It’s been one of Nacha’s main focuses in recent years: Encouraging healthcare professionals—especially dentists—to receive claim payments by electronic funds transfer, or EFT. There’s new evidence that these efforts are paying off.

The 2023 CAQH Index Report, released Jan. 30, found there were 194 million dental EFTs in 2022, up 39% from a year earlier. At the same time, dental adoption of EFT claim payments rose from 17% to 21%, “the highest increase among transactions along with eligibility and benefits verification,” researchers wrote. 

“The beneficiaries of this good news are the dental practices saving time and money by receiving their claims by EFT,” said Brad Smith, Nacha Senior Director, Industry Engagement and Advocacy. Smith leads a team at Nacha which has worked hard to encourage dentists to ditch paper checks and virtual credit cards in favor of EFT. 

CAQH noted that, “Staffing shortages continued to impact the time to conduct administrative tasks, especially for providers.” Smith said EFT can help with that.

“When there are no checks to sort through and then take to the bank to deposit, the time saved adds up in a hurry,” said Smith. “That’s in addition to EFT’s many other benefits, including safety and faster receipt of funds.”

ACH Network figures for 2023 show there were nearly 488 million EFT healthcare payments, up 7.7% from 2022 (read related article). 

“Nacha’s tremendous work in the dental space has contributed to the tremendous growth in dental EFT,” said Smith.

On the medical side, where EFT claim payment adoption rates have long exceeded that of their dental counterparts, the CAQH Index reported an 8% increase in medical EFT payments.

Dental and medical practices can learn more about EFT payments in the specially dedicated section of Nacha.org.

The complete 2023 CAQH Index Report is available on the CAQH Website.