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.

Recare is the lifeblood of your practice

If you are a general practice or pediatric dental practice, your recare system is the lifeblood of your practice. Your doctor’s schedule feeds off the hygiene patients so it is critical that you have a seamless system. But are your hygiene systems working as well as you think they are? You may have patients falling through the cracks or not receiving the reminders that you think they are.

The most important component of your recare system is the setup and making sure your team understands the details. I want to take some time today to walk you through proper setup, checking your individual patients continuing care, and which report to manage.

First, the setup is key. I wrote a blog post on May 23, 2012, called “KISS your Continuing Care Types,” but obviously not everyone read it so I am going to take some of those tips and re-apply them today. Many offices, understandably, try and create a system for 3-month Perio, 4-month Prophy, etc., by setting up new Continuing Care types but trust me . . . IT DOESN’T WORK! Remember that you can only attach one Continuing Care type to the procedure code. To

understand what I am talking about, go to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Procedure Code Setup, then highlight the D1110 and click edit. You will notice in the middle of the window there is a >> Auto Continuing Care where you can attach one Continuing Care Type to this code. This means you cannot link up a 4-month Prophy and 6-month Prophy to the same code.

Your options are Prophy and Perio or Recare. You can link the Prophy to the D1110 and the D1120 and the Perio to the D4910, or link the Recare to all three.

After you have this setup corrected, when you schedule your patient for a cleaning, it will link up to the appointment correctly. When you set complete, it will update your patient’s due date.

But what if your patient is a 3-month Perio or 4-month Prophy? How do you get it up update the due date correctly? You can update the patient’s frequency on his or her Family File in the Continuing Care window. Once you change the patient’s recare frequency, then your reports will be accurate. When you schedule the patient for his or her next visit, the system will know when he or she is due.

After you get this setup fixed and the patient’s frequency updated on the Family File, then you can feel confident that your Continuing Care Report is accurate. If you are using the Dentrix eCentral communication manager, you will know that your patients are receiving reminders when they are due. For a full article on the Continuing Care report, CLICK HERE.

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.

All I want for Christmas is a new iWatch

Is a new iWatch on your Christmas list for this year or are you already wearing your iWatch wondering what to do with it? I have a couple of suggestions for you . . . use it to help you manage your time and patients at your dental practice.

Imagine this . . . what if you could get a little buzz on your wrist from your iWatch letting you know that patient in room #1 is ready for an exam and you could check her medical alerts before you even walk into the room? What if you could then speak a command into your iWatch and it would automatically launch the patient’s most recent pano onto the monitor? Using these new apps designed around the efficiency of the dental practice gets me all excited … and it should you too.

I have learned about two new products specifically designed around the iWatch and helping you manage your time around the operatory. Below you will see a video interview I did on a company I spoke with at a recent dental meeting and a link to another product that I absolutely love. If you are interested in this technology, research both products and schedule a demo to look at each one.

 

 

 

CLICK HERE to check out Simplifeye

CLICK HERE to check out OperaDDS

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

 

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.

Your hygiene department is the lifeblood of your practice

Do you sometimes feel a little out of touch with your recare patients? Do you think sometimes there are patients you haven’t seen for a while and you wonder where they are? Are you ready to take your hygiene department to the next level?

Your hygiene department is the lifeblood of the practice. If you don’t have a reliable system for managing when your patients are due for their regular checkups, then your office could be spinning its wheels when it comes to working from accurate lists. If set up properly, the Dentrix Continuing Care system will run like a well-oiled machine. Let’s look at the features that will help you generate accurate lists, give you some custom filter options, and streamline the process.

First, decide what continuing care types you want to track and make sure they are linked to the correct procedure code. Remember, you can only have one continuing care type per procedure code. Some examples might be:

• PROPHY linked to D1110 and D1120
• PERIO linked to D4910 and D4341
• RECARE linked to D4910, D1110, and D1120

CLICK HERE for more information on linking up your continuing care types to procedure codes.

The next piece you want to think about is how you might filter your lists and what kind of customization you can do within the Dentrix Continuing Care system. You are dealing with different biological systems and personalities, so Sally might need to come in every 3 months for her prophy and want to be scheduled only with HYG1 and Michael might need to come in every 6 months for his prophy but want to see HYG4. How do you keep track of all these personalized settings? Its super easy!

On the Family File, double click on the Continuing Care box > highlight the Prophy and click edit. This will open a new window. Here you can edit the patient interval and select a specific hygienist of choice.

After you have customized the patient’s Continuing Care screen, you and your team can now generate customized lists with the push of a button. You can create a list for HYG1 patients and a different list for HGY4 patients. This can help your hygienists and front office team fill openings faster and feel confident your lists are accurate and up to date. CLICK HEREfor more information on keeping your hygiene schedule full (make sure to read all three articles).

Dentrix G6 launch . . . . be amazed!

I had the pleasure of talking with Brad Royer, the Dentrix product manager, about the release of Dentrix G6.  The launch date is scheduled on April 30, 2015 during the California Dental Association meeting.  Stop by the Dentrix booth during CDA to see all of the amazing features but you can watch our interview now to hear about the highlights.

Dentrix G6 demonstrates our commitment to listen to our customers. We have been gathering customer feedback via our online suggestion box, social medial polls, and industry conferences. One of the messages we have heard is that you are looking for easier upgrades and thoroughly tested software. We believe that Dentrix G6 addresses this request.

We are also committed to providing new and improved features and functionality to our Dentrix customers on a consistent basis. With Dentrix G6, we are pleased to offer customers exceptional new tools, features, and functionality.  Brad Royer, Dentrix Product Manager

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









Show off your Value-Added Services

Do your patients know all that you do for them? Do they know that you are providing potentially life-saving procedures such as oral cancer screening, blood pressure checks, nutritional counseling, and smoking cessation recommendations? These are all value-added services that you perform every day. If you are neglecting to broadcast these value-added services to your patients, you are missing out on a huge marketing opportunity.

Most of these value-added services have an ADA procedure code, but some things you do might not. In this case, you can create an in-office code. For example, if you take Diagnodent readings, this is a value-added service where there is no valid ADA code. You can very easily create your own procedure code in Dentrix by going to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Procedure Code Setup, then click new and fill in the blanks. See the image below for an example.

After you have created your in-office codes for non-billable, value-added services, then you can create a multi-code that will easily post to the ledger so your patients can see it on their walkout or billing statement. My recommendation would be to create a multi-code for your NP exam and recare exam to include all these services. The NP Exam multi-code, for example, could list D0150 and all your non-billable procedures to create an unbelievable comprehensive visit. Below is an example.

The final step to make this even more efficient for your office is to add this new multi-code into the Appointment Reasons box and add it to the appointment. Go to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Definitions, then click on the drop down menu and select Appointment Reasons. For the NP exam multi-code, you could add it as a new one or change the D0150 to your NP exam multi-code. Below is an example.

When you generate a walkout statement for patients after their NP exam, they will see listed all the value-added services you and your team performed today. This will help to create a “wow factor” in your patient’s mind and help him or her to know the excellent care you provide.

A Gentle Reminder

I talk a lot about how to customized your Dentrix software to make it personal and create that "WOW" factor that your patients will remember.  Sometimes we need to remind our patients of our office policies and a verbal reminder is just not enough.  In today's blog I want to show you how to add a special message onto the appointment card labels.  Some examples might be:

• We kindly request 24 hours notice to reschedule your appointment
• Please give us 24 hours notice if you wish to change your appointment
• YOU WILL BE CHARGED $100 IF YOU CHANGE YOUR APPOINTMENT (just kidding . . . I would never use this one)
• Please remember to take your pre-med before your appointment

In the video below I have demonstrated how to create a custom label and add a line of text to the already existing default appointment label. Since my recording software is having audio issues you will have to watch it like those old silent movies.  Enjoy!

 

 

NOTE:  The Quick Labels work best with the Dymo Label printers

Keep Your Schedule Full Like a Pro

My two favorite seasons of the year are spring and fall. The spring is when all the flowers are

starting to bud and show their beautiful colors. In the fall, the trees start to show off their amazing reds and golds. There is something else that happens during these seasons and that is the DentrixInsight Seminars. During these seminars, one of my favorite things to do is give away prizes.

One of the rewards for someone is if they can name the four reports to keeping the schedule full. Most of the time I have to drop little hints so that someone can win the prize. Since we are coming up on InsightSeminar season, I thought I would review these four reports. Read carefully and, if you are in one of my classes, you might just win the prize. J

1. ASAP List – This is your first “go to” list for filling the schedule. The way to build this list is to ask all patients, “If I get an opening sooner, would you like me to call you?” If the patient says “yes,” then change the option in the appointment drop down menu under Schedule to ASAP. To read more about the ASAP List, CLICK HERE.
2. Unscheduled List – Your next line of fire is the Unscheduled List. These are patients who have already been on your schedule or they need an appointment now so usually they just need a phone call from you to call them back in. There are two ways to add someone to the Unscheduled List … using the Wait/Will Call button in the appointment or to Break the appointment. To read more about the Unscheduled List, CLICK HERE.
3. Continuing Care Report – When you are looking for patients who are past due for their regular hygiene visit, this is your next go to list. This list can be customized to search for patients who are current or way past due. You can also search for Prophy, Perio, X-rays, exams, ortho, or other specialized continuing care type that you have set up in your practice. I would create some custom report parameters so that you can easily create a customized list for what type of appointment you need to fill your schedule. For more information on the Continuing Care Report, CLICK HERE.
4. Treatment Manager Report – This is probably my favorite report in Dentrix because it is a gold mine. The goal of this report is to find patients who have unscheduled treatment . . . this is your chart audit. You can use this report to fill the doctor’s schedule or the hygiene schedule. I would definitely work this report into your regular routine at least once a week. To read more about the Treatment Manager Report, CLICKHERE.

Remember all of these reports should be part of your regular weekly tasks to managing your schedule and making sure you have a consistent protocol for documenting your phone conversations with patients. My recommendation is to use the Office Journal so your entire front office team will know where to find all administrative notes.

Your new title . . . appointment book architect

Did you know there was a hierarchy order when you are setting up the practice appointment book? What if you have a hygienist who comes in at 10 every morning but the rest of the office starts at 8? How can you set up her treatment room for her schedule? Here are the three tiers of setup for your appointment book. Start with the first and work your way down for optimal success.

Practice Setup – This is the default hours for the entire practice. Even if you only work a couple Fridays each month, make sure you include Fridays in this setup. From the appointment book, click on Setup > Practice Appointment Setup, then, on the left side, click on each day the office is open and enter in the hours for the day, leaving time for the lunch break.  After you have setup the default hours and days you can click back into Setup > Practice Schedule and close certain days or set a day as a holiday.

Provider Setup – This is the default hours for each of your producing providers. If you have other providers in your system, make sure all their days are unchecked. This will make sure your Practice Advisor Report is as accurate as possible. For more information on the Practice Advisor Report, CLICK HERE. From the Appointment Book, click on Setup > Provider Setup > Setup and click on each day this provider might work (even if he or she only works every other Friday, make sure you click on Fridays). Then enter the hours each day this provider works. If you need to change the hours for a particular day in this provider’s schedule, select Schedule and double click on the day you want to edit. If this provider is taking a vacation day, click the Schedule tab again, select the day, and click on Options at the top and “Set as Vacation Day.”

Operatory Setup – The last place where you can edit the office hours is in the Operatory Setup. This will alter the default Practice Setup just for this particular treatment room and give you a visual of open and closed times. From the Appointment Book, click on Setup > Operatory Setup, then select the treatment room you want to edit and enter the hours for this treatment room. You can also right click on the top of the Operatory Name on the schedule to open this menu.

Having your office, provider, and treatment room hours set up properly will ensure that other reports that calculate hours are working properly. Also, when you have the provider hours correctly entered, the team will receive warning messages that can help alleviate scheduling mistakes. What I like the most is the Operatory Setup because this is a way you can visually alter the treatment room hours. This really helps with scheduling.

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.

If you go to the Family File and open the Continuing Care window, highlight the Prophy or Perio and click edit, you will notice a drop down menu for Status. These status types are customizable in your definitions. Go to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Definitions and, in the drop down menu, find Continuing Care Status. Highlight one you can change and rename it to “LMF – Last Minute Fills” or “On-call – ASAP list” then click Change. Now you will find this new status in your drop down menu in the patient’s Continuing Care box on his or her Family File. You will need to assign this status to any patient who you want to be on a call list but do not pre-appoint.

When you go to run your list of these patients, go to the Appointment Book and open the Continuing Care list. Click on Temporary View, select the type, status, due date, and then click OK. This is a great way to create an ASAP list without clogging up your appointment book with unnecessary “fake” appointments.