.
How it works
How our oral surgery CFO advisory process works
FAQ
Oral surgery practice CFO FAQ
Do you work with oral and maxillofacial surgery practices specifically?
Do you do our medical billing or coding?
Can you help with workers’ comp claims?
How do I know which procedures are most profitable?
A group or investor has approached me. Can you help?
Thirty minutes for an honest conversation about your practice and whether Keystone is the right fit.