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Referral coordinators at specialty practices - this one is for you

I was recently working with an oral surgery practice and a periodontal office and learned something that the general dental practice usually does not have to manage . . . patients being referred into the practice without an appointment. Now, in a general practice, you would need to manage patients being referred out of the practice to these types of specialists, but let’s look at things from the specialty practice point of view.

At both of these offices, the referral coordinators had an accordion file filled with referral slips of patients who had been referred to their office but have not scheduled. They both had a good system. However, both of these offices are in the process of going paperless and we were looking at systems for managing these patients inside of the Dentrix software.

Here is what we came up with . . .

When you go paperless, you will use the Document Center a lot for paper storage. Now some of you know that every patient has a Document Center because you have been using it for a while, but did you know that every provider has a Document Center as well? Yep, you can scan and store documents inside of your own Document Center and eliminate a lot of paper that floats around on your desk.

So, for these two offices, I recommended using this feature and also attaching the document to the referring doctor for easier tracking. Then, when a patient calls, they can go to their Document Center (or the provider you choose to use) and then search documents attached to a particular referring source and get a list. Then, when the patient schedules and they open the Family File, they can attach the referral slip to the patient and that document has now been linked up without having to scan it again.

Go to the Office Manager > Document Center > select the provider you want to use for holding these documents and then scan the referral slip and put it in the correct folder. I would recommend putting the patient name in the description field. You can now shred these referral slips and clean up your desk.


For more information on the Document Center, CLICK HERE.

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New Patients Welcome and make sure you track the referrals

Did you start a new campaign this year to attract new patients? I recently did an online webinar with Laura Hatch and she talked about improving your internal marketing with an option of doing a contest with your team or incentive for your patients. No matter what you implement into your practice for attracting new patients, you will want to make sure you track it in your Dentrix software so you can have statistics on how the marketing campaign performs.

When you start a new marketing campaign, you will want to load it into your Referral Maintenance so your team can add it into the patient’s family file for tracking purposes. Go to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Reference > Referral Maintenance and then click on New and add in the details of the campaign. Make sure that you mark it as a Non-Person so it will show up as a Marketing referral source on the Daily Huddle Reportand the Practice Advisor.


After your marketing campaign is complete, you can look at the referral analysis and see how many new patients were referred and how much production it brought into your practice. Check out the article I wrote just recently about the referral analysis by CLICKING HERE.

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What are you thankful for and how do you show it?

What are you thankful for? As I spend time with dental practices this time of
year, I love listening to how they spend their holidays … not only with each other as a team but how they give thanks to their patients. Many dental offices have elaborate parties to celebrate the end of the year and some go out into their community and volunteer their time in a shelter helping those who need it more.

One of the topics I spend quality time discussing with my teams is Patient Retention numbers and how everything they do not only inside the walls of their practice but out in the community affect Patient Retention. Everything you do is marketing your practice, whether it is walking patients up to the front desk with a very choreographed handoff to the front desk or calling in the evening to make sure they are feeling well after a tough procedure that day.

I would like to hear from you. I would love to hear not only how you give thanks this holiday season, but also about those special things you do for your patients and team members to make them feel special. Make your comments on this post and share your stories.

I will start . . .

“In my practice we would always celebrate our team member’s anniversary of when they started work at the office. Since I was the “techie” in the office, I would change that team member’s screensaver to be a message about how much I appreciated everything he or she did in the office.”

“Our office always gave out flowers on Mother’s Day”


I understand if you don’t want to give out your marketing secrets but let’s have some fun and enjoy reading something other than a Dentrix How-To.

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Tracking the ROI on your marketing campaigns in three easy steps

You spend a lot of money on marketing, direct mailers and advertising. I am
shocked sometimes when I see how much these advertising campaigns cost the practice. How do you know if they are working? Do you know the ROI on your investment? I can help you see the statistics you need to know to help make decisions on your referral programs and new patient acquisition.
First things first . . . your team must be recording where your new patients are being referred from. If you are starting a new patient referral program or just signed up with a marketing company that is launching some direct mail campaigns, I want you to add these into your referral sources. Go to the Office Manager > Reference > Referral Maintenance. Then click on add new and enter the name of the campaign. Make sure to check Non Person and then, at the bottom, click on Referred By. The reason you want to select Non Person is because these campaigns will be tracked as Referred by Marketing on the Practice Advisor Report.

Second, make sure your team is checking the new patients against the referring sources on a daily basis. The easiest way to do this is using the Daily Huddle Report. Look at the Daily Huddle each day and make sure the total number of new patients is accurate and make sure the total number of new patients matches the total number of referral sources. This makes sure that every new patient is tracked with how he or she found you.

Now the juicy stuff . . . you can run a report that will show you the total number of patients by each referral source, see how much their treatment plan is worth and how much production has been completed. This is invaluable because you can not only see how many patients this campaign is bringing you, but also how much revenue. AMAZING!

Go to the Office Manager > Reports > Management > Referred By Report. Next, select the referral dates, production dates and select the referring source you want to analyze. Then at the bottom make sure to check Show Production Detail.


This will be great information when you are looking to renew a campaign or just great feedback to your marketing company

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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.


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Find patients with missing email addresses

In our age of technology, more and more people are tethered to their mobile phones, tablets and laptops 24/7. I am not only a practice management coach and trainer, but I am also a dental patient. Like an estimated 88% of smartphone owners*, if you want to contact me and confirm my appointment, the preferred method of contact is email or text message. Many times, the practice is calling patients to confirm their appointments from a back office phone line and the patient might not recognize the phone number … so the call goes to voicemail. In our busy lives, we might not check our voicemail until that evening or a couple days later. By then, it is more than likely after office hours or too late to call back.

If you are using a third-party software for email and/or text messaging, you need to make sure that you are reaching out to as many patients as possible. If you have been spotty on asking for email addresses, you can search your Dentrix software and find patients who have a missing email address. This will help you grow your email list and connect with patients in a more efficient and effective way. You will save time and your patients will appreciate it.

  • ·        The first way you can search for patients without an email address is with the Dentrix letter merge feature and generate a list of patients. Go to the Office Manager > Letters & Custom Lists > highlight the Patient Report by Filters > Edit. In the lower left corner, there is a dropdown menu for email. Select only without (see the image below). Check mark patients, but I would not filter it with any other options because then you might skip some people. Click Close and click on the button for Open in List Manager. This will give you a list of patient names who do not have email addresses.


  • ·        The second way you can search for patients without an email address is on a daily basis using the Daily Huddle Report. Go to the Office Manager > Analysis > Daily Huddle Report > (see image below). Click on the Selected Patient List > check mark the patients with no email. This will generate a page on the Daily Huddle that will give you a list of patients coming in today. If there is an “x” next to the no email column, then you can ask those patients for their email address.

Communicating with patients using today’s technology and in a way that is more convenient for your patients will increase your confirmations and help increase your patient retention. Do you want to learn more about Patient Retention? CLICK HERE

* Pew Market Research Study



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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
 

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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

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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.

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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.

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Imagine if your patient could book a hygiene visit just like making dinner reservations?


I was in an office this last week that is using a web-based software solution for their email, text messaging, appointment reminders, and appointment requests. It integrates well with Dentrix. However, when a patient requests an appointment, it becomes a challenge communicating with the patient if the appointment time isn’t available in the Dentrix appointment book. Often, what happens is that the patient assumes he or she will get the time requested when probably 9 out of 10 times the office is fully booked during the requested time. Then the patient either shows up for the appointment anyway and has to be rescheduled or the patient is frustrated because the appointment time he or she wanted is not available. There is a big difference between requesting an appointment and online booking.

What if booking your dental visit was just like making dinner reservations through OpenTable? If the patient could see only open times, then it would eliminate the frustrations between the office and the patient when the patient requests an appointment time that is not available. I know that, with the office I was in last week, this would make a world of difference. The amount of emails and voicemails that were going back and forth to try and get this patient booked was extremely time-consuming.

Now close your eyes and imagine what it would look like if the email or text message continuing care reminder contained a link where the patient could book an appointment with his or her favorite hygienist on a day and time that not only worked for the patient but is also open in the office’s Dentrix appointment book. Keep your eyes closed for a minute and imagine that you are still in full control of the situation. Yes, you say what is open and what isn’t (I know this is important because I was a scheduling coordinator once J).

Now open your eyes and let me bring you into reality with Dentrix Online Booking . . . launching in the first quarter of 2016. You can be a part of this technology movement by pre-registering for this service and receive 50% off the price. CLICK HERE to reserve your place in line.

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Best Practices for Your Team . . . monthly


You have been managing your daily and weekly systems according to plan and now you want to see how the month ended and how much your efforts paid off.  If you are following a guideline, carving out time in your schedule to work the reports, and documenting your communication, you are on the right track for success.  Like I mentioned in my last article, get into preventative mode and out of reaction mode.  This is what we preach to our patients and you can treat the business side of dentistry exactly the same way.

This final article in my Practice Management “best practices” series is what to do on a monthly basis. The goal for your end of the month is to celebrate your success, review with your team, and report to the powers at be.  Numbers tell a story and help you create, change or eliminate systems.  Here is my recommendations for monthly reports and who on the team needs to review them.

·        All Team Members:  In my last article, I gave some recommendations on which team member in the practice should work which reports, but the overall health of the practice falls on everyone.  Of course there are team members who are accountable for different areas of the practice. However, every team member contributes to the success and demise of the practice.

o   Practice Advisor Report:  This report is my favorite report for your team meeting.  It brings together multiple areas of the practice on one report and is laid out in a way that is easy to read and gives recommendations on how to improve the numbers if they are below your benchmarks.  For more information on this report, CLICKHERE.

·        Doctor/Practice Owner/CPA:  There are certain reports that need to be forwarded to the office bookkeeper, CPA or banker.  Also, there is one report that is reserved for the practice owner’s eyes only.

o   Audit Trail: The Audit Trail report is a back end report that can be password-protected so the practice owner can see accounting edits, prescription deletions and login history.  CLICK HEREfor more information on this report.

o   Analysis Summary:  This has been a popular report to give to practice owners who have a business loan.  I have been asked “What is the best report to show production, collection, adjustments, new patients and A/R?”  Here it is.

o   Adjustment Summary: There are many summary reports you can generate as part of your month end protocol. However, I think this one in particular is important because it will break down the write-offs into categories.  For example, if your office is using fee schedules in Dentrix because you are contracted with PPO dental plans, your practice would not have very many adjustments in the PPO adjustment category.  If there was a lot of write-offs in this category, I would be a little concerned.

·        Office Manager:  In addition to the Practice Advisor Report, I would go through a couple of other reports in the marketing and customer service side of the practice.

o   New Patient List:  This report can help you identify that all your new patients have a referral source attached to them and a thank you/welcome letter was sent out.  Remember that the new patients on this list are counted by first visit date not comp exam.

o   Referred By Doctor/Other/Patient:  These reports help you decide where your marketing efforts are paying off and gives you an opportunity to thank those patients or other business owners who are referring to your practice.  You can read more about these reports by CLICKING HERE.

o   Referral Analysis:  You may know that you can attach a referral source to each patient, but did you know you can track gratuities?  If you are using this feature in Dentrix, there is an analysis list that you can view by going to the Office Manager > Analysis > Referrals Doctor/Other and see the list in different date ranges. For more on this feature, CLICK HERE.

I hope that these last three articles on some “best practices” for your daily, weekly, and monthly systems has stirred up some interest in using Dentrix to completely manage the business and marketing side of your practice.  Continue to read back on past blog posts and use them as a guide to help create better team meetings, morning huddles, and as a constant reminder to keep your finger on the pulse of your practice.

 

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Best Practices for Your Team . . . weekly


Last week, we focused on what was important or the “best practice” for your daily protocol.  Today, we want to move to your weekly systems.  I teach my offices about practicing on the business side of dentistry the same things you preach to your patients in the clinical side of dentistry . . .  “prevention will help keep you out of emergency situations.”  Living in a preventative rather than reactive frame of mind will reap tremendous benefits to your practice.

What I mean by that is putting systems in place and carving out time in your busy schedule to work your reports, follow up with patients and communicating with your specialists on a weekly basis. 

·        Treatment Coordinator – Your main focus is case management and following up with patients who have unscheduled treatment.  When patients walk out of the office without scheduling the crown on #30, you can’t expect them to call, you need to follow up.  The treatment coordinator should be working three reports every week.  You will need to carve out at least 2-3 hours a week of uninterrupted time for this.  

o   Treatment Manager Report – This is your chart audit.  I know some of you are still printing the Unscheduled Treatment Report … stop doing it!  The Treatment Manager is your go-to report for managing unscheduled treatment and one of the reports for keeping your schedule full.  For more details on this report, CLICK HERE.

o   Referred TO Report – When your clinical team is treatment planning and attaching the referral to a procedure code, that patient is automatically added to this report.  Anytime your patient must complete a procedure (i.e. implant placement, root canal, perio surgery) before they can return to your office for the restorative treatment, someone must be making a follow-up call to make sure that treatment is getting completed so you can move forward with that patient care. For more information on how to track referrals, CLICK HERE

o   Unscheduled List – This list should be worked by the hygiene coordinator and the treatment manager.  Follow up with these patients and get them rescheduled. Don’t let them sit on this report for more than six weeks.  For more information on this report, CLICK HERE

·        Hygiene Coordinator – Your main focus is following up with patients who are past due for their recare visit.  Yes, you should have some kind of automated system for sending email, text messaging, and postcards. However, you will still need to pick up the phone and make some calls.  Also, you might want to consider having a patient reactivation system for those patients who are severely overdue.   So how do you keep tight reins on your recare patients?

o   Continuing Care List – This is your go-to list for finding patients who are overdue.  To make this task more streamlined, create yourself some custom lists so you can filter down your lists and it is easier to delegate.  CLICK HERE for more information on this report

o   Unscheduled List – Just like the Treatment Manager, you must work this list on a weekly basis and keep it current.  Don’t let your recare patients sit on this list forever. Follow up with them and delete them off the list if they are not returning your call.  For more information on this list, CLICK HERE

·        Financial Coordinator – You have a big job … collecting the money.  Your team depends on you for results.  If you are not collecting 100% on the day of service, then your accounts receivable needs attention.  There are two reports you must manage on a weekly basis.

o   Insurance Aging Report – This unfortunately is the only report in Dentrix that you have to print (keep sending in your Enhancement Requests for an interactive report).  Insurance companies should pay you within 30 days . . . period!  This will require you to follow up on unpaid claims.  For more information on this report, CLICK HERE

o   Collection Manager Report – Contrary to what you might hear, the Aging Report is NOT your best report for managing patient accounts receivable.  The Collection Manager is much more interactive and will give you more up to date results of your true A/R.  For more information on this report, CLICKHERE.

·        Clinical Team – There are definitely things in the clinical area that need attention on a weekly basis, such as ordering of supplies, stocking rooms, maintenance of equipment and managing your in-house lab.  However, you can definitely help with some of the reports I shared above.

o   Continuing Care – The hygienists can assist with calling patients who are past due if you have an opening in your schedule.

o   Referred TO Report – The dental assistants can help follow up on patients who have been referred to specialists, especially if it requires ordering parts or scheduling lab time.

o   Lab Case Manager – If you are using the Lab Case Manager, you could make sure cases are set to come in on time or use it to track lab fees.  For more information on the Lab Case Manager, CLICK HERE.

Read back on last week’s article and put it together with this one and I can almost guarantee your monthly reports will be right on target.  This is how you manage a practice … by having systems in place for your daily and weekly tasks then you can celebrate when you review your monthly reports. 

My next blog will focus on the monthly systems and my favorite reports in Dentrix.

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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.

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Top 5 products from the Business of Dentistry Conference


Now that I am all caught up on my emails and voicemail messages after being in Las Vegas for the Dentrix Business of DentistryConference, I can fill you in on some of the new and exciting products I saw over the weekend. Since I was teaching six classes while I was there, launching my own awesome product (see below), and talking with the vendors, I had an opportunity to see and hear what dental offices are asking for. With that in mind, here are my top five new products I saw at the Business of DentistryConference and I want you to know about.
  1. The PPO Analyzer for Dentrix – Not because it is my product, but it generates the most beneficial reports you can have if your office is using fee schedules in Dentrix … and it is such a great value, priced at only $300. If you are looking for statistics on your PPO patients to help you make better decisions on your PPO plans, then this is a must-have for your practice. For more information, CLICK HERE.
  2. Practice Safeguard – Are you ready to see financial security as it should be? Practice SafeGuard is a web service for doctors that alerts you to problematic ledger entries the moment they’re submitted. At the same time, it rolls your financial history into real-time business trends and performance metrics. For more information, CLICK HERE
    ·         Prevent potential issues with 24×7 monitoring and instant transaction alerts
    ·         Understand and respond to threats with issue explanations and recommendations
    ·         Drill into entry details and log your actions for documentation
    ·         Slice and dice your financial data with flexible analytics–premium users
    ·         Schedule reports to hit any inbox at any frequency–premium users

  3. Text2Floss – What if you received a text message that said, “Did you floss yesterday?” Would you dig through your purse or glove box and look for that floss kit you just got from your dentist? This new app will do just that and so much more. For more information, CLICK HERE
  4. ImageRamp for Dentrix – Are you looking for a streamlined way to scan into the Dentrix Document Center, organize your documents better, and be able to enter more detailed notes? This new product allows you to enter the document information in one place using easy-to-use dropdown menus. Also, if you need to create a new folder, you can do it without having to add it into Dentrix first. For more information, CLICK HERE
  5. RecordLinc – In an age of HIPAA compliance, the dental office is constantly looking for secure ways of sharing information between their patients and other healthcare providers. RecordLinc is a powerful, easy-to-use, and secure web-based portal where dentists can upload and share their patients' X-rays and related records when they refer their patients to specialists such as orthodontists, oral and maxillofacial surgeons, and endodontists. The system links dentists and specialists together in a virtual team environment that supports real-time case planning and ongoing collaboration through online study clubs. RecordLinc is a platform that provides a consistent means of coordinating multidisciplinary patient cases by consolidating the history of work effort on each patient into a single, centralized location. RecordLinc provides a history of collaborative patient care from start to finish and allows users to access X-rays and related records. RecordLinc provides a means to create notes that are shared across various disciplines involved in the care of the patient. For more information, CLICK HERE

I hope to see you all at the Business of Dentistry next year!

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