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Three options for treatment consents . . . PROS and CONS for each method

Any time you are trying to choose between option 1, option 2 and option 3, there are always pros and cons to think about. Your patients rely on you to provide the details between a bridge, implant and partial denture because they don’t always know what questions to ask. The same goes for trying to choose between option 1, option 2 and option 3 in your Dentrix software when deciding on how you are going to deal with consent forms for these treatment options. Yes, there are three different options for how you could deal with patient consent forms and I am going to give you some pros and cons for using each method.


Option 1 – Scan and shred using your existing paper consent forms
  • PROS – Your logo can be on the form so, when your patient takes it home, the branding for your office follows the patient home. The form can be as long as you want it to be. There is no character limit. Most likely the form is in a Word Document so you can edit it anytime you want. The forms would be nicely organized in the Document Center because your team would select the correct folder when they scan it.
  • CONS – This method uses paper. If you are trying to be paperless, this defeats the purpose. Your team will have to scan the form, which takes time. A scanned document becomes an image and uses more space on your server drive than an electronic form. The form does not automatically get locked up into history unless you sign it again in the Document Center.
Option 2 – Use the consent forms in the treatment plan module/panel
  • PROS – The consent forms are linked directly to the treatment plan case. The signature is captured electronically, creating an electronic form instead of a paper form. The details are automatically sent to the Document Center and put into their own folder.
  • CONS – It’s not very pretty. You do not have the formatting and branding options with these consent forms so you will have to compromise on style. There is a character limit so you will need to get creative if your consent forms are wordy. The form does not automatically get locked into history unless you sign the form in the Document Center.

Option 3 – Use the Questionnaire Module for consent forms.
  • PROS – This method is truly an electronic form because it is not saved as an image and uses electronic signatures. The formatting is much more customizable and looks like a nice form. You can capture up to three signatures if you need to and, when signed, the form is automatically locked into history. The forms are easy to use and nicely organized in the Questionnaire Module. You could upload these forms to your website or iPad for patients to fill out.
  • CONS – You still cannot put your logo on the questionnaire. The form is date stamped but not directly attached to the treatment plan.


Whichever option you choose in your practice, it is important to have that informed consent from the patient. The consent forms should be in a place that is easy for your team to use, edit and manage. It’s a personal choice. Hopefully this information will help you make the best choice for your office. 

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Case Acceptance . . . how much treatment are you scheduling each day?

If you have been reading my blog for a while, you have gained a lot of
knowledge about treatment planning, case management and following up on unscheduled treatment. Keeping your schedule full is imperative to having a successful practice and knowing what reports to manage to ensure patients don’t fall through the cracks is one of the core systems we manage in the practice.

You might be asking yourself, “What is my case acceptance?” and “How can I show my doctor the cases I am closing every day?” Is there a report that will show the treatment plans that are accepted on a daily basis? What if you are on an incentive plan for case acceptance? How would you show that to your doctor?

All those questions came to me from a practice administrator who is tracking case acceptance for his team. Then, the same question came in from a treatment coordinator who is on a bonus program for closing cases. I found it interesting that I was asked basically the same question by two different offices within the same week so I thought, “If they have this question, I bet the rest of the world does as well.”

You may know that I love, love, love the Treatment ManagerReport for following up on patients with unscheduled treatment. However, this report does not let me filter by accepted cases. For my article today, this is where I want to focus. You can generate a daily list of treatment plan cases that have been accepted so you can now know how much treatment you are scheduling and you can show it to your doctor if you need to report it.

Let’s say that three months ago, a patient was diagnosed with two crowns and she left without scheduling. Today, you called the patient to follow up and you got her scheduled. Woohoo! If you mark the case as accepted, now you have a way of tracking it.

Let’s also say that, today, you have five patients come in and you schedule three of them for treatment. If you also mark those three cases as accepted, they will also show up on the same report. Now you will have an accepted case report with four cases for today.


Go to the Patient Chart with the Treatment Plan Panel in view or the Treatment Planner and click on the printer icon as if you were going to print a treatment plan estimate. Instead of clicking on the Print Treatment Case, click on the Practice Treatment Case Report. Then select today for your date range and highlight Accepted for the case status. You will generate a list of all the cases that were accepted today and be able to show your awesome hard work for today. Great job!

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5 Ways to trust the data on the Practice Advisor Report

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

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

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


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

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Are you that doctor?

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

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

Here is what you can do. Create your custom procedure codes in the Office Manager. Go to the Office Manager > Maintenance > Practice Setup > Procedure Code Setup and add your new in-office custom codes. Here are some examples . . .
  • Implant Option – Crown & Bridge
  •  Implant Option – Fixed Hybrid
  • Full upper rehabilitation
  • Full lower rehabilitation
  • Four on the floor (I don’t know what this is but I have heard it)

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


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


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Business of Dentistry . . . why it's my favorite conference of the year

It’s that time of year. It’s time to get your doctor and your team registered for the Business of Dentistry Conference. As you have heard me talk about before, I have never missed a conference and I am going to give you 5 reasons you and your team should not miss it either. This year's conference is being held Oct 7th - 10th in sunny Florida.

 
  1. You will be repeating the words “I didn’t know Dentrix could do that! I can’t believe how we are under-utilizing our practice management software.” Even if you have been using Dentrix for over 10 years, I can guarantee you will learn things that you didn’t know existed. Last year, I taught the advanced Billing and Collections class and my class was filled with doctors excited to learn how the software could help their practices meet production goals. It was eye-opening.
  2. There is something to learn for every member of your team. Especially the dentist!  This year the Business of Dentistry is offering more clinical technique and technology courses than ever before.   The Dentrix courses have a skill level from entry level to advanced so the attendees can choose the level that best fits their knowledge of the software. This conference attracts some of the most sought-after consultants and they tailor their presentations to fit into the Dentrix agenda so you not only get amazing practice management educational material but you also get tips on how to implement it into your practice management software.  Check out the course listing by CLICKING HERE.
  3. Don’t miss the Learning Lab. This is my favorite part of the Business of Dentistry Conference. This is where you get to bring your questions and sit down with a knowledgeable support tech and get one-on-one help. If you are having issues with Dentrix, eServices, Easy Dental, or Enterprise, bring it to the Learning Lab. Here’s a tip: Take screen shots and print them out so you can show the team your issue (make sure you black out any patient information).
  4. Learn about third-party software that integrates with your Dentrix software. The vendors pour out into the hallways just waiting to tell you how their product, along with your Dentrix software, can help your practice more profitable, secure, or productive. Since Dentrix G5 opened up the Marketplace, there are many third-party companies that enhance your software in so many ways. I will have a booth at this year's conference so come by say Hi and check out what I have to offer you and your team. 
  5. Finally . . . have some fun and enjoy spending time with your team! This year’s conference is being held at the amazing Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in sunny Kissimmee, Florida.  Henry Schein always brings the fun to this conference. I can remember bowling parties and dance parties that were off the charts. I can’t wait to see what this year has to offer.

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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.

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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

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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 . . .