Scan EOB is the button inside the insurance payment window that attaches a copy of the remittance to the payment you are posting. Open Dental Scan EOB pulls an image from a connected scanner or from a file already on the computer, stores it with the insurance payment rather than on a patient's chart, and switches to read View EOB once something is attached. It exists to answer the question every audit and every payer phone call eventually asks: show me the paper this payment came from.
The same button appears in two places, because insurance money posts two ways: one claim at a time when you finalize a payment, and one check across many claims in a batch payment.
Where the file actually goes
This confuses people more than the scanning does. The attachment belongs to the insurance payment, not to a patient. A single check routinely covers eight or ten patients, so filing the image under any one of them would be wrong for the other nine. Reopen the payment later and the button reads View EOB, which is how the image comes back.
Where the bytes physically live depends on how image storage was set up. Offices keeping images as files on a server get an EOBs folder alongside the patient image folders. Offices storing images in the database get a record instead. That distinction decides whether your backup covers EOB images at all.
What does EOB stand for in dentistry?
Explanation of Benefits. It is the document a plan produces after adjudicating a claim, listing line by line what you billed, what the plan allowed, what it paid, what it adjusted off, and what the patient still owes. It is not a bill and it is not the money, although a paper check is often stapled to one.
In dentistry the EOB is also where a plan tells you things verification did not. That a posterior composite was paid at an alternative rate. That a frequency limit had already been used elsewhere. That the deductible landed on the first service of the year. Our walkthrough of how to read a dental EOB covers the columns in order. Scanning a document nobody read first is just tidy filing.
How to get a dental EOB?
Four routes, fastest first.
The payer portal. Most national payers post a downloadable remittance within a day or two of payment, searchable by check number, claim number or date range. Quickest route, and it needs no scanner.
Your clearinghouse mailbox. If you are enrolled for electronic remittance with that payer, the explanation is already there as a data file, and most clearinghouses will render a readable version.
The mail. Paper checks still arrive with the explanation attached, particularly from smaller plans and locally administered self funded groups.
A phone call. When the document is genuinely missing, the payer can reissue it. Have the tax ID, the claim number or the patient and date of service, and the check number. A patient can also pull a copy from the member portal when the plan sent everything to the subscriber.
A predetermination response arrives looking like an EOB and is not one. It is an estimate on a claim nobody paid, and filing it with remittances guarantees confusion later. Our guides to automating dental pre-determinations and expediting a dental prior authorization cover that work.
Attach it before the window closes
The order of operations matters more than the scanner settings do.
- Open the insurance payment and enter the check number or payment trace number, the payment date and the total amount.
- Attach the claims the money applies to and let the amounts split out line by line.
- Click Scan EOB and pull the image in while the window is still open.
- Confirm the total reconciles against the splits, then exit.
Two behaviors explain most of the "I cannot change it" calls that follow. When the amount you entered matches the total of the splits as you leave the window, the payment is treated as finished, and editing it afterward depends on your security permissions. And a payment already added to a deposit cannot be corrected until it is removed from that deposit. Both are easier to avoid than to undo.
Scan settings that keep the file usable
| Setting | What to use | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| Resolution | 200 to 300 dpi | Below 200 dpi the small print on adjustment codes stops surviving. Above 300 dpi you store detail nobody reads. |
| Color mode | Grayscale | A remittance carries no information in color, and color multiplies file size for nothing. |
| Pages | One attachment per check, every page | The page defining an adjustment code is almost never page one. Use one multi page file where the scanner allows it. |
| Straightening | Deskew before saving | A crooked scan is why a later reader gives up and phones the payer. |
Before saving, confirm six things are legible: payer name, check number and date, total paid, patient names and claim identifiers, the billed, allowed, paid and patient responsibility columns, and the adjustment reason codes. Rescanning now costs a minute. Recovering it later costs a hold queue.
When scanning is the wrong answer
A scanned EOB is a picture. Nothing in it can be searched, totaled or compared against your contracted rates without a person typing.
| Scanned EOB | Electronic remittance | |
|---|---|---|
| How it arrives | Paper, or a file downloaded from a portal | A data file in your clearinghouse mailbox |
| Posting | Keyed by hand, line by line | Posted by software, reviewed by a person |
| Searchable later | No, only by whatever you named it | Yes, every field |
| Catches an underpayment | Only if someone notices while typing | Yes, by comparison against your fee table |
| Best used for | Paper checks, portal only payers, disputes | Everyday volume from enrolled payers |
If a payer can send an electronic remittance and you are enrolled, post from that file and scan nothing. It is faster and more accurate. Scan when paper is the only version, when the payer is portal only, and when you expect a dispute and want the document exactly as issued. Why the explanation and the money travel on separate rails is covered in our guide to dental ERA vs EOB vs EFT.
How much does Open Dental cost per month?
Open Dental is priced unusually for this market. The software can be downloaded and run without a sales process, and the recurring monthly figure is a support subscription carrying updates and phone support. Pricing is published openly rather than quoted deal by deal, and is commonly in the low hundreds of dollars per month for a single location. Confirm the current figure and terms with Open Dental directly, because both change.
Two costs sit outside that subscription. Electronic services, meaning claim sending, attachments, texting and online forms, are billed separately, generally per transaction. And claims need a clearinghouse relationship whichever software you run.
Scanning EOBs by hand adds nothing to either bill, which is precisely why the paper habit survives. Its cost is staff time, and staff time never arrives as a line item.
How do I login to Open Dental?
Three different things get called logging in, and naming the right one shortens the support call.
The program. It runs on a workstation connected to a server inside your office. You open the application and either pick your name from the user list or type a user name and password, depending on configuration. No web address, and no self service reset: a failed password means somebody with security administration rights resets it inside the program.
The customer account on Open Dental's website. Separate credentials entirely, for invoices, downloads and support requests. Practices mix these two up constantly.
Access from outside the office. The database lives on your server, so reaching it from home means remote desktop, a hosted deployment, or a limited web module. Not a browser login to live data.
This matters for EOBs because your permissions decide whether you can create an insurance payment, edit a finalized one and delete one. If correcting payments is part of your job, ask for that permission in advance.
Filing that survives an audit
A scanned EOB earns its keep only when somebody can find it two years from now without asking you. Three habits do that work.
Use the check as the spine. Payer, check number, check date, amount, written the same way in the payment note, on the deposit and on the scan. Every question about a specific dollar then resolves in one lookup.
Attach every page, including the boilerplate. The page defining an adjustment code is the page you will want during an appeal.
Set retention by the strictest clock that applies, not the shortest. Payer contracts, state record retention rules and your own appeal deadlines all pull on the same document. As of this writing those requirements vary by state and by contract, so confirm with your state dental board and read your payer agreements rather than adopting a number someone quoted at a study club. Our guide to auditing your dental practice revenue cycle covers what a reviewer asks to see.
There is a bigger point buried in the filing. Every EOB carries numbers worth checking against what you expected, allowed amount against contracted rate, patient portion against the estimate you presented at the chair. A drawer of images makes that comparison impossible at volume, which is how quiet underpayments become write offs. Curo reads remittances as they arrive, posts them, and flags lines paid under the contracted rate. Our EOB reconciliation page shows how.
If you take one habit into tomorrow morning, take the sequence. Enter the payment, split it across claims, scan the EOB while the window is open, reconcile, exit. In that order it takes seconds. In any other it takes somebody else's afternoon.