Best Practices for your team . . . daily

I have written many articles in my blog about all the different reports you should be looking at and the different statistics that are important to keep your eye on … but what is the “best practice” for these reports? Who should be looking at them and when? In the next three weeks, my goal is to give a guideline for these questions. I will be breaking it down into a daily, weekly, and monthly format and what each team member should be monitoring in his or her department.

This first week of the series, we are going to start with what you need to be looking at on a daily basis. 

·        Front Office or Back Office – Someone on the team needs to be looking at the daysheet and matching it up to what was scheduled for the day. This can be the office manager looking at the whole day or break it up with the dental assistant and hygienists looking at their own column of patients. You are looking to make sure that every patient who came in had the correct procedures posted and that nothing else was accidently set as “complete.”

·        Back Office – The clinical team needs to make sure that there was a clinical note written for every patient you saw in your chair that day. If you are chartless, the easiest way to do this is to filter the view with completed work and clinical notes in the patient chart on the progress notes tab. For more on this, CLICK HERE for more information.

·        Office Manager – There are a couple of management statistics I would check on a daily basis because it will make reviewing the monthly numbers a whole lot easier if you have monitored it throughout the month. All these numbers can be found on the Daily Huddle Report, CLICK HERE for more information.

o   New Patients – Make sure every new patient who is entered has a referral source so your doctor knows how the patients are finding his or her office. Also, this is a good time to write out your thank you notes to referral sources and your new patients.

o   Case Acceptance – How much was diagnosed vs. how much was scheduled? If this is low, check to see if the treatment plan was scheduled and not marked as completed.

o   Collections - If collections for the day were low, why?

o   Production – Are you on track for the month?

If you look at these numbers on a daily basis, then you will have a much better chance for success of meeting your monthly goals. You also have time to make adjustments in your schedule and systems if you don’t wait to the last minute.

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

The clock is ticking . . . June 1st deadline

The clock is ticking to your June 1st, 2015, deadline for Medicare enrollment. Yes, you heard me correctly. Your office has until June 1st to choose which type of Medicare enrollment is best for your practice. I first wrote about this back in October 2014 when I got the news and it was one of the least-read blogs of all time. For those of you who didn't read it, CLICK HERE to be re-directed.

We all know how government paperwork can be, so don't dilly dally around and lose track of time. If you want me to send you a Medicare enrollment guidance information sheet, I would be more than happy to do so. Just send me an email to dayna@raedentalmanagement.com and in the subject line put Medical enroll.

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









Delta EPO's and Co-Pay plans, how to setup

Lately I have been seeing a few new insurance plans creeping up in the market. In Colorado, I have seen these new “EPO” Delta Dental plans that have a patient co-pay instead of the traditional coverage %. Then, when I was in Washington recently, the office showed me a plan where the patient pays a total dollar amount on certain procedures. These plans sound similar, but the setup is slightly different.

With the “EPO” plans, I would use the co-pay feature inside of the coverage table. The reason I would use the co-pay is that there is a different patient co-pay for every procedure code. View the image below to see the fields to use for this type of setup.

 

Then I have seen other plans where the patient pays $65 for the exam, X-rays, prophy, etc., or pays $800 for a crown, but nothing else is covered. In this situation, I would use the Payment Table because there is not a co-pay on every procedure code. Remember, the Payment Table will override the Coverage Table. Set the coverage % to 0 because anything that is not listed on the benefits sheet is not covered. See the image below for the fields to use with this setup.

 

 

 

Low Stress Year End

No need to get all worked up about Year End,  it happens every month.  Yep you heard me right.  Year end is just like running Month End, there is nothing different you need to do.  Just run your Month End process exactly the same as you always do and you are all good.

The month end process does several things in your system:

• It puts transactions from the previous month into history.  This means you will no longer be able to edit or delete a completed transaction, payment or adjustment.
• All your clinical notes for the month are locked up.  So if you have not signed your clinical notes they will get locked up anyway for security purposes.
• If an insurance plans benefit year starts over this month the maximum used will be reset to 0.

Then, there are some optional things the month end process can accomplish:

• You can purge old appointments from your schedule.  This is a good idea after a couple years.  I would recommend keeping about 2-3 years worth the data on your appointment book.
• If you are using the month end wizard you can send billing statements, run certain reports and post finance charges.
• Also during the month end wizard you can post future due payment plans and assess late fees to your payment agreements.

For more information on reports to run for Year End check out these articles:

CLICK HERE for reports to run
CLICK HERE for more about year end
DOCTORS CLICK HERE to see what reports you need to be watching

I am looking forward to a great 2015!