Mining for Gold - the 3 reports for searching unscheduled treatment

When I worked in a dental practice, we still had paper charts until 2009 when I helped my practice transition to a paperless environment. This means that we had a ton of treatment sitting in these paper charts that we had to search for manually in order to find patients who were unscheduled. It was an extremely time-consuming process but it is what we had to do in order to keep our doctor’s schedule full.

When you are working in a chartless environment and all your treatment plans are sitting in the computer, you still must follow up with patients who are not scheduled … but the process is much more streamlined. What I love about computer data is that it is all trackable and you can filter it onto a report. I call it “Mining for Gold.”

In Dentrix, there are actually three reports for you to use to track down unscheduled treatment to follow up with patients. I do have a favorite but I will let you decide for yourself what works best in your practice.

1. The Unscheduled Treatment Plan Reporthas been in Dentrix forever and it is what I used back in the olden days. This report gives you information on unscheduled treatment but you have to print it in order to work it and it can be very lengthy. Also, we have to remember that every time we print a report, things will change quickly and then your report is obsolete. To find this report, go to the Office Manager > Reports > Lists > Unscheduled Treatment Plans.
2. The Practice Treatment Case Report is also a printed report but you can filter it by very specific data points that you cannot find in other reports. What I like about this report is that you can search for treatment that has been Accepted, Rejected or Proposed if you are marking your cases with this status. This is good information for your doctor to see. In this report, you can also search by the case severity if you are using the stop light feature (for more information on this, CLICK HERE). This report can only be found on the Patient Chart and Treatment Planner modules. Click on the printer icon as if you were printing a treatment plan estimate, but instead click on Practice Treatment Case Report. Then select the parameters you want and click OK.
3. The Treatment Manager Report This is by far my favorite report in Dentrix. It offers you a way to search for patients with unscheduled treatment and create your own interactive spreadsheet where you can resort the columns to organize the report any way you want. You also do not have to print this report because everything you need to follow up with the patient is at your fingertips. For more details about using this report, refer to the blog I wrote called “Holes in your Doctor’s Schedule?” and learn more.

“Mining for Gold” is my motto when it comes to looking for patients with unscheduled treatment. You need to be proactive when it comes to following up with patients. You cannot expect them to pick up the phone and call you. Keeping your schedule full is something that requires a little bit of work from you. I hope these report options help make the task a little more efficient.

Three tips for an accurate list of patients with unused insurance benefits

We have all heard the phrase “Garbage in, Garbage out.” This phrase comes into play especially when you and your team are trying to generate a list of patients who have unscheduled treatment and unused insurance benefits. Since this is typically the time of year when you want to start reminding patients to use or lose their unused insurance benefits, you want to make sure that this amount used is not a bunch of garbage. 

How do you make sure your unused insurance benefits is a number you can count on? 

Here are three tips . . .

• Make sure you are up to date on month end. One of the many tasks that the month end procedure will tackle is resetting the insurance benefits used back to zero. I was in a practice a couple of months ago and one reason they have never been able to trust their treatment plan estimates is because they had not performed a month end since 2009. RUN MONTH END!
• When you are setting up the insurance plan, make sure that the benefit renewal date is set accurately. Open the Insurance Data window. About halfway down, there is a benefit renewal date. Make sure this is accurate.
• Update the patient’s insurance amount used if he or she has gone to a specialist or used benefits at another practice. Open the deductibles tab in the insurance window and manually update the benefits used. This way, when you search for a list of patients with remaining insurance benefits, you will get an accurate list.

For more information on how to run the reports and exports the lists, check out these past articles.

Unused insurance benefits . . . it's now more than a once a year project

Tis the Season

5 Ways to trust the data on the Practice Advisor Report

Last week, I had the honor of attending the Henry Schein Practice Solutions

consultant summit. It is a time every two years where dental consultants and industry leaders get together with the Henry Schein team and discuss the challenges the dental practice is facing and what lies ahead in the future. This helps the R&D department work on enhancements to the many products and services we use every day in our dental practice. It is one of the most amazing brainstorming sessions I have ever attended. It is also a lot of fun.

With that being said, a blog topic idea came into my head while I was listening to Tammy Barker speak about Profitability Coaching and how her team spends quite a bit of time with their clients on making sure the data being displayed on the KPI reports is as accurate as possible. I share the same goal and want all of you to understand how to make sure your numbers are as accurate as possible.

There are five key numbers on the Practice Advisor that are critical to the health and success of your practice. Your team needs to know what they do in the software affects the outcome of these statistics.

• Case Acceptance – Dentrix can track your case acceptance accurately if your team manages the treatment plans appropriately. The way Dentrix tracks the monthly case acceptance is if the treatment is diagnosed and completed in the same month OR if your mark the case as accepted. For more about managing treatment plans, CLICK HERE.
• Production per day – This is entirely dependent on the setup of the appointment book. You must have your office days, provider days and hours set up accurately in order to get an accurate production per day number. I feel this number is more important than the production per month. To learn more about setting up the appointment to perfection, CLICK HERE.
• New Patients – Dentrix tracks new patients based on the first visit date located in the Family File. It also will count a patient as a new patient if this date is empty. The best way to track this on a daily basis is to use the Daily Huddle Report. If you want to read more about the Daily Huddle, CLICKHERE.
• Referrals – Your total new patients should match the total number of referral sources. This is important because you want to see where your patients are coming from and know how to spend your marketing dollars. For these two numbers to be accurate, the First Visit Date and the Referral Date must match. I wrote about this back in January and you can re-read it by CLICKING HERE.
• Active Patient Base – The active patient base on the Practice Advisor Report looks at the last visit date and how many patients have come in for an appointment within a certain amount of time. This one could get a little tricky for the office that posts a procedure code for things like missed appointments and other non-appointment tracking on the ledger. Every time you post something to the ledger with a procedure code, it will update the last visit date and now your Active Patient Base is updated. You can read more about this topic by CLICKING HERE.

This topic of accurate numbers and learning to trust your reports is so important. It is one of the most requested topics I get and one of the most-asked questions I receive from Dentrix users. 

Are you that doctor?

Are you the doctor who wants to give the patient a treatment plan estimate with a total case fee instead of a line item estimate? I have worked with many of you and I get it. You want to offer your patient a total case fee that includes everything for the end result.

I was working with a prosthodontist a few years back and he was one of those doctors who wanted a total case fee not a line item treatment plan. So we worked together and got creative with the software. This question came up again this week while I was talking with one of my colleagues so I thought I would share some ideas with you.

Here is what you can do. Create your custom procedure codes in the Office Manager. Go to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Procedure Code Setup and add your new in-office custom codes. Here are some examples . . .

• Implant Option – Crown & Bridge
•  Implant Option – Fixed Hybrid
• Full upper rehabilitation
• Full lower rehabilitation
• Four on the floor (I don’t know what this is but I have heard it)

Make sure when you are creating these custom in-office procedure codes that you mark them to not bill to insurance because you will have to bill things out by line item in order for your chart to look accurate, but this is a way you can provide a total fee estimate that the patient will understand.

Now when you treatment plan one of these codes, you can note everything that is included in the note field (see the screen shot here). Then, when you print out the estimate for the patient, it will only show a full fee and then what is included in that fee. Let me know what you think. I would love to hear some feedback.

How to generate an Unscheduled Treatment Report for patients who have already said "Yes" to treatment.

Back in February, I wrote an article on using visual tools to help communicate the status of the treatment plan with your entire team. If you want to re-read it, CLICK HERE. If you have implemented some of these visual aids, did you know that you can filter one of the Treatment Plan reports to give you a narrower search?

Open the Treatment Planner or the Treatment Plan Panel in the chart and click on Print. For most of you, this is how you would print a treatment plan estimate for the patient … but have you ever printed the Practice Treatment Case Report? Even though I am all about going paperless, this report gives you some great search tools to find patients who have unscheduled treatment and have been marked with a particular status.

Going back to my February article, if you have marked the case with a particular status, then you can search for it. For example, let’s say you have marked a case as Accepted or High Priority, then it is now searchable. Click on the Print > Practice Case Status Report and select your filters. See the image below to follow along.

• Fig 1 shows how you can choose a Case Status. You can select all the cases you have marked as accepted and get a call list from this selection. If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know how much I love the Treatment Manager. However, it does not have this filter (which I think is a great tool).
• Fig 2 shows how you can select a Case Severity. If you are marking your cases as Immediate, Eventual or Optional, then you can filter your report by one of these choices.

Using these visual tools can help you and your team communicate better and give your admin team the options necessary to generate a really good call list when they are following up with patients and trying to fill openings in the schedule.

These are just a couple of examples of how you can use the status and severity tools. You can discuss with your team how they would best serve your practice.

Obtaining a patient signature on the Treatment Plan Estimate . . . helping you create a more efficient workflow

I moderated my first online Dentrix user meeting last Friday and it was AWESOME! It’s called Freestyle Friday and it is open Q&A, which means YOU get to ask the questions during the live event and I get to help you solve it.

One of the most popular questions was about signing treatment plan estimates when you are paperless. This office was printing the estimate, having the patient sign it and then scanning it into the Document Center. I asked the participant why the office didn’t like this option and the answer was, “It is just so time-consuming.” Let’s look at some alternatives to being more efficient.

I gave this office two options to try and they can go back to their office and see which way works best for them. My preferred way is always not the best way for the office … which is why I love Dentrix so much as it gives a few different alternatives so you can choose.

Here are your options for obtaining an electronic signature on your treatment plan estimates. Take note that even if you are not paperless, you might find this workflow extremely helpful.

• The first option is to do a “virtual print” to the Dentrix Document Center and then have the patient sign inside of the Document Center. You can find step-by-step instructions on how to do this by reading my blog titled, “A Little Known Secret”. After you have pulled the treatment plan into the Document Center, you can make notes about the agreement and then have the patient sign electronically. If you click on Edit > Sign Document or click on the icon for Sign Document, then you can have the patient sign the document in the Document Center. This will lock up the document to prevent any editing or accidental deleting.
• The next option is to attach an electronic signature directly to the Treatment
  
  Plan case. Highlight a treatment case in the Treatment Plan module or Treatment Plan panel in the patient chart, then click on the Settings tab at the bottom of the panel. When you scroll all the way down, you can create or edit the consent forms you would like to use in your office. If you click on the Supporting Information tab just above that, you can attach a selected consent form to your case. When you do this, it will open a new window to prompt you to have the patient sign. After you have the patient sign using an electronic signature device, click on Save and Close. It will automatically save a copy of the consent form along with the signatures in the Document Center.

The main difference between these two options is that the first option will save an exact copy of the Treatment Plan estimate with which the patient leaves. The benefit of this is that you can re-print it for the patient later or review it over the phone and you have the exact copy he or she does. The second option does not save a visual picture of the treatment plan estimate, only the consent form and signatures. You choose what is best for your practice.

For more information on electronic signatures, CLICK HERE.

Using visual tools to communicate the status of the treatment plan

How do you communicate the status of the treatment plan with your team? Does your team know if the patient has accepted treatment? Is the patient okay to do all the treatment this year or is he or she breaking it up into two benefit years?

What I see with most dental teams is that the clinical discussion happens in the consult room or the treatment room with the doctor or hygienist … and then the patient is brought up front to talk with the financial coordinator where the financial discussion can change everything. If the doctor looks at the treatment plan later in the day, will he or she be able to clearly see what the patient accepted? When the patient is scheduled for the first visit, will the clinical team be able to clearly see the path for completing treatment?

There are some tools you can use on the treatment plan that can greatly improve your communication with your team. These non-verbal tools can help your clinical team clearly understand the patient’s wishes when he or she is sitting in your operatory. Here are three key features that are easy to use and visually obvious for the back and front.

• The Stop Light – aka: Case Severity.  If a patient has lots of stuff on his or her treatment plan and you want to separate the treatment by priority, the colored stop light is an easy way to show this. Here are some examples that I use in my practices.
• Red – Stop! The patients says no at this time. Maybe this is esthetics or that nightguard they don’t want to do right now.
• Yellow – Maybe! The patient wants you to wait for next benefit year or until he or she comes up with the money.
• Green – Go! The patient is ready to schedule and wants to get all this treatment completed in this benefit year or as soon as possible. This can help if the patient is in the chair and the doctor has extra time to add more treatment today.
• Rename the Case – I used this a lot in my practice because it was a way I could clearly define what the case is. You could rename it “Priorities” or “2016 Benefit Year” or “Upper arch rehab.” Whatever you want to rename it, this really helps your team understand what the case is.
• Claim Status History - You can add a follow-up note on any of the treatment plan cases and these notes will show up on the Case Status History tab. This can help your team know if the case has been reprinted, proposed, followed up on, or accepted.

Non-verbal communication is so important for the back and the front teams so they can be in the know about patient care. I hope these visual tools help you relay that important information.

Top 10 features in Dentrix you are not using

In 2003, my dental practice converted from an archaic DOS-based dental software to the impressive and robust Dentrix practice management software. To say the least, I was completely overwhelmed. Two years later, in 2005, I still felt like I hadn’t even scratched the surface of my new powerful software’s potential so I applied to become a Certified Dentrix Trainer in order to learn everything there was to know about the Dentrix program. What better way to learn than to get a certificate?

Now I know that not everyone has the opportunity to become a Dentrix trainer like I did, but with a little self-motivation and some tips from me, you will be well on your way to being a “Dentrix super user.” Since I am working with dental practices every day, I have the unique opportunity to see what features they are using, what features they are not using, and what features they have no idea even exist. My goal today is to give you my top 10 you might not even know exist.

1. Quick Letters and Letter Merge – Maybe this sounds familiar . . . you have a folder on your desktop with all of your office’s letters you send out to patients, including collection letters, welcome letters, and letters to specialists. When it is time to send a letter, you edit the date, enter the patient’s name, address, and salutation, then sign the letter and scan it into the document center. That process sounds like a lot of work to me. Why not add your custom letters into the Quick Letters or Letter Merge with the proper merge fields and let Dentrix do all the work for you? The best part is it will automatically put a note on the Office Journal and you can “Send to the Dentrix Document Center” without scanning (see #5 on the list).  Here are some more blog posts related to this feature . . .
1. Send letters that make an impact . . . CLICK HERE
2. Can you write me an excuse note . . . CLICK HERE
2. Dentrix Mobile – Have you ever been sitting in the comfort of your home watching the weather forecast and hoping that the power doesn’t go out … then suddenly there’s nothing but darkness. You check the office and the power is also out there … so how are you going to let your patients know not to come in? Has your doctor ever been out of town and received a call from a patient requesting a drug refill but he or she has no way of checking the last prescription or the patient’s last visit unless he or she goes into the office? Both of these two common scenarios can be solved just by registering for Dentrix Mobile. It’s included in your Dentrix customer support plan so there is absolutely no excuse for not using this service.
1. Three reasons you should be using Dentrix Mobile . . . CLICK HERE
2. A lifeline to your patient info . . . CLICK HERE
3. Payment Agreements – I wrote an article called “Get it out of your head and into the computer” back in April 2014. The theme of the article was speaking to office managers who store all their verbal payment agreements in their head. What I am seeing is this is still happening, but I am also seeing new doctors purchasing practices with a significant amount of the accounts receivable over 90 days past due or new office managers taking over a practice where there has been no management of the accounts receivable. Using the Payment Agreement feature in Dentrix will not only help you get organized with patients who are making payments, but also allow the entire team to see on the ledger what the arrangement is with the account.
1. Two options to help you manage your A/R . . . CLICK HERE
2. Get the info out of your head and into the computer . . . CLICK HERE
4. Tracking Gratuities and Referrals - Do you know where your new patients are coming from? Are they hearing about you from friends, Google Search, or the ValPak flyer that cost you $15,000 to send out? Your marketing dollars depend on where patients are being referred from so you should know where to continue spending money and where to stop. When a patient refers a new patient, do you give him or her a thank you gift? Would you like to track if you gave the referral source a Starbucks or Home Depot gift card last time or be able to track a referral source’s gratuity history? Tracking referrals and gratuities in Dentrix is super easy and gives the doctor a lot of good information about where to spend marketing dollars … but I find most offices never use this useful tool.
1. Building relationships one referral at a time . . . CLICK HERE
2. Keep tight reins on your referred patients . . . CLICK HERE
5. Sending to the Dentrix Document Center – This will save your team a ton of time in unnecessary scanning, unnecessary wasted paper, and unnecessary hard drive storage space. When you scan a document into the Document Center, it takes many more steps and the file size of a scanned document is about 100 times larger (just a guess) than that of a file send electronically through the Dentrix Document Center printer driver. Anything you want to print can be virtually printed to the Document Center for file storage. This is such an amazing yet underused feature.
1. A little known secret . . . CLICK HERE
6. Perfect Day Scheduling – Close your eyes for a moment and imagine if you could see your patients on time, complete 80% of your production goal before lunch, get out for lunch on time, and finish your day without pulling the roller skates out of the closet. This can be a reality if you create it. Take control of your appointment book with Perfect Day Scheduling. When you use perfect day scheduling, your team knows exactly how to schedule because you have mapped it out for them. There is no room for error.
1. What if everyday could be a perfect day . . . CLICK HERE
2. The new patient experience, scheduling the appointment . . . CLICK HERE
7. Goal Tracking – Every dental practice has production and collection goals they need to meet in order to keep the financial state of the business healthy. I always encourage doctors to share these goals with the team and be transparent with the key performance numbers with the team. There are several places in Dentrix to watch and monitor your practice goals so the team can strategize and work together on exceeding the goals. You can monitor your goals on the monthly calendar, Practice Advisor Report, and the Daily Huddle.
1. Let's do some goal setting . . . CLICK HERE
2. Looking ahead to  . . . CLICK HERE
8. More Information Button – Have you ever been on the phone with a mom and she wants to know when her three kids and husband are scheduled next for all their future appointments … but you’re not sure what’s the most efficient way to find all these appointments for the entire family? Try the More Information button and I can guarantee you will fall in love with this super quick search tool. You can find the More Information feature on all Dentrix modules. When you are selecting a patient anywhere in Dentrix, you will see it at the lower left corner of the window.
9. Create Batch of Primary Dental Claims – Are you sure you have batched and sent off all your insurance claims from last week? How about last month? Use this second pair of eyes to double check and make sure all your claims have been sent out. Not only will this give you peace of mind, but also keep your accounts receivable out of the 90-day past due column.
1. Are all your insurance claims going out . . . CLICK HERE
10. Patient-Friendly Descriptions – Do your patients often ask what a “resin 2surf, post” or a “Crown-porc fused noble metal” is? Or is your practice in an area where English is not the primary language for many of your patients? If you would like to create a treatment plan that your patients would more easily understand and helps them understand what each procedure is, then start using patient-friendly descriptions. With Dentrix G6.1, it is even easier to use because you can edit these descriptions in the procedure code edit.
1. No speak English, no worries . . . CLICK HERE

Have fun experimenting with these features and working toward increasing your level of efficiency and customer service. Drop me a line at dayna@raedentalmanagement.comif you have other questions. I’m happy to help.

Update your treatment plan fees with the click of a button

It seems like the dental practice is busier than ever these days and one of the biggest challenges for the front office is making sure the patient’s insurance is updated and accurate before he or she is seated in the treatment room. Another benefit many dental practices are starting to promote is in-office membership plans where they might offer a reduced fee structure.

What I see happening is the treatment plan will be entered in the clinical room during the exam, then the patient will be handed off to the front office team member to review the treatment plan estimate and make financial arrangements. It is at this point when patients might reveal that they have new insurance, no insurance at all, or they join the office’s membership plan. All of these situations would require an update in the patient’s fees being changed.

You do not need to delete and re-enter the treatment plan.

You can update the patient’s treatment plan fees at any time. First, update the patient’s Family File with the updated information. Next, open the Treatment Planner module from the Appointment Book or the Patient Chart. Click on the icon “Update Tx Plan Fees,” make sure the dropdown menu

at the top is for Current Patient and click on update. This will update the patient’s entire treatment plan without having to delete and re-enter all the procedures. This keeps the original treatment planned dates the same but makes a note in the Case History when the fees were updated.

This feature can also be helpful if you have a patient who hasn’t been in for a while and your office has updated its fees. Keeping your patient’s treatment plan fees up to date and accurate helps make sure you are proposing the correct fees to your patient and generating the revenue based on today’s fee schedule.

Get creative with your patient chart

When you are traveling down the path to paperless, the computer IS your patient chart and the clinical documentation becomes one of the most important pieces of the puzzle. You no longer have your blue and red indelible pencils to draw in the existing fillings, put Xs on the missing teeth, and mark up the tooth chart the way you want it. The goal with an electronic chart is to make it look as accurate as possible so when you are discussing the treatment plan or when the doctor walks in for the exam, there are no assumptions and there is no misguided information.

Let’s get a little creative and learn some of the tips and tricks you can do with your Dentrix software to make the patient chart look as accurate as possible.

Remember when you were treatment planning that occlusal pit composite filling or the MOD that covered the entire mesial cusp and you could get out your colored pencils and color away? You can do the same thing in Dentrix. Just click on the Cusps/Pits button and select the paint type you want. If the filling has already been treatment planned and you want to change the look of the filling, just right click and click on Edit Surface Painting.

Remember in the paper chart you could pick up your pencil and draw in a lingual bar retainer or circle something you wanted to remember? With the Chart Notations, you can do exactly that. On the tool bar, select the Chart Notations icon and then select the color and size of pen you want. Use your mouse to freehand draw on the tooth chart. If you want to erase your drawings, then select the eraser tool.

What about the patient who had 4-bi extractions during ortho when they were a teenager? You don’t want it to look like they have missing teeth. What about the patient who has a large diastema between 8 and 9? Using Conditions can create a visual picture of the patient’s mouth. Here are some common conditions to use:

1.      Drifting Mesial– Use this for missing teeth when the space has been closed. This paint type will put arrows to show the space has been closed.

2.      Open Contact – Use this for diastemas and open space between teeth

3.      Unerupted – Use this condition when the tooth is below the gum line. Using this condition will also cause the perio chart to skip the tooth.

Here are some other blog posts on clinical charting:

CLICK HERE for video on treatment options
CLICK HERE for a great way to review clinical notes

Top 10 Blogs of 2014

1. Get Creative with Your ASAP List

I was working with an office recently and they have a program specifically for patients who do not pre-appoint. These patients are mostly retired and have very flexible schedules. They don’t want to tie down their schedules in four or six months so they just say, “Call me when you get an opening.” This office had a manual tracking system for these patients but wanted to find a way to incorporate this into their Dentrix system. Since you cannot put a patient on the ASAP list unless they have a scheduled appointment, we had to come up with something creative … so we gave these patients a specific status that we could search for within the Continuing Care system.CLICK HERE to continue reading

2. Top 5 reports every doctor should look at

I received an e-mail from a doctor the other day who had a situation that needed attention. Her clinical team had started posting procedures in the patient chart and had accidently posted a root canal as “complete” rather than “existing.” The root canal was not only posted to the patient’s ledger, but it was also sent electronically to the insurance company and paid. The patient called concerned about the EOB that he received and wondering why the office had billed his insurance company for a root canal he never had. When the doctor asked me what kind of safeguards she could put into place for her clinical team, my response was that this issue was an administrative boo-boo, not a clinical mistake. CLICK HERE to continue reading

3.  "Can you write me an excuse note for school?"

I was at the mall yesterday shopping for some curtains for my mom’s new condo and the mall was bustling with kids shopping for back to school clothes, shoes, and backpacks. When I was working in a practice, we had a middle school directly across the street from our office and kids would walk over from school for their dental appointments. Since these kids were usually not with their parents, we would write them a note to take back to school so they could receive an excused absence. For a long time, our office would photocopy the excuse notes and write the name and date of the appointment on the note. Then I got smart . . . I added a new Quick Letter so all we had to do was click on the appointment, open Quick Letters, highlight the excuse note, and click print. My team thought this was the coolest thing ever!  CLICK HERE to continue reading

4.  2014 New Year's Resolution - Credit balance clean up

Today we are going to tackle the issue of allocating payments properly on the Ledger and fixing the provider credits. In Dentrix, you can apply payments to the patient and allocate the payment to the different providers. However, most practices do not split the payments accordingly and then the patient balances and the provider A/R is not accurate. To fix the patient’s ledgers can be bit of a project, but, if this is one of your 2014 New Year’s Resolutions, here is how you do it.  CLICK HERE to continue reading

5.  2014 New Year's Resolution - Clean up you database

Is your New Year’s Resolution for 2014 to clean up your Dentrix Database? Do you find that you have duplicate insurance plans taking over your system? Do you have several unnecessary or duplicate medical alerts that have nothing to do with caring for a dental patient or you have maxed out your 64 limit and you need to find a way to create some space? My focus on the next few blog posts will be to help you straighten things out a bit.  CLICK HERE to continue reading

6.  Re-Evaluate your PPO insurance plans

The beginning of the year is usually the time where the doctor and team are getting back in the swing of things after vacations and preparing for a new year. With all of the uneasiness in the insurance world, I have had many offices looking to re-evaluate their contracts with PPO insurance companies. But, if you are using your fee schedules and billing out the PPO fee to the patient and not posting adjustments to the ledger, how do you assess the amount of your write-offs? Use the Utilization Report for Dental Insurance or The PPO Analyzer report.  CLICK HERE to continue reading

7.  Opting out of virtual credit card insurance payments

The issue of using a virtual credit card for insurance payments has not only become a frustrating situation for the dental practice, but also costs the office money they don’t need to be spending. My friend and colleague, Jennifer Schultz, who is owner of The Virtual Dental Office Manager, is also having the same issues with her offices. She recently wrote an article on the same topic, CLICK HERE to read it.  CLICK HERE to continue reading

8.  It's only an estimate so make it as accurate as possible

Are you looking for a more accurate way to accommodate the difference that the insurance company calculates for posterior composites? What about the fact that perio maintenance is in the perio category but is usually paid at 100%? Would you like to be able to give your patients a more accurate out-of-pocket estimate? If so, then using the Payment Table will make you very happy.  CLICK HERE to continue reading

9.  Treatment Plan Estimates . . . personal and efficient

When I am working with an office, I love to customize things in Dentrix to make it personal for the office and the patient experience, but I am also a stickler for efficiency. If you have read any of my blogs about using templates, you know what I am talking about. Well, the same goes for when we are printing a patient’s treatment plan estimate. I want it to be customized, but efficient for the front desk. You can create customized print options and save these options when you are generating a patient treatment plan estimate. Below is a screen shot of the print page and a description of all the options from which you have to choose.  CLICK HERE to continue reading

10. Jump start your medical billing

Last week, I wrote about how to set up medical cross-coding inside your Dentrix software. However, medical billing is not just about setting it up in Dentrix. Today, I am bringing in Christine Taxin, a medical billing and coding expert, to give you some information and resources that will help guide you through some of the insurance rules you need to know.  CLICK HERE to continue reading

Challenge yourself to become a Dentrix Master and get recognized on the Wall of Fame

This is your year to become the best you can be in your career.  Challenge yourself to become a Dentrix master.  Join me on the Wall of Fame as I post up your accomplishments on my blog all throughout 2015.   CLICK HERE to start your success.

Watch my video to hear all the details . . .

 Wall of Fame



CONGRATULATIONS!
You are a Dentrix Master









What works best for you . . . with treatment planning

This time of year is busy with new Dentrix installs. Teaching new teams is very exciting for me because I get to show off all the amazing features Dentrix has to offer. However, when I am teaching a new team, I find it important to show them there are multiple ways to accomplish the same task. Some people love dropdown menus, some people love the icons, and some are those I call “the right clickers.” People ask me what way is best and my recommendation is, “What works best for you J.” The same goes for entering in a treatment plan for the patient. There are three ways you can enter a treatment plan, but each way has a couple different features so pick the one that “works best for you J.”

• Patient Appointment – If you open the patient’s appointment and click on the TX/ADD TX button, then it opens a new window where you can add procedures to the patient’s treatment plan. This is usually a quick way to add something to the appointment. If you add a treatment planned procedure here, it will show up in the patient chart.
• Ledger– If you didn’t know already, the ledger had two pages — the actual ledger page and the treatment plan page. You can switch to the Treatment Plan page two ways — click on the icon at the menu or click on Options > Treatment Plan. You can also change the background color of the treatment plan page so you don’t get it confused with the actual ledger page (go to File > Set Ledger Colors and select your color for the Treatment Plan background). The treatment plan page is also where you would batch up a pre-estimate to send to the insurance company. For more information on managing your pre-estimates, CLICK HERE.
• Patient Chart – The first two options are typically used with the admin team. However, when I was working in a practice as a treatment coordinator, I loved using the patient chart. I like the visualization of the tooth chart and being able to organize the treatment plan into priorities so the team knows what is first. In the patient chart, you can also rename the cases, accept treatment, reject treatment, and print the patient a treatment plan estimate. For more information on Treatment Plan management, CLICK HERE.

All three of these options for entering treatment will work beautifully. Each one just has slightly different features but all link to the patient tooth chart. Happy treatment planning!

Tis the Season

Tis the season . . . no, I don’t mean it is Christmas (but it sure is getting close). Tis the season for sending out your unused insurance benefits letter to patients with unscheduled treatment. I know you all are working your Treatment Manager report on a regular basis and making follow-up calls to patients, but I also know that sometimes a letter or postcard can smack your patients in the face and get them to take some action.

This is my reminder to you to kick it in high gear and schedule patients for their treatment before their benefits run out at the end of December. You could potentially send this letter out a couple times a year since insurance plans like the school districts renew in October or July.

Since I have written on this topic every year, I am going to point you back to the articles so you don’t have to do a search.

                CLICKHERE to read “Don’t let unused insurance benefits go to waste.”

                CLICKHERE to read “Unscheduled treatment . . . the urgency is now.”

                CLICKHERE to read “Send letters that make an impact”

Help patients say "YES" to treatment

When I was working in the dental practice, my doctor became passionate about treating the whole body and learning about how occlusion affected the rest of the body. With this continuing education, my office took a path of treating patients for head, neck and facial pain, as well as general dentistry. It was fascinating and, not only did I learn a lot about the human body, but also the world of medical billing.

What I loved most was being able to say “YES” to helping patients receive benefits from their medical insurance companies. This helped many patients be able to say “YES” to treatment because the financial burden was being spread out between medical, dental and the patient. Even though I found it very satisfying to help the patients, billing medical can be a little time-consuming and tricky.

If you are willing to jump in and learn something new, here are the steps to a successful implementation to billing medical insurance out of Dentrix.

First, call Dentrix at 800-336-8749, opt 1 to get to Dentrix inside sales. They sell a Medical Cross Coding CD for about $80 that will download all the CPT and ICD-9 medical diagnostic codes into Dentrix for you.

Now you can start to do the setup in Dentrix. Go to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Procedure Code Setup. Here, you will see six tabs across the top (the first two are for dental billing and the next four are used for medical billing). After you have installed the medical cross coding CD, you will find information downloaded in these last four tabs. If you have not purchased the CD, this is where you will go to add the billing codes. On the ADA-CDT code tab, open one of the dental procedure codes that you will be billing to medical insurance. In the edit window, you must check mark “flag for medical cross coding.”

 

Next, go to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Medical Cross Coding Setup. This is where you will tell the system which dental codes match up with which medical codes and the diagnosis that would be associated with it. You will need some knowledge of matching up the appropriate dental code with the correct medical code. If you want an info sheet on common cross coding in dentistry, please email me directly at Dayna@raedentalmanagement.com.

 

Now that your medical coding is set up in the Office Manager, you can add the medical insurance to the patient’s family file just like you would a dental plan … but make sure you are entering it under the Medical Insurance tab and you will select the HCFA claim format. You are ready now to send a claim. Double click on the procedure code you have posted on the patient ledger and you will now notice a new medical cross coding section on the procedure code box. You must select the appropriate codes for each box. When you click OK, you will notice there is a blue solid triangle next to the procedure code and this indicates it is cross coded for medical billing. Now click on create insurance claim and it will send out a medical claim first. After the medical insurance pays, Dentrix will automatically prompt you to send a dental claim.

Be patient. Medical reimbursement requires a lot more documentation, re-submissions and follow-up than a dental claim, so be prepared and make sure you keep your patients in the loop on the status. Don’t be afraid to ask your patients for help with follow-up or calling their insurance company (you might need it). With that being said, though, I feel that medical billing can be a huge value-added service for an office and your patients will be so happy you went the extra mile for them.

Treatment Plan Estimates . . . personal and efficient

When I am working with an office, I love to customize things in Dentrix to make it personal for the office and the patient experience, but I am also a stickler for efficiency. If you have read any of my blogs about using templates, you know what I am talking about. Well, the same goes for when we are printing a patient’s treatment plan estimate. I want it to be customized, but efficient for the front desk. You can create customized print options and save these options when you are generating a patient treatment plan estimate. Below is a screen shot of the print page and a description of all the options from which you have to choose.

 

1. Treatment Plan Total - This will total up all procedure fees and give the patient a grand total at the end of the treatment plan estimate.
2. Finance Status – In the supporting information tab of the treatment plan panel, you can select a status for this patient. This financial status can be customized if you click into the Settings tab in the Treatment Plan panel.
3. Patient Balance – This will pull the patient balance from the ledger.
4. Family Balance – This will pull from the account balance on the ledger.
5. Fee Expiration Date – This can be customized per patient or you can set up a default date range (like 3 months, for example). To customize the default, click on the Settings Tab on the Treatment Plan panel.
6. Treatment Case Note – Think of this as a disclosure statement. For example, insurance estimate is not a guarantee of payment, patient portion is due at the time of service, etc. You can customize this case note by clicking on the Settings tab in the Treatment Plan panel. You can create several case notes and then manually attach them to each case, but this does require more work.
7. Graphic Chart – This will print a picture of the patient’s tooth chart. It is best if you print it in color, but black and white will also work. The point here is that patients are very visual and they don’t know tooth numbers so giving them a picture to follow really helps them understand where it is in their mouth.
8. Patient Education – This will pull graphics and content from GURU. Even if you only have the free version of GURU, it will print educational topics based on the procedure codes listed in the treatment plan.
9. Signed Consent Forms - The Treatment Plan does have a feature to attach a consent form to the case. The patient can sign with an electronic signature and it will put a copy into the Document Center. These consent forms can be created, edited, and deleted by clicking on the Settings tab on the Treatment Plan panel. One thing to remember when using the consent forms in this area is that it is linked to the entire case and not a specific procedure.
10. Insurance – If the treatment plan is being printed for an insurance patient, make sure you put a check mark in ‘Use Dental Plan Maximums and Deductibles’ so it will pull information from the insurance information in the Family File. If you are printing this for a cash patient, then you can check to hide all the insurance information.
11. Patient Privacy – I would check all these boxes to protect the patient’s private information just in case they lose the printed estimate or drop it out in the parking lot on their way out.
12. Print sub totals by visit – If you have organized the procedures inside the case by visit, then you can check here to have the printout subtotal each group of visits. This helps the patient budget for each appointment or know the price for each phase.
13. Use Patient Friendly Descriptions - If you put a check here, the description will override the ADA description with a customized description. For more information on this topic, read my blog, “No speak English . . . no worries”
14. Include Procedure Notes – If you have read my other blog posts (CLICK HERE) about where to enter notes, you know that I use this note box for the diagnosis for the procedure code or the clinical narrative. With that being said, you have the opportunity to have that diagnosis print on the patient’s estimate so if he or she needs to review it with a spouse or parent, he or she has all of the information needed.
15. Exclude Completed Procedures – If you are reprinting an existing case, you may want to exclude any procedures that have already been completed.
16. Compare to Fee Schedule – If you are using the Fee Schedule Method, then you can check here to add a column to the treatment plan estimate that would show the patient the full fee for each procedure. For more information about using Fee Schedules, read my two blogs, “Fee Schedules or Write Off’s that is the question,” and “Fee Schedules . . .the method of choice for PPO plans.

You can then click onto the Columns button and check mark which columns of information you want on the patient’s estimate. Once you have selected all your choices, you can save it and give it a name so you don’t have to remember each time which check boxes to select. I will usually create a saved option for insurance patients and a saved option for cash patients. I hope this custom yet efficient tool helps you and your team.

Supernumerary teeth . . . video demonstration

Our patients walk in with some unusual situations, but one of the more common situations I see is an extra tooth or Supernumerary Tooth.  Do you know how to chart it?  How would you bill it to insurance?  Watch today's video and find out . . .

Don't just send it and forget it

I hope you have enjoyed reading all my good tips and tricks on dental insurance over the past few weeks. Insurance is such big issue in most dental practices that I feel it is worth talking about … even if it is not the most exciting topic. There is another piece of managing dental insurance that I want to discuss today and that is managing your pre-estimates. I don’t know if it is because of the economy or if insurance companies are mandating preauthorization’s more these days, but I am noticing more and more offices sending in pre-estimates for treatment. Many of you already know how to send out a pre-estimate for treatment … but don’t just stop there and think that you are finished. Here’s a checklist for better managing your patients’ dental pre-estimates.

 

• Create and send the pre-estimate claim form from the patient’s ledger. From the ledger, click on the Treatment Plan page by selecting Options > Treatment Plan. You can define the color of this page so it’s not confused with the actual ledger page. To change the color of this page, go to File > Ledger Colors Setup > then choose your personal color scheme. Once you are on the Treatment Plan page, if the patient has treatment planned procedures on this page, you can simply select the line items and click on the insurance icon to batch the pre-estimate. If there are no treatment planned procedures you can add them from this page by clicking on Transaction > Enter Procedure.  Now you can attach any electronic X-ray or image and also document the clinical narrative in the Remarks for Unusual Service box and this pre-estimate is ready to go out with your next batch of eClaims.

• Just like you would follow up on unpaid insurance claims, I would suggest checking on unprocessed pre-estimates exactly the same way. Go to your Office Manager > Reports > Ledger > Pre-Treatment Estimate Aging Report. Filling your doctor’s schedule might depend on making sure these pre-estimates are being received in a timely manner. (insert image)

• When the Pre-Treatment EOB is sent to your office showing the itemized approval of the procedures, you will want to enter the pre-estimate just like you would a payment on an actual claim. Go to the Ledger > Options > Treatment Plan to switch to the Treatment Plan page (or you can click on the TX icon on the toolbar). Double-click on the claim form and click on Enter Estimate. Now you can itemize each procedure and what the insurance company is going to pay on each line item and document the reference number for this pre-estimate. It is important to receive your pre-estimates just like an actual claim because it will give you a more accurate out-of-pocket for your patient. Remember, it clears it off the aging report and closes it on the ledger.

• If you have finished this last step, the patient has completed the treatment, and you are now creating an actual insurance claim, it will automatically insert the Pre-Treatment Estimate reference number onto the actual claim so you don’t have to look it up. Pretty slick, huh?

I hope this little nugget of information will help you better manage your patient’s treatment plans and pre-treatment estimates and keep your doctor’s schedule full and productive.