Dental Billing Specialist job description
546 verified openings in Dental Office & Practice Management
Every claim a dental office sends is built from Current Dental Terminology, the American Dental Association's national code set of more than 800 procedure codes in 13 categories. The dental billing specialist is the person who gets those codes, the patient's plan, and the payment to line up. BLS reports the job under billing and posting clerks. In offices of dentists, 15,240 of them earned a median of $51,910 in May 2025, above the all-industry figure of $48,500. Its tenth and ninetieth percentiles were $41,690 and $70,270.
Core Duties and Responsibilities
Verifying billing data and correcting errors tops O*NET's importance ranking, followed by resolving discrepancies in the accounts and preparing itemized statements. Billing clerks keep invoice records, post payments, and contact patients to get or pass on account information. They consult rate books, manuals, and insurance company representatives to work out a charge. The code set changes every year, and some services add a line of their own: teledentistry visits, for instance, are reported with dedicated codes on top of the procedures performed.
Common Skills and Technologies
Reading comprehension and mathematics lead the skill ratings, then listening, speaking, and time management. O*NET flags accounting software, Excel, and Microsoft Office as in demand, and postings across the occupation name QuickBooks, Epic, and SAP.
Education, Training, and Career Path
This is Job Zone Three. In O*NET's survey, 51.5 percent answered some college courses, and 20.7 percent a high school diploma. No license is required. Nothing in the occupation's duties needs a chair or a patient in the room, which separates this job from most in a dental office.
Sources: O*NET 30.0, 43-3021.00 Billing and Posting Clerks, https://www.onetonline.org/link/summary/43-3021.00. BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025, 43-3021, offices of dentists, https://www.bls.gov/oes/tables.htm. American Dental Association, Current Dental Terminology, https://www.ada.org/resources/practice/dental-insurance/frequently-asked-questions-regarding-dental-codes. American Dental Association, teledentistry coding guide, https://www.ada.org/-/media/project/ada-organization/ada/ada-org/files/publications/cdt/v4_d9995andd9996__adaguidetounderstandinganddocumentingteledentistryevents_2023jan.pdf.