Collecting outstanding balances is one of the most time-consuming tasks for dental practices. Your team sends a payment request, then has to remember to follow up, track who’s been contacted, and decide when to send another reminder. It’s tedious work that often falls through the cracks.
Today we’re launching Payment Request AutoCollect, a feature that automates the entire follow-up process for outstanding payment requests.
The Follow-Up Problem
When you send a payment request to a patient, the clock starts ticking. Studies show that collection rates drop significantly the longer a balance remains unpaid. But staying on top of follow-ups is challenging:
- Manual tracking is unreliable: Sticky notes and calendar reminders get lost
- Staff turnover creates gaps: When someone leaves, their follow-up tasks often disappear
- Inconsistent timing: Some patients get multiple reminders, others get none
- Time spent on administration: Your team would rather focus on patient care
How AutoCollect Works
Payment Request AutoCollect brings the same intelligent automation you know from membership renewals to your payment request workflow.
One Toggle to Enable
When creating or editing a payment request, simply enable the AutoCollect option. The system takes over from there, scheduling and sending reminders automatically.
Consistent Scheduling
AutoCollect keeps the follow-up going on a steady cadence:
- Initial request: Sent when you send the payment request
- Ongoing reminders: Repeat roughly every 10 days while a balance remains
- Overdue notices: The messaging changes once the due date has passed
- Collection window: Chasing continues for up to 90 days, then stops
Reminders go out by email and text, and a patient who has not opted in to text messages gets email only. Anything you send by hand counts toward the 10-day spacing, so a manual email pushes the next automatic reminder out rather than doubling up on the patient.
Next-Run Preview
The system shows you exactly when the next notification will be sent. No guessing, no surprises. You can see the scheduled date right on the payment request detail screen.
Stale Request Detection
AutoCollect automatically identifies payment requests that haven’t received any follow-up recently. These “stale” requests surface in your dashboard, ensuring nothing slips through the cracks even if AutoCollect wasn’t enabled initially.
Notification Tracking
Every notification is logged with complete details:
- Delivery timestamp: Know exactly when each reminder was sent
- Delivery status: Confirm successful delivery or identify issues
- Channel used: See whether email, SMS, or both were sent
This audit trail helps you understand your collection timeline and provides documentation if questions arise.
The Impact on Your Practice
Practices using AutoCollect are experiencing meaningful improvements in their accounts receivable:
Faster collection times. Consistent, timely reminders prompt patients to pay sooner rather than later.
Higher collection rates. Patients who receive regular follow-ups are significantly more likely to pay than those who receive sporadic or no reminders.
Reduced staff workload. Your team no longer needs to manually track and send follow-up communications.
Professional patient experience. Automated messages maintain a consistent, courteous tone without seeming aggressive or disorganized.
Works With Your Existing Workflow
AutoCollect integrates seamlessly with the payment request features you already use:
- Line-item billing: Itemized payment requests with dental procedure codes and per-item tax
- Secure payment links: Patients pay through a secure browser-based payment page, with no account and no login
- Payment plans: Split a large balance into scheduled installments on the same request
- Transaction linking: Complete audit trail from request to payment
When Collection Runs Out
If the 90-day window closes without payment, the request is marked Failed. That wording trips people up, so it is worth being plain about: Failed means the app stopped asking. It does not mean the balance is written off. The money is still owed, the payment link still works, and the request still counts as outstanding.
From there you can put the request back into collection with Restart Collection, which gives it a fresh window rather than just relabelling it. Before you commit, a confirmation window tells you what the last attempt actually did, including the case worth catching: no reminders were ever sent because the patient had no email address or mobile number on file. Fixing the contact details first is usually the difference between another round of chasing and another 90 days of silence.
Getting Started
Payment Request AutoCollect is available to offices on Smile Advantage Payments with payment requests switched on. To start using it:
- Set the office default under Settings, so every new payment request starts with AutoCollect enabled
- Or open an individual payment request and switch the AutoCollect toggle on
- Check Next run on the request to see when the next message is due
AutoCollect only works on a request that has actually been sent by email or text. A request you printed or shared as a link is still a draft, and drafts are never chased.
Stop Chasing Payments
Outstanding balances are inevitable in any practice. But the manual work of following up doesn’t have to be. Let AutoCollect handle the reminders while your team focuses on patient care.