Personal goals = personal growth = practice success

Did one of my recent articles get you thinking about planning for the end of the year? I talked about how you can make adjustments in your appointment book to make room for those last-minute new patients who are trying to get in before the end of the year so you can make your new patient goal number. I also discussed how you can forecast your appointment book production numbers to see if you are coming up short for your production goals. If you would like to re-read this article, CLICK HERE to be redirected.

These practice goals are not only important, but they are critical to the health of the office overhead and the stress level of the team. But what about you? What are your personal goals? When I was working in a practice, I got my hands on as much CE as I could handle. Do you know what goal I think you could set and accomplish by the end of the year? You could become a Dentrix Master and receive a certificate to prove it. This could be your personal end of the year goal.

Clinical CE is great and, for some of you in the dental practice, it is a requirement in order for you to maintain your license. Your entire day revolves around your practice management software and most offices have zero training or continuing education for the software you use every day. You all must maintain a certain level of knowledge of Dentrix in order to function on a daily basis. I am asking you to up your game and not just function, but excel. Become a Dentrix Master.

It’s easy to start and extremely rewarding to finish. The Dentrix Mastery Tracks were launched to help you learn more about your software, things you might not know exist and things you want to learn more about. This is your chance to set a personal goal and help your office at the same time.  I believe in you.

Your first test is free! 

To get started CLICK HERE and Create New User. Then enter code FreeTestDOM

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. 

Give your scanner a break . . . two ways to eliminate scanning

Does your front office have a basket over flowing with papers with a sign on it that reads “TO BE SCANNED?” No one in the office wants to touch it because it is one of those tedious tasks that no one wants to do … so it just grows and grows. I know how you feel and many practices I work with say that scanning is one of the biggest pain points they deal with every day.

Let’s look at how we could cut that pile of paper in half … but first let’s look at what’s in that pile and how we can deal with it in the electronic world. Some examples of what ends up in that pile of “TO BE SCANNED” paper are . . .

• Letters from specialists
• Treatment plan estimates
• Insurance EOBs and pre-estimates
• New patient forms
• Health history updates
• Consent forms
•  Letters to/from patients

We can’t really do much with the paper that comes in through the mail because it is already in a paper form. There is not much we can do other than scan it. What I would recommend is reaching out to the people who are sending you paper and see if you can receive electronic correspondence or (even better) see if they can send the letter as an attachment to an email. NOTE:Make sure you are using a HIPAA-compliant email service when you are sending protected patient information.

There are two in-house ways you can eliminate the scanning without adding any additional cost or third-party service.

1. “Send to the Dentrix Document Center” is the easiest, most efficient way to get a document into the Document Center without scanning. This can be used for anything you receive in an email, off a website (insurance breakdowns, EOBs, etc.) or as an attachment. You can also send all your treatment plan estimates to the Document Center using this feature and then have the patient sign in the Document Center using an electronic signature device. If your referring doctors are still sending their follow up letter in the mail, you can implement a way for them to send it to you via email and now you can send it to the Document Center without scanning. CLICK HERE for instructions on how this works.
2. Start using the Dentrix Questionnaire module for all in-house forms, including health history updates, all treatment consent forms, financial arrangement forms and updates to your HIPAA acknowledgement. You can use the Questionnaire Module without adding any expense for electronic services … all you will need is a signature pad. You can print out your consent forms and have them laminated so the patient can read them in a paper form. After that, have the patient sign in the Questionnaire or just pull the form up on your monitor for him or her to read. It is so easy. CLICK HERE to learn how to create a new form.

Give your team a break . . . give your scanner a break and save time. Use this time to do more productive things like fill your schedule and improve your collections. 

How can I see which doctor is scheduled to do the exam? Here are 3 ways . . .

One of the most frequently asked questions I receive from multi-doctor practices about the Dentrix appointment book is, “How can we see which doctor is assigned to the patient for the exam?” Since the appointment is set in the provider color (usually the hygienist color), it is difficult to see which patient each doctor needs to see during the day. Another question along these same lines is, “Can I post the exam to the doctor and the cleaning to the hygienist?”

In the past, there was no good answer. 

Now with the release of G6, there is a way to answer both these questions . . . Yeah!

When you schedule a patient for an appointment in G6, you will notice an Addl Provider box in the upper left corner where you can add the specified doctor for this patient’s exam. When you add an additional provider, you will be able to view it in a couple of places depending on your preferences.  

• If your practice is using Route Slips or Patient Visit Forms, then you will see the additional provider in the Appointment Details section of the form.
• Back in (I think) Dentrix G3, they added the Hover. When you let your mouse sit over the top of the appointment, it will pop up a window that will give you more information about the patient such as his or her picture, birthdate, insurance info, etc. One of these new pieces of info in the Hover is the Additional Provider.
• You can add the Additional Provider to the View. From the Appointment Book, click on View from the top toolbar, and select the view you want to edit, then on the right side you will see a bunch of drop-down menus for Appointment Display Info. Here you can select the Additional Provider to show on the appointment book view so you can see visually on every appointment.
  

When you go to check out the patient and set the procedures complete, you can assign the exam to the additional provider and give that production to the doctor without having to go to the ledger and change it manually. This will save you a ton of time.  

I hope this tip helps you be more efficient and productive in your everyday routine. You use your practice management software every day and it is the little things that make the biggest impact on your day.

Must Reads for Doctor, Assistant, Hygienist and Admin team

I was at the Henry Schein Center in Seattle today working with the new DTS (Digital Technology Sales), Tyler Call.  He wanted to learn more about Dentrix so he could present a more effective demo to prospective Dentrix clients. 

My first question to Tyler was “Who is your target audience? Which team

members attend your Dentrix demo?”  I remember when I demoed Dentrix back in 2003 I was the only participant in the process and my doctor just wrote the check. 

It was important for me to know who attends the sales call because each team member is going to have a different set of priorities. Just like all of you who read this blog, you all have a different set of priorities.  So I thought for the holiday weekend I would put together a priority list for the doctor, hygienist, dental assistant and admin team.  Here are the top three posts in each category.

Doctor’s must reads . . .

1. Super Efficient with Templates - For all the Dentrix users, I want to give you some help when it comes to building templates, which can be a huge time-saver in your office. Here are some of my favorite template tips.
2. How to Read Your Clinical Notes - With more offices every day transitioning from paper charts to electronic charting, we need to find the most efficient ways to not only document in the clinical record and view the information without having to click all over the place.
3. Top Five Reports Every Doctor Should Read - 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 accidentally posted a root canal as “complete” rather than “existing.”

Dental Assistant must reads . . .

1. What is the Status of the Lab Case?  Do any of these lab-related scenarios ever happen in your office?
2. How to Chart a Supernumerary Tooth - Our patients walk in with some unusual situations, but one of the more common situations I see is an extra tooth or Supernumerary Tooth. 
3. Health History Update, being prepared for anything - If your patient had a medical emergency and your team had to call 911, how long would it take you to pull up his or her most current medical history? 

Dental Hygienists must reads . . .

1. Oops, the wrong tooth was removed from the chart - Have you had a patient in your chair for his or her 6-month checkup and, while you are perio charting, you notice that the wrong tooth is missing. 
2. Hygienists, you are one of the primary educators in the practice - We all know that research shows the systemic links between oral health and the rest of the body, especially the relationship between periodontal disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and respiratory disease.
3. Where do I Make Notes - Do you ever find yourself searching endlessly for the patient’s most recent list of medications? What if the doctor wants to know if the patient has any allergies before the anesthetic is administered?

Admin team must reads . . .

1. Can you write me an excuse note for school?
2. 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. 
3. Are you a Stickler for Accurate Numbers - How often does a patient call and ask, “What is my balance?” If it is a single patient ledger, the answer is relatively simple. But what if a mother of five calls and asks for each of her kid’s balances? 

Checking insurance benefits will suck the life out of you unless you change your system

Dental insurance benefits are the thorn in our side every day. Checking benefits, eligibility and maximums for our patients is a great benefit … and it also sucks the life out of us to the point where we don’t have time for other things during

the day. There needs to be a balance between it being a customer service task and a hand-holding task. The insurance benefits belong to the patient. They do not belong to the practice and we need to put the verbal skills in place to help our patients understand this.

One thing I have been doing with my practices is teaching them to transfer that ownership back to the patient in a way that is beneficial to the patient and not too time-consuming for the practice. The easiest, most efficient way I have found is using the eCentral Insurance Eligibility feature inside of your Dentrix software. Have you seen the “E” all over inside of your Dentrix software and wondered what it does? CLICK HERE to learn how eCentral Insurance Manager works.  Let me share with you some of my tips in using this amazing tool.

What has worked really well for many offices is to print a copy of the electronic benefits for the patient and then send a copy to the patient’s Document Center for your reference. Now, how you hand off the information to the patient makes a big impact on how much you will be babysitting in the future. So here are some of my best tips . . .

• When you print out the eligibility benefits from eCentral for the patient, I would highlight a few key pieces of information (insurance company phone number, maximum and coverage percentages).
• Hand the patient the printed copy of his or her benefits and say something like, “I took the liberty of checking on your dental benefits for you and here is what we received from your plan. Notice I have highlighted some of the important things about your plan. One thing I want to point out is that if there is a procedure you need that is not on this print out, then we don’t know how much your insurance company will pay so we estimate zero.”
• Let patients know if they would like more details about their plan, you highlighted the insurance company’s phone number for them.

Using eCentral Insurance Eligibility not only as a tool for your practice efficiency but also using it as a resource for your patient will help you to strengthen your relationships with your patients and they will trust you more. Trust will help build your practice and grow your referrals.

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.

Why don't my reports show the same numbers . . . grrrrrr!

“I have pulled up three different reports trying to find out what my accounts receivable number is and they all have different numbers,” says Nichole from a client office in New York. Renee from a different office states, “I have a patient who has a $6,000 balance and she has never received a statement and she did not show up on my collection report.” Sound familiar? I know these situations can be frustrating and it is easy to blame the software for differences in reporting. However, I want to take you through a few check points to make sure you are getting similar data on different reports and also walk you through what is different on reports.

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you know that my favorite report for managing your accounts receivable is the CollectionManager. There are some things to know about the Collection Manager Report . . .

• This report only shows positive accounts receivable so if you are trying to compare it to an Aging Report or the Practice Analysis snapshot, you will not get the same numbers. The Aging Report can be filtered to show all balances, positive balances or credits, and, if you have a lot of credit balances, these two reports could show very different bottom line numbers.
• The Collection Manager can be filtered down a lot to give you a very specific report or a very broad report and, depending on how you are matching it up to another A/R report, if you don’t select the same parameters, you will get different numbers.

If you are looking at the snapshot Practice Analysis report (Office Manager > Analysis > Practice), then you will also get a different ending balance depending on a few things . . .

• This snapshot is affected by month end so, depending on if you are up to date with month end, will determine how accurate this number is and if it will match up to any other A/R report.
• This Analysis snapshot cannot be filtered by billing type … so if you have balances in billing types like “Sent to Collection,” this will affect this number.
• This report is only run by Entry Date (you cannot change this). If you are running any of the other A/R reports by Procedure Date, then you will get different numbers.

Most of the accounts receivable and collection management reports can be filtered by different parameters to give you different numbers. Here are the most common troubleshooting tips to check if you are matching up reports.

• Did you select the same providers?
• Did you select the same billing types?
• Did you choose Entry Date or Procedure Date?
• What aging category did you select?
• Are you selecting the same date range or ending date?
• Were there any other boxes that were checked that might have filtered out a particular patient from one report over another? In the first paragraph, I had an office questioning why a particular patient did not show up on the Collection Manager Report. It was because she had checked “If not billed since” on the filters so this particular patient had been excluded.

Hopefully this will help you understand how different each report is and why they might give you different numbers. Numbers tell a story and it is important to have as accurate report as possible.

Transform the way you follow up with over due recare patients

I learned the coolest thing today! Actually, I am rethinking the way I run the Continuing Care report. I know, right? If you have been reading my blog over the years, I talk a lot about the four reports to keepyour schedule full — ASAP List, Unscheduled List, Continuing Care List and Treatment Manager Report. Today, while I was working with a team on their hygiene workflow, we discovered something together that could completely transform the conversations you have with your hygiene patients when you are making follow-up calls.

As oral health clinicians, it is our fiduciary responsibility to inform patients of oral disease or infection so they can make educated decisions about their health and schedule them for their preventative maintenance visit. This education and communication with the patient is a full team responsibility, not just the clinical team. The front office team becomes part of the equation whenever patients are balking at scheduling their next visit or if they are following up with overdue patients.

The front office team does not need to know every clinical detail about the hygiene visit. However, having one little nugget of information to reiterate the value for the patient to schedule the recare visit can be critical. In previous versions of Dentrix, I would teach my front office teams to read through the clinical note from the hygienist and find something in there that would build value for the patient like “watching pocket #3,” “needs to floss more in lower anterior,” or “check margins on crown #30.” What happens a lot of the time is the front office team either doesn’t like going into the patient chart or these notes are still being written in a paper chart.

So where can the front office team build their own arsenal of “value added notes” so when they call the overdue hygiene patient, they can say something like, “You know, Sally really needed to see you in four months so she can check how the bleeding has improved in the upper right area” and the patient will say, “Oh yeah. That’s right. She did want to check that.” The motivational note in the patient’s continuing care is a perfect spot . . . and now it shows up on an awesome report.

If you are on Dentrix G6, you have a new amazing feature called List Manager. It’s like doing a Patient Reports by Filter … only on steroids. This List Manager will also allow you to put your Perio and Prophy patients on the same list . . . Whoo Hoo! 

Watch the video below and see how to create a new kind of list.

Inactivating providers and team members . . . is it still on the back burner?

Does it drive you crazy scrolling through the list of providers every time you are trying to schedule an appointment when ¾ of them no longer work at your practice? How about when it is time to print out your payroll reports and you are having to sort through a list of team members who have been gone for years? Would you like to clean all this up but not sure really how to do it or what ramifications it will have on your system?

Inactivating providers and team members is one of those tasks put on the back

burner and then just piles up for the next person to remedy. I think one reason it doesn’t get done is that all workstations have to be closed out of Dentrix in order for you to perform this task. My recommendation would be to do it at the same time you run month end since you have to dismiss everyone out of Dentrix for this task as well.

Once you are ready to inactivate some providers, then you get stuck because you have to choose a replacement. What does this mean? Who do I choose? Here are the most important things to remember . . .

• When you choose a replacement provider, it does not change anything in history so don’t worry about the patient ledger being altered. Inactivating a provider and choosing his or her replacement will swap out anything in the future. For example, any future appointments will be changed to the replacement provider, any treatment planned procedures will be changed to the replacement provider, the default insurance claim provider may be switched and, if you have selected a specific continuing care provider, they will be replaced as well.
• If you are inactivating your primary provider (PROV1 in the Family File), the replacement provider will take over in this role. This is common in a practice sale or transition. The PROV1 is used on many reports in Dentrix.
• When you inactive a provider, all Time Clock data will be removed so make sure you have payroll reports as a backup.
• If you are using Future Due Payment Plans, the assigned provider will be replaced as well.

I think once you understand that none of your history will be altered, it makes the process easier to swallow. The most significant change will happen if you are inactivating one of your primary providers because this will change the PROV1 in the family file and will affect some reports. Hopefully this helps and will allow you to move forward with this necessary task.

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.

Accurate Family Balance or Accurate Patient Balance . . . you choose

In my last post, I talked about the fact that I love how many things in Dentrix can be customized to fit the needs of the practice, from the toolbars to colors on the patient chart. In addition to visual customizations, you can also change the way payments are handled in the ledger as they are applied to the providers and specific patients. You would think that every office would want to handle payments and track collections the same, but this is not the case. Many offices I work with find it is easier to post all the payments to the guarantor and the primary provider, but many offices are very particular about itemizing out the payment to the rendering providerand the specific patient ledger. However your practice handles payments, I think it would be a good time to help you understand how each allocation method affects your patient ledgers.

If you want to walk through it with me, go to your Office Manager > Maintenance > Preferences, under the General Options tab in the upper left area is the Default Payment/Adjustment Allocation settings.

• ·        Provider
• Split by Provider will separate out the patient payment to pay off each producing provider. Your insurance claims already do this … so why not split the personal payments as well?
• To Patients Primary Provider will apply the entire personal payment to the patient’s primary provider (PROV1 on family file) regardless of who the producing provider is. This decision will give too much collections to one provider and, if you run a Provider A/R report, the payments and accounts receivable will be lopsided.
• ·        Patient
•  Family account will post the entire payment to the guarantor. The result of doing this will be an accurate family balance, but incorrect patient balances.
• Current patient will post the personal payment only to the patient ledger you are logged onto currently.
• Split by Family Members is a new feature with G6. It allows you to take one payment and distribute it out to multiple family members with one step. The result of doing this will be more accurate patient balances because it looks across the entire family account for patients with a balance. PLEASE NOTE: if you have archived a patient with a balance and you are using this new feature, it will pull that patient out of archive to apply a payment.
• ·Split Method
• Percentage Payments will equally distribute the patient payment between any providers who has a balance.
• FIFO (first in first out) will pay off the oldest provider balance first.
• Guarantor Estimate is always my first choice. What this allocation method will do is look at any current treatment with an insurance claim pending and allocate the patient payment depending on the insurance estimate. After it has allocated the payment to the estimated patient portion of the claim, it will revert to FIFO.
• Equal payments is very similar to the percentage payments method but will just split the payment into equal payments instead of a percentage.

Why does one office choose an allocation method over another? Well, it depends on how you track collections and how important it is to you to have accurate patient ledgers. I want you to choose the method that fits your practice that is why there are lots of choices. Email me directly if you want to discuss this one-on-one.

Create an environment for efficiency and accuracy with customizing your toolbars

What do I love about Dentrix? I love the fact that you can customize almost anything. I realize that some people think that too many choices leads to confusion and lack of efficiency, but I think the exact opposite. If you can narrow down the choices to exactly what you want in your practice on your monitor, on your reports, on your toolbar, etc., I feel it makes things more precise and streamlined.

I have written a lot of articles on building customized templates, clinical charting button sets, and creating consistent views for the treatment rooms. This systematic type of setup creates an environment where team members thrive on routine and it also creates fewer mistakes. I often hear during training sessions, “What do all these icons do?” or “Do I really need all these icons on my toolbar?” Well . . . the answer is not usually.

In the treatment room workstations, just like you create custom button sets and appointment book views, I would recommend removing several of the icons from the toolbar that your clinical team will never use in the operatory. By cleaning up the toolbars, the eyes have less to scan through which helps make you more efficient. There are two different ways to clean up your toolbars . . .  

The toolbars on the Patient Chart have a drop down menu where you can add and remove items by checking and unchecking. I would recommend setting all the toolbars exactly the same in every treatment room because when the doctor, assistant, or hygienist has to go work in a different room, you want it to look the same. Here are a few icons you could remove (not should, but could) from the toolbars on the Patient Chart. If you decide to remove more than what I have listed, be my guest.

•  DxWeb – In my last blog, you learned that this runs on only one computer (usually a front office computer) so there is no need for it in the back.
• DentriXlink – Unless you are bridging a piece of technology (imaging, CT scan, etc) with Dentrix, you will not use this icon in the back.
• QuickLetters – Most clinical room computers are not equipped with Microsoft Word so this will not work without Word.
• Send Message – Most clinical room computers are not equipped with Microsoft Outlook so this will not work without using Outlook. Also, you would want to send out any protected patient information using a secure email server.
• Treatment Manager – This icon will pull up a report on unscheduled treatment. Since this is a managerial report and will require a phone to be handy so you can call the patient, this icon will typically not be used in the clinical room.
• Marketplace – Even though the Marketplace has some awesome tools that work with your Dentrix software, I hope that the clinical team members are not shopping while they are seeing patients. This can be removed from the clinical room computers.

On all the other modules (Appointment Book, Family File, Ledger, Office Manager), you will need to right click on the empty space on the toolbar to add, remove, and move around the icons. Here are a few recommendations for which workstations should have what on their toolbar.

• If you are using Perfect Day Scheduling in your practice, then I would make sure that it is turned on the clinical room computers so you can see all the blocks but then remove this icon off the appointment book. I have seen Perfect Day Scheduling get accidentally turned off and then all the blocks disappear off the schedule.
• The DxWeb icon can be removed from the computers where it does not run every day.
• The DentriXlink can be removed from the administrative modules if you want.

Keeping your toolbars consistent and clean will create an environment of efficiency and accuracy. Like I said before, “I love how much I can customize Dentrix. It is a wonderful thing!”

Doctors . . . take the roller skates off

Doctors, do you feel like you have roller skates on all day? Does your team complain because they never get a lunch? I see this more and more in the practice mainly due to a lack of structure in the appointment book. However, this scheduling crisis can be resolved with some planning and discipline.

Perfect Day Scheduling is one of the most underused but most powerful features in Dentrix. I have doctors call me and say, “Dayna, my daily production goal is $7,500 per day and our schedule is full every day but we are not meeting our goal. Maybe I just need to lower the goal.” No, you just need some structure in the scheduling process.

I agree that the most important thing that the front office team does is keep the schedule full. However, if all they are doing is putting warm bodies in the chair, this can create unnecessary chaos and unproductive days. Scheduling is like playing chess … it takes skill and patience.

The easiest way I have found to map out your schedule is start with a clean slate. In your appointment book, go out to a week next year and find completely empty days and print out these schedules. First, decide where your new patients will go. If your goal is 20 new patients per month, you will need about five blocks per week. Then block out your productive time for the doctor so that 75-80% of the production goal is met before lunch. Next, in the hygiene schedule across from the doctor’s productive time, I would block out SRP and perio maintenance. This will help have room in the hygiene chair and the doctor doesn’t have to step out to do too many exams. Finally, fill in the rest of the open time with crown seats, single tooth fillings, and other non-productive procedures.

The above recommendation, of course, is a very generalized guide and will need to be customized for your practice depending on how many treatment rooms and providers you have in your practice. This is a great place to start, plus you can tweak it as you go along your journey of productive scheduling and take those roller skates off.

CLICK HERE for more detailed instructions on mapping out your perfect day.

Printout for taxes . . . two options for you

Now that your patients have started receiving their W-2s from their employers and 1099s from their clients for tax purposes, you will start receiving phone calls from your patients asking you for a printout of what they paid last year for dentistry. Depending on exactly what patients need for tax reporting will depend on what printout works best. Do they need a printout with ADA codes? Do they just need a list of payments? Here are a couple of options for you, depending on what your patient needs.

The first option is if the patient does not need the year-end statement to have ADA codes. This will give you a nice clean list of just the payments the family has made in the date range you choose. Open the Ledger, click File and Search Payments. This will open a new window where you will select the parameters for your search (date range, guarantor name, payment types, etc.), then select Print.

 

The second option is if you need a payment history that includes ADA codes (most HSA plans want the ADA codes included). First, go to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Preferences and make sure the “use ADA codes in description” is checked. Next, from the Office Manager > Reports > Billing, we are going to create a customized billing statement as a year-end printout.  Below is a list of parameters to choose.

• Change the Beginning Balance Forward date to the beginning of the year reported and the Statement Date to the end of the report year
• Select the Guarantor family
• Set the Minimum Balance to Bill to 0
• Uncheck all options
• Clear out the Statement Message
• Uncheck Save as Default

 

Analyzing your new patient numbers

Numbers tell a story . . . they are black and white without emotion.  However, the numbers we see are sometimes only as accurate as what we put into our practice management software.  If you have been reading my blog for a while you have noticed that I am a stickler on numbers and I teach my offices how to make the numbers as accurate as possible.

Starting fresh in a New Year we all have New Year’s Resolutions that we want to achieve in both our professional and personal lives.  We start off strong for the first few weeks like the rivers in the spring and then slowly it trickles down to a stream as we get closer to the end of summer.  If you are watching your numbers on a daily basis you can keep the motivation going consistently throughout the year.

There is one number, however that can be misread on a report if it is not entered correctly.  I found the other day while I was reviewing the Practice Advisor Report that this office had 29 new patients recorded for December but only 7 referral sources.  So one thing that I stressed to the office was to make sure they are entering in how the patient found the office so the doctor can see how some of the marketing campaigns are going.  She was insistent that she enters this information every time and low and behold when we looked at the New Patient List there was a referral source entered for all the new patients.  But why was the Practice Advisor Report not reporting this . . . ? 

The first visit date MUST match the referral source date.

 

Dentrix considers a new patient based on the first visit date found on the Family File.  This date is automatically populated when a team member opens the account.  What can happen is that the team member opens the account a couple days before the new patient appointment date and then when the patient comes in for their visit they add the referral source after reviewing the paperwork.  This is a typical scenario and can be corrected.  When you are updating the Family File with all the demographics, insurance info and personal notes, add it to your list to double check the first visit date and the referral source date and make sure they are accurate and match. 

One easy way to double check your statistics is to review the Daily Huddle Report each morning.  This will calculate how many new patients you have on your schedule for today and how many referral sources are attached to your new patients.   If this number is incorrect for today it is a “red flag” that something needs to be fixed.  If you fix it on a daily basis then the Practice Advisor Report at the end of the month will be as accurate as it can be.

For other articles on the Daily Huddle and the Practice Advisor click below . . .

Your Daily Motivation

The 5 Minute Morning Huddle

Your own Practice Management Consultant

 

New Year . . . New Codes

Every year the ADA updates codes, removes old codes and adds new codes to the CDT code set.  Watch this video put out by Henry Schein so you can successfully update your Dentrix software.

Be prepared for Year End

Welcome to December! I always loved December because I would get excited to see how the practice did for the year, how it compared to the previous year, and start setting goals for the next year. It is kinda like “A Christmas Carol” for the dental practice . . . past, present, and future. Hopefully you don’t have too many scary ghosts haunting your office numbers.

I want to help you be as prepared as possible for year end. With that in mind, Dentrix put together a great info sheet for you to reference when the time comes to close out your year. 

CLICK HERE to access the Dentrix Year End info sheet

Your Active Patient Base may not be accurate

We are coming to the close of 2015 and I would like you all to start thinking about planning for next year and what that might look like. However, before we can start looking at annual planning for next year, we need to continue focusing on this year and really critiquing the numbers. If you have been reading my blog posts for a while, you know that I talk a lot about how numbers tell a story and having accurate numbers is extremely important in analyzing the health of your practice.

If you are using the Practice Advisor Report on a monthly basis for analyzing, managing, and forecasting your key performance indicators (KPI) … congratulations! If you are not yet using this amazing tool, you can read up about it by CLICKING HERE. Learning how to make the numbers on this report as accurate as possible is the key to using this report to its fullest potential.

There is one number on this report that could be skewed, depending on how you deal with your missed and broken appointments. I realize that the ADA CDT coding came out recently with procedure codes for Missed Appointment (D9986) and Cancelled Appointment (D9987). However, I am urging you not to use them. When you post a procedure code to the patient’s ledger, it automatically updates the patient’s last visit date. So if you post a D9986 to the ledger to note that the patient missed an appointment today, the family file Last Visit Date will still get updated to today. This last visit date number is used on the Practice Advisor report to calculate your Active Patient Base. You might be asking, “Well, Dayna, how would you suggest we track missed appointments?” I’m glad you asked! Here are some suggestions . . .

·        Use an adjustment code instead. You can have a maximum of 40 adjustment types listed in the definitions so if you have not met this max, then this would be my first choice. If you have maxed out on adjustment types, then I would look to see if you have any duplicates that you can combine together and then add two new ones. With an adjustment, you can post a $0 amount just to document it or you can post a dollar amount to show the fee. This would need to be a + adjustment type.

·        Make sure you are using the Break Appointment feature and not the delete appointment when a patient misses an appointment. When you break an appointment, it will make a note on the Office Journal and update the missed appointments on the Family File.  The Practice Advisor Report will also calculate your lost revenue from broken appointments.

·        Document a missed appointment in the Clinical Note. Now this will not give you a searchable code to look for, but it will give you the documentation in case the patient becomes a risk or argumentative about missed appointments. You can always print the clinical notes if needed.

Like I said, “Numbers tell a story.” If you want an accurate Active Patient Base count, stop posting a procedure code to the ledger when the patient does not keep his or her appointment. If you would like to learn more about the Practice Advisor Report, here are some other blog posts on numbers . . .

Do you know how many patients are leaving your practice?  CLICK HERE

The 5 Stats Every Office Should Monitor . . .  CLICK HERE

 

Four ways you can import a patient picture into Dentrix

You step into your reception room to bring your patient, Carrie, into the treatment room and you realize there are two patients sitting there who are about the same age. Who is Carrie? You have never met her so you just throw her name out there and see who responds. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could prepare yourself a little bit more by having a current picture of Carrie?

There are a few different ways to pull in a picture of your patients, depending on which imaging software you are using and if you want to use a webcam. There is an icon on your toolbar for Patient Picture, which has four options for importing your patient picture.

• If you have a webcam installed on your front office computer, you can use the Acquire feature and select the webcam or iPad to take a picture. I have an office that has started using an iPad as their webcam and it is working great.
• Many practices are using a digital camera for intraoral images and saving the images in some kind of image gallery software. If you know the location of the images, you can use the Import from File feature to pull in your patient picture.
• For the offices that are using DEXIS, using the Copy from Clipboard feature is the easiest feature to use in my opinion. From your Dentrix patient chart, double click on the image you want to use as your patient picture (many of my offices are using their intraoral camera to take a face shot), then click on the arrow on the top toolbar and click on copy to clipboard. Then, open the Patient Picture icon and click on Paste from Clipboard.
• For the offices that are not using DEXIS for your imaging software, using the Screen Capture feature to acquire the patient picture will be the best option for you. Open your imaging software so you have the picture you want to import in view, then open the Patient Picture icon in Dentrix. Click on the Screen Capture feature and your cursor will change shape so you can make a box around the picture and it will appear in the Patient Picture window.

Click Save and you now have a current snapshot of your patient. This will eliminate the guesswork when you walk out to the reception room to summon your patient.