Setting Expectations for Staff

October 10, 2018, 7:16 am

≫ Next: Entering Batch Insurance Payments in Dentrix

Regular training is so important. We know this in the dental office. Our doctors and hygienists must take hours of continuing education bi-annually. They’re constantly learning so they can treat their patients with the upmost quality of care. The rest of us, meaning administrative staff and assistants, can also benefit greatly from regular training.

One of the most important members of the front office team in the schedule coordinator. It’s always a good idea to have a training plan for the schedule coordinator so that she is constantly improving her phone skills and perfecting the art of scheduling to maximize practice production.
I’ve found that an effective way to train a schedule coordinator is to observe them as they work, listening to how they communicate with patients over the phone and in person at the check-in desk. Give them positive feedback and tips on where they can improve.

Additionally, an important part of training you schedule coordinator, for me is to letting them know what I expect.

Here’s list of four things I expect a schedule coordinator to be able to do, and what I do to help them be successful:

Multi-Task
The schedule coordinator must be able to multi-task. The phone is ringing, patients are checking in and out and they must be able to effectively handle these situations. This is important to find out in the initial interview. Ask the potential team member about their multi-tasking skills. If they are a person who likes to focus on one task at a time this may not be a good position for them. Set that expectation at the initial interview.

Answer the Phone
I know that sounds like a no-brainer, but it’s easier said than done. It’s important for the schedule coordinator to be well spoken and use proper grammar. They are typically the first person a patient speaks to and they are a representative of your entire office. Again, find out if they’re the right person for the position when you initially interview them.

Schedule Appointments
Another no-brainer, right? However, scheduling appointments effectively is a lot more difficult than most would imagine. There are nuances to scheduling depending on the doctor. For example, the doctor may want more difficult high production procedures scheduled in the morning and less taxing procedures in the afternoon, so they aren’t doing difficult procedures at the end of the day when they’re tired. I recommend spending time with the schedule coordinator, helping them to understand each provider they will be scheduling for. When you're working with a new schedule coordinator, do this daily. Explain how providers would like appointments scheduled and why. Look at future days in the schedule with them and point out what looks good and what doesn’t. This will help them to learn what the office expects in the schedule. You can also use Perfect Day Scheduling in Dentrix to create time blocks for specific providers and procedures. This can also be helpful when scheduling.

Be Able to Say No
Many times, patients want to dictate to the office when they want to come in. While I always want to accommodate patients, the schedule coordinator controls the flow of the day. It’s important for them to be able to guide the patient to an appointment that works well for the office, as well as for the patient. To help your schedule coordinator with this, you could create a phone script for them to refer to. When I have a schedule coordinator that struggles saying no, I sit with them and have them listen to the way I speak to patients. This can help them to learn what to say and how to say it.

As an office manager, it’s important to give your team the tools they need to succeed. Work with your individual staff members. Let them know of your expectations, and look for opportunities to give positive feedback on the things they are doing well, and things you have noticed that could be done better.

Provide regular training opportunities. You can do mini training sessions in your morning huddle. This is a good time to talk about what they did great yesterday or what may have gone wrong. Positive reinforcement is a great training tool. When the team gets a pat on the back, they’re remember to keep doing something the right way. Taking the time to set expectations, and then setting aside time to observe and train your team can improve the patient experience in your office.

If you have questions, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Entering Batch Insurance Payments in Dentrix

October 17, 2018, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Tracking Lab Cases - How I Divide up Tasks

≪ Previous: Setting Expectations for Staff

It’s Monday at 5:00pm and it’s been a long day at the office. We often have a lot of mail on Mondays since the office is closed on the weekend and there are a lot of checks to post. We’ve posted all the checks, closed out the day, run a deposit slip and…oh no! We don’t balance. Many times, it’s a small amount, (I’ve been off by a penny!) but it must be corrected. It can be very irritating.

Did you know Dentrix has a feature in the Ledger to help you post batch insurance payments? This can help you to avoid the annoying situation I just described. You enter the total amount of the check, then post to individual patient’s claims. The best part is Dentrix will not let you continue unless the amount you allocated adds up to the total amount of the check.

Open the Dentrix Ledger. You do not have to be in a specific patient’s ledger to use this feature.

First, select File > Enter Batch Ins. Payment. Dentrix will default to today’s date (a). Then enter the total amount of the check, the payment type, check number and bank branch (b). Select the Insurance Carrier Name and choose the group plan (c). You will see a list of patients under that group with outstanding claims (d).

Select the desired claim to post (e) and then itemize the amount paid for each procedure (f). You have the option to update the payment table, enter necessary adjustments, and enter any deductible used (g). The claim status note is available if you need to make any notes regarding the claim (h).

I like to use the claim status note to indicate why a procedure wasn’t paid. For example, if fluoride wasn’t paid due to an age limitation. This is a quick and easy reference if a patient receives a statement and has a question on why a certain procedure wasn’t paid by their insurance. It’s much quicker than looking for the explanation of benefits.

Once that claim payment is complete, select Post Claim (i). Now you can move on to your next claim. Once you have posted the payment for all claims associated with the check, choose Next EOB (j). If the posted amount and the total check amount don’t match and you don’t balance, Dentrix will give you a warning that the amounts don’t match.

You can review and correct any errors while you still have the EOB in front of you.

The batch insurance payment feature in Dentrix is a time saver and a stress saver. There’re always a million things to do at the end of the day and Dentrix making sure you balance before you run the deposit slip at the end of the day can help make your life a little easier.

If you have questions, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Tracking Lab Cases - How I Divide up Tasks

October 24, 2018, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Keeping Track of Patient Insurance Information

≪ Previous: Entering Batch Insurance Payments in Dentrix

If you send a patient’s case to a lab, it’s very important to have a good tracking system for those cases. It’s important for your office to know which cases have been sent and are being fabricated at the lab, which cases have been received back in the office and are ready to deliver to the patient, and which cases have been completed.

I have found that being able to track the progress of a case is important because when properly tracked, your office can know to not schedule patients for their return appointment before their lab case is back in the office. Unfortunately, I’ve seen patients come in for their scheduled appointment and their lab case has not been returned from the lab. That’s an unpleasant situation for everyone!

Dentrix has a Lab Case Manager which is designed to do this tracking for you. When you create a lab case for a patient, that lab case can be attached to an appointment. While it’s important to track when your lab cases have been sent or received, it’s also very important to keep up with them after you have received them back in your office. Once a case has been completed (seated in the patient’s mouth), change the case status to "Finished." This is important because the Lab Case Manager allows you to view cases by status: Sent, Received, Finished, or Archived.

Make sure that you have a plan for who in the office will change the status of a patient’s case to ensure accuracy in your tracking system. I like to use the “Received” status list view in the Lab Case Manager to find patients that we have a received lab case for, but who aren’t yet scheduled for an appointment. I can use this as a tool to call and get them scheduled.

Here’s an example of how I’ve seen the Lab Case Manager tasks divided well among the team:

When a patient comes in for their initial appointment for a procedure requiring a lab case (such as a crown prep or impressions for a denture) the dental assistant creates the lab prescription using the Lab Case Manager and attaches it to the case. She prepares the case for the lab to pick up. At that point the lab case status is changed to “Sent”.
Either the dental assistant, or the front desk schedules the patient’s next appointment and attaches the lab case to the next appointment in Dentrix. This signifies to everyone in the office there is an outstanding lab case associated with this future appointment.
When the case is returned from the lab, the front desk changes the case status to “Received.” There is an option in this window to choose who the case was received by, I recommend using that option. That way if there’s a question, it’s easy to know which team member received the case.

When the patient comes in for their delivery appointment, the dental assistant changes the case status to finished.

I’ve found when the team understands the process and their role in it, you can maintain a clean tracking system for your lab cases. Don’t ever hunt for a lab case again! You’ll know exactly where your cases are when using a tracking system like the Dentrix Lab Case Manager.

For more information about customizing the Lab Case Manager for your office, see the Setting up the Lab Case Manager topic in the Dentrix Help.

If you have questions, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Keeping Track of Patient Insurance Information

October 31, 2018, 7:57 am

≫ Next: Over the Counter Collections

≪ Previous: Tracking Lab Cases - How I Divide up Tasks

A patient’s dental insurance is ultimately their responsibility. However, we at the dental office often assume some of the responsibility of keeping up with the patient’s insurance because it benefits us in the long run. If you are able to accurately estimate what an insurance plan will pay, you can collect the patient portion at the time of service, avoid future payment problems, and consequently maintain a healthy accounts receivable.

As an office manager, I try to keep up to date with a patient’s insurance benefits, such as frequency limitations and any special coverage clauses. This is important because it goes a long way in helping the patient avoid an unexpected balance.

Take this situation, where knowing a patient’s benefits would be important, for example:

A patient has a bridge placed, but there was a missing tooth exclusion in their insurance coverage, their insurance denies the claim, and they end up with a large unexpected balance. This is not only upsetting for the patient, but it can be costly for your office as well. This balance may remain unpaid for a long time, or the patient may need to make payments on the procedure, which affects the office accounts receivable and accounts aging.

Insurance plan exclusions and frequency limitations should be documented in the Insurance Plan Note. You can enter this information in a patient’s coverage table. In the Family File, double-click the Insurance block, and then click the Coverage Table button.

In the Coverage Table window, click the Notes button to access the Insurance Plan Note.

Enter any information you have from the insurance carrier about plan limitations and exclusions. These should be notes that are specific to the carrier and not individual patients. These notes will display for all patients covered by the plan, and won’t print on insurance claims.

Similarly, it’s important for your office to keep up with how much of a patient’s maximum benefits they have used to avoid an unexpected balance. Now is the time of year when many patients have met their insurance plan maximum. Dentrix tracks how much an insurance plan has paid for a patient in your office, but what about insurance payments to another office?

For example, a patient could have used some (or all) of their benefits at a specialist office, or they could be a new patient to your office, but have previously used some of their dental insurance maximum at a previous dentist.

In a patient’s Family File, double-click the Insurance Block and click the Deductibles button.

Enter any benefits used or deductible that may have been met outside of your office.

I find that keeping the deductibles met and benefits used for a patient updated is especially helpful in a case where you have referred a patient for a root canal. I know the patient will have used most of their insurance benefits at the endodontist office for this procedure. It’s important for that to be reflected when I print the patient’s treatment plan for a crown and build up on the tooth. By going in to their Family File and adding this information, Dentrix will calculate the correct estimated patient portion for the crown procedure, because it will take into account the insurance benefits that have already been used, and there won’t be any unpleasant surprises for me or the patient.

I find this time of year, it tends to be especially important to track how much a patient has used of their dental insurance maximum. You would need to contact the patient’s insurance company to find out how much the patient has used of their maximum outside of your office. If you use e-Services, you could use the Dentrix Insurance Manager for a quick and easy response.

If you have questions, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Over the Counter Collections

November 7, 2018, 7:00 am

≫ Next: End-of-Year Tasks: Part One

≪ Previous: Keeping Track of Patient Insurance Information

Collecting payment from patients at the time of service is very important. Many procedures we do in the office incur a lab fee and expensive materials and so it’s important for your office to cover its cost. How do you track if you’re collecting at the time of service?

Payment a patient makes for services rendered that day are considered to be over the counter collections. A good goal for your office is for over the counter collections to be 35-45% of your monthly production.

To differentiate over the counter collections verses other payments, you can set up additional payment types in Dentrix. For example, you probably already have cash payment, check payment, and credit card payment set up in Dentrix. But did you know you can also add OCC (over the counter collections) cash payment, OCC check payment, and OCC credit card payment as options, too?

To add payment types, open the Office Manager, and select Maintenance > Practice Setup > Definitions. Select Payment Type in the Definition Type drop-down list. Type the name of your new payment type (for example OCC Cash) in the Definition Text field, and then click Add.

Repeat these steps for the other over the counter payment types you want to add. Then train the staff who enter patient payments to use these new OCC payment types when a patient is paying for a procedure done that day.

Once you have the OCC payment types set up, you will be able to differentiate them from other payments on your daily and monthly reports.

The over the counter collections should be monitored monthly. At the end of each month, run a report to show collections based on payment type. A good report for this would be the Payment Summary Report in the Practice Analysis. In the Office Manager select Analysis > Practice, and then select Reports when the window opens. Set the desired Date Range and check the Payment Summary option.

This report will give you all the payments, separated by payment type, for the selected date range. Now you can total all the over the counter collections payment types and divide this by the monthly production. This will give you the percentage of the over the counter collections.

By generating this report on a monthly basis, you have a good gauge of whether you are collecting enough from patients in the office at the time of service. Remember, a good goal is to have 35-45% of your monthly production should be from over the counter collections.

If you aren’t reaching this goal, you may want to examine why:

Are patients being presented with a treatment plan prior to the appointment date so that they can be financially prepared?
Is someone on the team uncomfortable asking a patient for money and therefore not collecting?
Have patients been properly informed about the office policy regarding paying at the time of service?

Addressing any issues in this area can help to improve your cash flow and your bottom line.

You can also view over the counter collections in the Practice Advisor Report. You are able to designate which payment types this report considers over the counter collections. In the Office Manager, select Analysis > Practice Advisor. Choose Practice Advisor Setup then Assign Payment Types as Over-the-Counter Collections. Move the payment type(s) you have set up as OCC into the right pane using the arrow buttons, and click OK to save.

Collecting from patients at time of service helps to maintain healthy accounts receivable. It also helps the office to cover overhead and costs such as lab fees and materials.

Is your office collecting enough at the time of service? Try using the reports I described to find out.

If you have questions about this or other topics, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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End-of-Year Tasks: Part One

November 14, 2018, 7:00 am

≫ Next: End-of-Year Tasks: Part Two

≪ Previous: Over the Counter Collections

It’s the most wonderful time of the year……to prepare for next year!

As the end of the year rapidly approaches, there are important tasks that need to be done at your office to prepare for 2019. Over the next few weeks, we’re going to talk about some of these tasks to get your office ready for the new year.

Let’s start by talking about office fee schedules. It’s important to review your office fees on an annual basis. You can evaluate and compare your office fees to others in your area by using a guide like the National Dental Advisory Service Fee Report Book. This can help you to see how your office fees compare to other dental offices in your zip code and if you should consider raising your fees. Raising your office fees can improve the revenue for the practice, but you also don’t want to price yourself out of the market.

Updating the Office Fee Schedule
Once you have made a decision about how you want to update your office fee schedule, you can choose to increase your fee schedule by a percentage or by a dollar amount using the Auto Changes button in Dentrix. Open the Office Manager and select Maintenance > Practice Setup > Fee schedule Setup. Select the fee schedule you want to change, then click Auto Changes.

You can choose to update all procedure codes, or you can enter a procedure code range. From this screen you also have the ability to increase (or decrease) fees by a percentage or a dollar amount.

You can also manually edit individual fees by procedure code. Open the Office Manager and select Maintenance > Practice Setup > Fee Schedule Setup. Choose the appropriate fee schedule, then select View/Edit. Select a procedure code from the list, make changes to the AFTER column, and then click Save.

Updating Insurance Fee Schedules
When you are thinking of updating fee schedules, it’s also important to request an updated fee schedule from all insurance companies your office participates with. Depending on the insurance company, you may have to call or e-mail the provider relations department or you may have to send a written request. Once you have received the updated fee schedules from the insurance company, you can edit your fee schedules in Dentrix to reflect the insurance fees.

Open the Office Manager, and select Maintenance > Practice Setup > Fee Schedule Setup. Choose an insurance fee schedule, then select View/Edit.

Select the code you want to edit from the list of procedure codes. For example, if you wanted to update the fee for an adult prophylaxis, select D1110 and click in the AFTER field and enter the updated fee (in dollars). You can move on to the next procedure code to update, or if you’re done, choose Save, then Close.

One thing to keep in mind when you update or edit a fee schedule, is that when you enter or create a new treatment plan for a patient, the updated fees will be reflected. Patients who have an existing treatment plan will not reflect the updated fees.

Taking the time to update your office fees and requesting information from your insurance carriers so you can update your insurance fee schedules, will result in higher production and collections for the office. I find that making this a part of my end of year routine ensures that it gets done consistently on an annual basis.

Join me next week when we’ll discuss more end-of-year tasks.

If you have questions about this or other topics, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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End-of-Year Tasks: Part Two

November 20, 2018, 3:33 pm

≫ Next: End of Year Tasks: Part 3

≪ Previous: End-of-Year Tasks: Part One

Last week we talked about making the task of updating fee schedules a part of your annual routine. This week I’d like to talk about another task I make a part of my annual routine. I think it’s important to schedule patients to have their permanent crowns cemented before the end of the year. The reason is that more insurance companies are paying for crowns based on the seat date. If you wait until January to cement a permanent crown, the insurance company will pay towards the patient’s 2019 benefits, therefore the patient may lose any benefits they had left for 2018. It’s a good idea to contact patients who aren’t scheduled for their appointment to cement their permanent crown and get them into the office before their insurance renews on January 1^st.

There are a couple of different ways you can identify which patients need to have their permanent crowns cemented:

Using the Lab Case Manager

If you have been entering cases into the Dentrix Lab Case Manager and changing the case status, you can use the Lab Case Manager and view patients with received cases. (Lab Case Manager > View > Misc. Options. Check the Received Cases box, and select OK.) For more information on the Lab Case Manager and updating the case status, read my blog post from October.

Using a Custom List

If you treatment plan a procedure code for a crown cement, you could also locate patients using Letters & Custom Lists. I’m a big fan of Letters & Custom Lists in Dentrix because it allows me to obtain lists of patients based on a number of different filters. I like the way that I can use the filters to find exactly the group of patients I’m looking for.

To find a list of patients with a treatment planned procedure for a crown cement open the Office Manager. From the toolbar select Letters & Custom Lists > Misc. > Patient report (by filters). Then select the Edit button. In the Letter or Custom List Setup screen, it’s important that all the filters used previously are cleared before you begin.

Otherwise Dentrix will use those filters and your list of patients will not be accurate. To find patients with a treatment-planned cement crown procedure code, select the >> next to the Procedures filter. In the Search Forbox, check the box for Treat. Plan. Next choose the beginning and ending procedure codes.

For example, if the procedure code your office uses for the cement crown is D2999, choose the beginning procedure code D2999 and ending procedure code D2999. You can choose to enter a procedure date range if needed, but it’s not necessary for this scenario. Select OK to save those filters, and then OK again to close the setup screen. Now select Open List Manager. This gives you a list of patients who have a treatment-planned cement crown procedure. You can access the patient’s other Dentrix modules from the List Manager, so it’s easy to navigate to the patient’s Family File, Ledger, Chart and Office Journal.

By scheduling patients to come in for an appointment to cement their permanent crowns before January 1, you can help them to better maximize their insurance benefits. If their insurance plan pays based on the seat date, the crown will be paid based on the patient’s 2018 insurance benefits and the patients 2019 insurance benefits will not be affected. Even if the patient’s insurance company doesn’t pay on the seat date, it can still be very important to schedule the patient to cement their permanent crowns before the holidays. The holidays tend to be the time that we eat more delicious, chewy, sticky foods that can pull off a temporary crown, so it’s beneficial for all patients to have their permanent crowns cemented before the holidays and January 1^st.

For questions on this or another topic, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com, and I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving!

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End of Year Tasks: Part 3

November 28, 2018, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Charting Referred Procedures

≪ Previous: End-of-Year Tasks: Part Two

Over the last couple of weeks, we’ve been talking about tasks to be done at the end of the year. This week let’s talk about a task that is very important to perform on January 1st (or the 2nd if the office will be closed for New Years’ Day).

Resetting patients’ insurance benefits in Dentrix allows the software to accurately calculate patient and insurance portions. This is also important so that treatment plans and balances due are calculated properly. At the beginning of the year, it’s important that Dentrix calculates the patient’s deductible into their patient portion and that it recognizes a patient has their entire insurance maximum available. This can be a valuable tool in presenting treatment plans to patients. They may be more likely to accept a treatment plan knowing that their dental insurance will pay a portion of the cost.

In order for the insurance benefits to calculate correctly in Dentrix, you must first make sure that you are assigning the benefit renewal month to insurance plans. In the patient’s Family File, double-click the Primary Dental Insurance block. Click the Insurance Data button and assign the benefit renewal month using the drop-down menu.

Assign the month that the patient’s insurance maximum and deductible renew. Many times, this will be January, but there are some plans that renew at the beginning of another month.

Now that you have the renewal month assigned to the insurance plan, you can reset insurance benefits for those plans. To reset insurance benefits, open the Office Manager. Select Maintenance > Reference > Purge Dental Insurance Benefits Used.

Dentrix gives you the option to purge benefits for a specific insurance plan, or for all plans with a specific renewal month. Since we want to reset all plans with a renewal month of January, select January from the drop-down menu and click OK. Dentrix will reset all insurance plans with a renewal month of January, which will be all patients whose insurance maximum and deductible runs on a calendar year.

Resetting insurance benefits can also be done as a part of your closing the month routine using Month End in the Ledger.

Updating patient’s insurance benefits is very important so that you can properly estimate patient’s insurance benefits and patient out-of-pocket expense. By resetting insurance benefits, you will reset the patient’s insurance maximum and deductible amounts in Dentrix. This is an especially important task on January 1st because many plans renew as of that date. Keep your patient’s insurance information up to date and current in Dentrix by resetting patient’s insurance benefits. Doing this will help you to provide accurate treatment plans and account information.

For questions on this or another topic, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Charting Referred Procedures

June 6, 2018, 6:00 am

≫ Next: A First-of-the-Year Task To Put On Your Schedule

≪ Previous: End of Year Tasks: Part 3

Have you needed to find the date a referred procedure was completed? For example, a patient is in the chair and the doctor needs to know when the patient’s implant was placed, or a root canal was completed. Charting referred procedures in the Dentrix Patient Chart can help in several ways. The patient’s chart is more accurate, and it gives you the information you need quickly instead of having to search for it in a paper chart or the patient’s Document Center.

When you chart referred procedures, you can also help to generate production. Because the referred procedures are there in the Patient Chart, your doctor can easily see that an implant was placed 3 months ago and is ready to restore. Then you can schedule the patient’s appointment for the implant restoration while the outstanding treatment is still fresh in their mind and they are motivated to schedule. Or perhaps, if your office allows for it, you can provide treatment the same day. That can greatly increase your daily production.

When a procedure is treatment planned in the Patient Chart you can double click on the procedure and mark it as Referred To Doctor.

This will put a symbol (R>) next to the procedure to show it has been referred, and it will change the fee to 0.00. The referred procedure still prints on the patient’s printed Treatment Plan Case, which I like, because it communicates to the patient that procedure needs to be done and if you have set visits in their treatment plan, the patient knows in what order the treatment should be completed.

Once the treatment has been completed by the doctor you referred the patient to, you can mark the procedure as completed in the Patient Chart. Because it was done by another provider, the procedure will have an Existing Other status in the Patient Chart and show as Existing Other in the graphic chart.

For example, I like the visual of seeing the unrestored endo tooth because it reminds me that the crown still needs to be scheduled.

Plus, did you know you can print a referral right from the Patient Chart? This can save time having to hand write a referral and then scan that referral into the Dentrix Document Center. After you have marked a procedure as Referred To Doctor in the Patient Chart, click on File > Print > Referral Slip.

The date range will default to today’s date, but you can change the date range as needed to include the date of the referred procedure. You also have the option to write an additional note on the bottom of the referral if there is something you need to communicate to the referred to doctor.

Charting referred procedures in the Patient Chart can save you time. You no longer have to search for information, it will all be in one place. The Patient Chart will be more accurate with a record of all procedures including those that were referred out to another doctor. If you have questions or comments on this topic, you can email me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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A First-of-the-Year Task To Put On Your Schedule

December 5, 2018, 7:32 am

≫ Next: Understanding Unfilled Hours on your Practice Advisor Report

≪ Previous: Charting Referred Procedures

Assign the month that the patient’s insurance maximum and deductible renew. Many times, this will be January, but there are some plans that renew at the beginning of another month.

Now that you have the renewal month assigned to the insurance plan, you can reset insurance benefits for those plans. The process of resetting patient’s insurance benefits happens as a part of the Month End routine in Dentrix.

If you are using Dentrix version G6.5 or newer, you will use the Month End Task Scheduler which is located in the Ledger. The Task Scheduler has taken all the tasks that were performed as a part of Month End and Month End Wizard and has allowed you to determine which tasks are preformed and when. My favorite part of the Task Scheduler is that you do not have to close all your computers out of Dentrix for the Task Scheduler to run.

Resetting Insurance benefits is under the Purge and Reset Category within the Task Scheduler. I recommend that you run this on the first day of each month in order to accurately calculate patient’s insurance benefits. Resetting Insurance Benefits can be run manually at any time by right-clicking on Reset Insurance Benefits from the list of Available Tasks, then selecting Run Now. You can also add this task to your Monthly Queue and it will run automatically based on the parameters you set.

Keep your patient’s insurance information up to date and current in Dentrix by resetting patient’s insurance benefits. Doing this will help you to provide accurate treatment plans and account information.

Special Note from Henry Schein One: Dentrix has released an update that addresses issues that are impacting some customers in two areas: (1) resetting insurance benefits and (2) running month end and task scheduler. The update is available to you now in the Dentrix Update Manager. Even if you have not experienced these issues, we ask that you complete this high-priority update at your earliest convenience (no later than December 28, 2018). Please note that running the update will require that all users exit Dentrix.

For questions on this or another topic, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Understanding Unfilled Hours on your Practice Advisor Report

December 12, 2018, 7:39 am

≫ Next: Ideas for Increasing Your Case Acceptance Numbers

≪ Previous: A First-of-the-Year Task To Put On Your Schedule

If you have ever had the opportunity to study the Practice Advisor Report in Dentrix before, you know that it is a very powerful tool. There is so much information available in this one report—information like:

Unfilled hours for the dentist and hygienist(s)
Production totals for the entire practice, production totals based on position in the practice (dentist or hygienist), and production totals by each provider.
Numbers of treatment cases presented vs. treatment cases accepted so that you can track your overall case acceptance percentages.
Collection information, broken down by provider and accounts receivable information.
New patient information, including referral sources.
Broken appointment information, including lost revenue from broken appointments and number of broken appointments not reappointed.

Over the next few weeks we will talk about some things you can do to ensure your Practice Advisor Report is showing you accurate information. Because the report will only be as accurate as the data you have entered into Dentrix.

One of the items listed in the Practice Advisor is Unfilled Hours. Unfilled hours are open time on your schedule. Unfilled hours can cause the practice to lose money because there is not a patient in the chair generating revenue, and the practice is paying overhead expenses as well as the hourly salary for the hygienist or assistant to work. This makes me think of the old saying “Time is money,” which in a dental office is very true.

In order for the unfilled hours to be accurately reflected in the report, you must have each provider’s working days and hours set up properly in Dentrix. In the Appointment Book, select Setup > Provider Setup. Choose a provider ID, then click Setup. Set the hours for each day that the provider works. Having each provider’s hours properly set up is necessary for the Practice Advisor to calculate unfilled hours correctly.

Unfilled hours are broken down on the Practice Advisor Report by dentist totals and hygiene totals, as well as by individual provider ID numbers. The Practice Advisor also gives a value to those unfilled hours which would be lost potential revenue because there was not a patient on the schedule.

This can be very valuable information. After reviewing the information, ask yourself, why are the hours unfilled? In my experience, this often happens because the office hasn’t been making a routine effort to reach out to patients and get them scheduled (or rescheduled) for appointments.

What Can You Do To Reclaim those Unfilled Hours?

You can reduce your unfilled hours for hygiene patients by working on your Continuing Care List regularly. Send e-mails and texts to patients who are due for continuing care through Communication Manager in eCentral. If patients don’t respond, follow up with a phone call.

To reduce doctor unfilled hours, you should work on your unscheduled treatment plans regularly. The Treatment Manager is great tool to use to contact patients with unscheduled treatment plans. Call the patients and explain their treatment and why it is important. Be ready to present them with payment options like CareCredit to make the financial aspect of their treatment easier to accept.

I find that many times when an office is busy, these lists aren’t worked as frequently. Set time aside every week for a team member to work on these lists to keep a consistently full schedule.

The Dentrix Practice Advisor provides a great deal of valuable information which can be a powerful tool in evaluating the overall health of your practice. Join me next week and we’ll talk more about another aspect of the Practice Advisor Report that can help you identify areas of you can focus on for better profitability.

If you have any questions on this topic, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Ideas for Increasing Your Case Acceptance Numbers

December 19, 2018, 7:00 am

≫ Next: Dealing with Broken Appointments Appropriately for Accurate Reporting

≪ Previous: Understanding Unfilled Hours on your Practice Advisor Report

I want to continue talking about the value of the Dentrix Practice Advisor Report as a powerful tool in evaluating the overall health of your practice.

Last week we talked about understanding what the unfilled hours mean on the Practice Advisor Report and how you can work to improve those numbers and keep your schedule full.

This week let’s look at how the Practice Advisor calculates Treatment Case Acceptance. It’s important to know what your case acceptance percentage is in your office. How many patients are saying yes to the treatment plans you are presenting?

In a typical general dentistry practice with one doctor and two hygienists, a good goal would be for 85-90% of treatment plans to be accepted. If you find your percentages aren’t as high as you expect them to be, you may want to ask the following questions:

Is the team properly educating patients on their dental health and treatment needs? Are you taking the time to explain what could happen if those needs aren’t treated? Do you have tools in the office to help to educate patients? An intraoral camera can be a great teaching tool. A picture says a thousand words!
Are you offering financing options to make the patient’s treatment plan affordable? You can create payment agreements in Dentrix or offer outside financing like CareCredit.
Do you have appointment availability, so they are able to make it work with their schedule? Have several options available including early morning and late afternoon appointments so patients don’t have to take too much time off work.
Does the patient have a fear of the dentist? You can increase case acceptance by having something in the operatory to distract them during treatment, like listening to music or watching TV.

But before you evaluate if your case acceptance needs improvement, you must first make sure the case acceptance percentage in the Practice Advisor Report is accurate. Because while the information included in the Practice Advisor Report can be very informative, it is only as accurate as the data you put into Dentrix.

After presenting a treatment plan to a patient, be sure to update the case status in the Treatment Planner. In the Patient Chart, open the Treatment Planner and select a treatment plan. Then click the Update Case Status button. Here you have the option to mark the case as Accepted or Rejected. When you consistently change treatment plan statuses for each patient, you can ensure that your case acceptance rate in the Practice Advisor is the most accurate.

Please join me again next time when we’ll talk about broken appointments in the Practice Advisor Report.

If you have any questions on this topic, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Dealing with Broken Appointments Appropriately for Accurate Reporting

January 2, 2019, 7:14 am

≫ Next: Updating Treatment Plan Fees at the Beginning of a New Year

≪ Previous: Ideas for Increasing Your Case Acceptance Numbers

Over the past few weeks we’ve been discussing the Dentrix Practice Advisor Report and all the valuable information you can learn from it. Some of the statistics included in this report are regarding broken appointments. The Practice Advisor gives you the number of broken appointments not re-appointed, scheduled hours for broken appointments, and revenue lost for broken appointments.

First, it’s important to understand what constitutes a broken appointment. A broken appointment is a “negative” cancellation. This would be patients that no-show or cancel their appointment with little or no notice. I would recommend that any patient that does not give your office 24 hours’ notice should be considered a broken appointment. In those situations, when the patient calls to cancel or when they don’t show up at all, select the appointment on the schedule and then click the Break Appointment icon to break the appointment. The appointment moves to the Unscheduled List.

Now a common problem I see is that when it comes time to reschedule that broken appointment, offices aren’t looking at the Unscheduled List. They schedule the patient a whole new appointment. There are a couple of problems with doing this:

Your Unscheduled Lists will not be accurate. There are unscheduled appointments on the list and new appointments for those same procedures on the schedule.
The appointment is not counted as re-appointed in the Practice Advisor report.

It’s important for everyone on your scheduling team to reschedule broken appointments from the Unscheduled List. When you schedule an appointment for a patient that has a broken appointment, Dentrix will display a message that says,

Always say yes when you see this message! When you click Yes, the Family Appointment List will appear. In the Appointment section, select the unscheduled appointment, and then click View Appointment.

An Appointment Information dialog box will open showing the appointment that was placed on the Unscheduled List.

It will contain the appointment reason and any notes or information that was entered for the original appointment. From here you can move the appointment to the Pinboard, and then find an opening in the schedule for it. Rescheduling broken appointments in this way will result in the Practice Advisor counting this as re-appointed.

If you review your Practice Advisor Report and find you have a high number of broken appointment hours and lost revenue, consider some the following:

Are patients no-showing for appointments? Do you have an effective confirmation system?
Did the patient have unaddressed concerns regarding the appointment? The three main reasons patients don’t proceed with dental treatment are money, time, and fear. Did the office address these concerns?
Is this patient a habitual canceler? If so, it may be a good idea to ask the patient for a deposit to reserve time for them on your schedule.
Do you charge patients a missed appointment fee to deter them from last minute cancellation?
Is the office team making it too easy for patients to cancel? The patients should be aware that they are inconveniencing the office by a last-minute cancellation.

Having accurate broken appointment information available to you in the Practice Advisor Report can help you to evaluate if your office policies are effective in minimizing broken appointments.
If you haven’t had an opportunity to review the Practice Advisor Report in Dentrix, I strongly encourage you to do so. It is such a great report, with tons of valuable information all in one place. Evaluate it with the doctor and your team on a monthly basis to see where your office can improve.

If you have any questions on this topic, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Updating Treatment Plan Fees at the Beginning of a New Year

January 9, 2019, 8:11 am

≫ Next: How Dentrix Can Help with Your 2019 Marketing

≪ Previous: Dealing with Broken Appointments Appropriately for Accurate Reporting

In November, I wrote a blog post about updating fee schedules at the end of the year. Updating office fees as well as insurance fee schedules is important so your office receives the highest fee for procedures, which will result in higher production.

Once you have updated your fee schedules in Dentrix, what happens to the patients who already had outstanding treatment plans? This question has come up recently in some of the offices I work with.

For patients who have outstanding treatment-planned procedures, those fees will need to be updated. You can update treatment fees on a patient-by-patient basis, or for all patients at once.

I would recommend that you update fees for outstanding treatment plans for all patients on an annual basis. The reason behind doing it annually is that you may have patients who with treatment plans that were created years ago. Those fees are outdated and need to be updated. Updating outstanding treatment fees can be done on an annual basis after you have updated your fee schedules in Dentrix.

Since some databases can be quite large, here’s some tips for you to update fees for all patients:

Update your fees on the server computer, not a workstation.
Perform this process outside of practice hours, when you're not seeing patients, so no other computers are logged in to Dentrix.
Be patient. Depending on the size of your database, it may take some time.

How To

Open the Treatment Planner and from the Edit menu, select Update Treatment Fees. Choose the option to Update Treatment Plan Fees For: All Patients.

You will notice in this window you can choose to update fees for one particular procedure code or a procedure code range. This could be beneficial if your office updates the fee for one procedure during the year. However, for my example, I would recommend leaving the procedure code range as <ALL> to <ALL>. Then click Update to update the fees according to your current fee schedule.

Keeping fee schedules current and accurate, and updating fees for outstanding treatment plans annually, can help your office to charge the most accurate fees, therefore increasing production. If you have questions about this topic, please email me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com. Happy 2019!

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How Dentrix Can Help with Your 2019 Marketing

January 16, 2019, 7:00 am

≫ Next: 5 Tips for Efficient Patient Checkout

≪ Previous: Updating Treatment Plan Fees at the Beginning of a New Year

I was recently reading an article in Dental Economics about dental marketing for 2019. The article referenced what’s hot and what’s not, in dental marketing. It seems some advertising techniques are losing ground such as billboards, Yelp and Yellow Pages, while others are becoming more popular.

Here are some of marketing techniques forecasted to be more popular in 2019 and my interpretation on how Dentrix can work with them:

Email Marketing

You can use e-mail marketing to remind patients of their appointments or remind them that they are due for an appointment. You can use Patient Engagethrough eServices to automate these reminders to be sent.

Social Media

With the exciting announcement of the Henry Schein One joint venture, there are even more options to manage your online presence using Web and Online Marketing tools powered by Officite. You can bundle all the great eServices you already use, like eClaims and Quickbill, and combine them with these exciting new services.

Personalized Marketing

You can create personalized letters to patients right from your Dentrix software, in the Office Manager. Under Letters & Custom Lists, there are letter templates you can use for patients in your practice who experience birthdays, graduations, baby births, or marriages. You can create these letters for particular groups of patients to let them know you care.

Discount Plans

Many offices allow patients to purchase an in-house discount plan. This can be a good incentive to get patients in the door. Creating an in-house discount plan would consist of creating a discounted fee schedule and adding it to Dentrix. You can do that in the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Fee Schedule Setup. Then you would assign that discounted fee schedule to the patients who have purchased it, in their Family File. You may also want to create a Billing Type to assign to these patients so that you can track them more efficiently.

Whatever your marketing plans are for 2019, be sure to track your referral sources. Tracking referral sources allow you to evaluate the success of the marketing plan and the return on your investment. I suggest asking each new patient how they heard about the office on the initial new patient phone call. This information can be entered into Dentrix along with the new patient information (name, address, phone number etc.). Then, run monthly reports to evaluate which referral sources provided the most new patient referrals and the production generated from those patients. (Office Manager > Reports > Management > Referred BY Doctor/Other).

If you have any questions, please email me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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5 Tips for Efficient Patient Checkout

January 30, 2019, 7:53 am

≫ Next: How Dentrix Questionnaires can Streamline Patient Paperwork

≪ Previous: How Dentrix Can Help with Your 2019 Marketing

The Patient check out process is just as important as any other part of their appointment. Here are my top 5 tips for a more efficient patient check out process.

Communicating with the Front Desk – Which Procedures Were Completed?

As the assistant or hygienist brings the patient up front, this is the perfect time to communicate to the administrative team which procedures were completed today. This is obviously very important to make sure the correct procedures are billed out. Whether the procedures are being set complete in the back or the front, it never hurts to have more than one set of eyes reviewing this information.

Using Route Slips or Patient Visit Forms

In a chartless office, it can be helpful to use a patient route slip or Patient Visit Form for this communication process. The assistant or hygienist can write on the route slip or Patient Visit Form to indicate if any procedures changed from the original schedule. This can be especially helpful for the front desk team to refer to if they are on the phone or checking another patient in. Both the route slip and the Patient Visit Form are available from the Appointment Book. After selecting a patient, select File > Print Route Slip or File > Print Patient Visit Form. The Patient Visit Form can be customized based on the type of information you want to display.

Creating a Sense of Urgency for Necessary Treatment

Patient check-out is also a great opportunity for the assistant or hygienist to reiterate important things that were said during the patient’s appointment. For example, the hygienist could say to the front desk “It’s very important that we schedule Mrs. Smith as soon as possible for the upper right crown”. Reiterating this information to the front desk can create more urgency with the patient to schedule the necessary treatment. Also, most people need to hear something more than once for them to retain it. The check-out process can be a good opportunity to repeat important information.

Scheduling Future Continuing Care Appointments Today

Re-appoint your patients as much as possible. While they’re in your office, your patient’s oral health is fresh in their mind. It can be more difficult and take up more staff time to schedule their appointment once they have left the office. Take the time to schedule a patient's next cleaning while they are checking out.

Using Fast Check Out to Automate Tasks

If you’re not already using it, try using the Fast Check Out option in the Ledger. Fast Check Out automatically performs three tasks, just by clicking a single icon. First, it creates an insurance claim, then prompts you to collect payment from the patient, and then it prints a Walk Out Statement. The Fast Checkout options are customizable and work station specific. To customize these settings, open the Dentrix Ledger and select File > Fast Check Out Options Setup. After you’re made your selections, choose OK. Using Fast Check Out can save time and eliminate the chance of forgetting to perform one of these tasks. As an added bonus, when you provide the patient with a Walk Out statement, it displays their next scheduled appointments at the bottom of the page.

A smooth and efficient check-out process is just as important as any other part of the patient’s appointment. Try using these tips to streamline your office’s check-out routine.

If you have any questions, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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How Dentrix Questionnaires can Streamline Patient Paperwork

February 6, 2019, 1:25 pm

≫ Next: Advantages for Using Dentrix Pay in Your Office

≪ Previous: 5 Tips for Efficient Patient Checkout

Patient forms can be a challenge. Patients don’t like filling them out and it’s time consuming for your team to input the patient’s data and scan forms, not to mention the cost of paper and toner ink.

However, it is crucial that your office has vital information about your patients. Many medical conditions can interfere with the way you provide dental treatment so it’s important to have a comprehensive medical history. It’s also important to have patient’s insurance information as well as a signed financial policy to avoid unpleasant financial surprises. Plus, you are required to have signed HIPAA forms, and there may be several other forms your office requires.

As an office manager, you know how important it is to have the information from these forms and to have it correctly entered into your Dentrix system. But there is an easier way.

Dentrix offers the Questionnaires module. In my experience, correctly using this module is a huge time saver! You have the ability to customize and create your own forms.

The information fields in the questionnaires you create correspond with the patient information you store in Dentrix. Once you create the forms you can have them available on your office website. Your patients can fill out their forms from the comfort of their home and submit them to your office.

For a patient to be able to fill out and submit forms before they arrive in the office is very beneficial. This can help to eliminate surprises before the patient arrives, for example if the patient has a medical condition and has a need to pre-medicate. Having patients fill out the forms ahead of time can also help your schedule to run on time. All it takes is having one patient who is slow to fill out their forms while in the waiting room, to cause the whole schedule to run behind for the rest of the day!

Another reason for having patients fill out forms prior to arriving in your office is that you will then have other valuable information, like their insurance information, which you will be able to verify before they come in for their appointment.

When patients fill out their Questionnaires forms online, these forms sync with Dentrix, allowing data to be easily updated in the patient’s Family File.

This is a big time-saver for staff and eliminates the problems of trying to interpret patient handwriting, or duplicate data entry.

I have found using online Questionnaires to be very efficient for the office. It eliminates surprises such as medical concerns or insurance issues before the patient arrives for their appointment. It eliminates the need for manual data entry and it makes filling out forms more convenient for the patient.

For more information on how to incorporate this great feature in your office, visit eServicesor call 833.471.7253.

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Advantages for Using Dentrix Pay in Your Office

February 13, 2019, 7:30 am

≫ Next: Managing Accounts Receivable

≪ Previous: How Dentrix Questionnaires can Streamline Patient Paperwork

There are several reasons your office may need to keep a patient’s credit card information on file. If the patient has set up a payment plan in your office you may require a credit card payment so that you can run the card on the agreed payment date. If you see teenagers in the office, the parent may ask you to keep a credit card number on file, so when the teenager comes in without the parent, the balance can be paid.

I’ve seen offices store credit card numbers in different ways. Some make a copy of the card and scan it into the Dentrix Document Center or file a paper copy in the chart. Some offices enter the credit card information into the Patient Notes in the Family File or into the Guarantor Notes in the Ledger.

Storing credit card numbers in these ways opens your office to a host of problems. Storing credit card information in the areas I described are accessible to multiple people in the office, and the chance of a security breach is high. If there was a security breach, your office could face fines and penalties from the credit card companies and potential lawsuits from the affected patients. You, as the office, are responsible for keeping your patient’s information secure.

Enter, Dentrix Pay! Dentrix Pay is a credit card processing system that seamlessly integrates with Dentrix. It allows you to take advantage of some exciting new features in Dentrix, one of them being the ability to save credit card numbers securely! Once saved, the office will only see the last four digits of the card number. The complete card information is stored in a secure vault at Worldpay, the credit card processor.

Some other features of Dentrix Pay include:

Consent form for patients to sign, agreeing to allow you to run the card (an important document which can sometimes get overlooked).
Automatic posting of a payment when the card is run, eliminating data entry
The ability to run saved credit cards to apply to payment plans

We have so many other risks to manage within the dental office, such as risks associated with patient care. Saving credit card numbers securely with Dentrix Pay can eliminate the risks of storing credit card information in a way that may leave your practice vulnerable.

For more information, visit www.dentrix.com/pay.

If you have any questions, please email me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Managing Accounts Receivable

February 20, 2019, 1:09 pm

≫ Next: Four Key Areas in Dentrix You Should Be Using to Document Your Interactions with Patients

≪ Previous: Advantages for Using Dentrix Pay in Your Office

Managing your accounts receivable is a very important task. And while I talk a lot about production and ways you can increase your production totals, if you’re not collecting, it doesn’t matter how much you produce.

Your office should strive for a collection rate goal that is 97-99% of production. In order to achieve this goal, be sure to collect from patients at the time of service. This would be considered over-the-counter collections.

The other important factor in maintaining a healthy collection rate, is to consistently follow up on all outstanding accounts receivable. Dentrix has several reports to help you with this task. I recommend you dedicate time every week to review the reports below and follow up on outstanding accounts.

Insurance Aging Report

You can generate the Insurance Aging Report in Dentrix by going to Office Manager > Reports > Ledger > Insurance Aging Report. In the settings window, I recommend you view all patients, all insurance carriers, and all providers, and then select claims over 30 days past due. These are outstanding claims that may require action from your office. Select Print Status Notes to view previous notes you have made regarding the status of the claim.

Ideally, no claim should remain unpaid 60 days after the date of service. This means following up with insurance companies consistently. Generate the Insurance Aging Report on a weekly basis. If a claim has been outstanding for 30 days, contact the insurance company to find out why the claim hasn’t been paid. If you are using eClaims, you can check the status of a claim online. If not, you can contact the insurance company directly. Once you have checked the status of the claim, make detailed notes in the status window within the claim. If the claim needs to be resent, check the box next to resent. Today’s date will automatically be entered in the date field, but you can change the date if necessary. This information will be displayed on the Insurance Aging Report for reference when you generate the report next week.

Aging Report

You can generate the Aging Report in Dentrix by going to Office Manager > Reports > Ledger > Aging Report. The Aging Report allows you to view the total accounts receivable for the office, due both from patients and from insurance. This report displays the guarantor name, total family balance, how much of the balance is estimated to be paid by insurance and the guarantor’s estimated portion of the account balance. It also displays the account aging by current balances, 30-60 days past due, 60-90 days past due and over 90 days past due.

It is important to note that accounts are aged based on the Close Transactions settings in the Reports and Tasks Scheduler. If you aren’t current with performing this process, your accounts aging may not be accurate.

Something else I find important to point out regarding the Aging Report is that any patient credit balances will be applied to the total accounts receivable. If you don’t want to view the Aging Report including credits, enter a minimum balance to print of $0.01.

Collections Manager

While the Aging Report has lots of great information, it’s not an interactive report you can use when contacting patients regarding an account balance. A better tool to use would be the Collections Manager. You can find the Collections Manager in the Office Manager > Analysis > Collections Manager.

You have many options in the setup window based upon the guarantors you want to display. I recommend the following settings:

Include all guarantors and all providers.
Select the billing types you want to include. I exclude the Bad Debt to Collections and No Statement and No Finance Charges billing types because I’m not attempting to collect from those guarantors.
Check the Skip Accounts with a Claim Pending box, and change the if the Patient Portion is Less Than amount to $20.00, because when you use the Collections Manager to collect accounts receivable from patient, you may not want to display accounts you’re expecting insurance to pay.
Under Select # of Payments Missed, select 0 or more in order to view all patients.
Set the Minimum Balance to $0.01.
In the Minimum Days Past Due group box, select Over 30 days.

When a patient’s account is over 30 days past due, it’s time for action from your office. You can also send a gentle reminder letter and follow up with a phone call. Document this correspondence in the Office Journal.

When you generate a list of patients that match your settings, you can use the Collections Manager to contact patients and easily access the patient’s Family File, Ledger, Office Journal, Payment Agreement, and Guarantor Notes all from this screen.

Consistently following up with insurance companies and patients regarding account balances can help you to maintain a higher collection rate. I recommend dedicating time every week to generate, review and follow up with insurance companies and patients from these reports and lists, ideally in a quiet place with limited distractions.

Please e-mail me with any questions about these reports at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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Four Key Areas in Dentrix You Should Be Using to Document Your Interactions with Patients

February 27, 2019, 7:48 am

≫ Next: Establishing an Effective Continuing Care Process

≪ Previous: Managing Accounts Receivable

In today’s world protecting your practice from potential risk is very important. One way to protect your practice is to document, document, document! I live by the saying that if you didn’t document it, it didn’t happen. There are several places within Dentrix where you can document your interactions with patients, therefore protecting your practice.

Clinical Notes

Having detailed clinical notes can make all the difference in the world in a court of law. I recommend you make detailed notes about each procedure you complete as well as any special instructions or comments from the doctor to the patient. An example of this would be if the doctor informs the patient during a crown preparation that the decay was deep and that if they experience any sensitivity, the tooth may require a root canal. You can use Dentrix Clinical Note Templates in the Patient Chart to make writing these notes quick and easy.

Consent Forms

Signed informed consent forms are another important part of documentation. I recommend you have patients sign consent forms for any invasive procedure, such as an extraction or a root canal. If you have specific questions about exactly which procedures require a consent form in your state, I recommend you contact your malpractice insurance company. They are usually willing to help minimize risk for their practices and can give you the information you need. You can set up customized consent forms in the Treatment Planner.

The Office Journal

One often overlooked area that I think is important to document is your correspondence with patients-- both the written and verbal communication. For example, if you have attempted to contact a patient several times to schedule a filling, document those phone calls in the Office Journal. If the patient comes in for an appointment a year later, and now their treatment-planned filling has progressed into more extensive treatment like a crown, you can provide documentation that shows that you made numerous attempts to contact the them to schedule an appointment.

Treatment Plan Case Status Notes

Whenever you use the Update Case Status option in the Treatment Planner to reject treatment cases patients are choosing not to proceed with, you can add a comment about why the status is being changed. When it comes to choosing a new status for the treatment case, I recommend rejecting treatment instead of simply deleting treatment from the Patient Chart. When you reject a case, Dentrix keeps a record of the treatment plan and provides a space where you can make a note to document why the case is being rejected by the patient.

Having proper documentation can help to protect your practice and eliminate misunderstandings with your patients. When you have procedures and conversations properly documented, it removes all ambiguity and avoids arguments. I recommend setting expectations for your team of what should be documented and where they should document it in the software. Use the areas I described above to help make documentation easier for your team.

For additional information about areas in Dentrix where you can add documentation, see the following Dentrix Tip Tuesday blog posts:

If you have questions about this topic, please contact me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

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