Billing Types--Are You Using Them?

Assigning billing types in Dentrix is a great way to categorize patient accounts. The benefit of assigning patient accounts to a billing type is because nearly every report you generate in Dentrix can be filtered by a patient’s billing type.

Here are five ideas of how you can assign billing types to patient accounts, and how they can be useful in your office:

1. If your office does orthodontics, create a billing type for orthodontics. When you run an Aging Report, you can choose to exclude the orthodontics billing type from the report since those accounts typically take longer to be paid.
2. Use the No Insurance billing type for patients with no insurance. You can run the Treatment Manager and specifically target patients assigned that billing type to offer them a discount or discuss your in-office discount plan to encourage them to proceed with their treatment plan.
3. Use the Bad Debt and Bad Debt to Collections billing types for those accounts that have large, outstanding balances. When running your Continuing Care Report, you can exclude this billing type to avoid contacting those patients for recall appointments. 
4. Use the No Statement and No Finance Charges billing types for employees or friends and family of the doctor. When generating billing statements, exclude these billing types. This avoids any embarrassment of accidentally sending these patients a statement.
5. Assign the Payment Plan billing type for patients on payment agreements. You can run the Collections Manager and specifically target those billing types to stay on top of accounts that need to make consistent payment per their agreements. 

Billing types can be a great way to categorize patient accounts when running reports, because you can choose to include only the billing types you want to see based on the report you are running.

For additional information, look to these resources:

• Understand Your Patient Accounts Better with Dentrix Billing Types from the online Dentrix Magazine archive
• Assigning Billing Types in Dentrix from the Dentrix Tip Tuesday blog
• Customizing Billing Types in Dentrix Help

If you have questions about how you can use billing types in your practice, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

Speed Up Your Note Writing Process

Writing clinical notes can be a time-consuming part of any doctor, assistant, or hygienist’s job. The note-writing process can go a lot faster if you use these two features in Dentrix: procedure notes and clinical note templates.

Procedure Notes

You can add procedure notes to individual procedure codes which can then be copied into the clinical note whenever that procedure code is set complete. This works best for procedures that don’t require different options or modifications and the standard note would apply to all patients. For example, taking a panoramic X-ray could utilize this type of note because that note will be written the same way for all patients who have that procedure completed.

In the Office Manager go to Maintenance > Practice Setup > Procedure Code Setup.  Select a procedure category and a procedure code and click Edit. In the Procedure Code Editor window, select Edit Note and add the text of the note in the Procedure Code Progress Note field. When finished, select the Copy to Clinical Note option and click OK.

Whenever that procedure is completed, the text of your note will be copied into the clinical note in the Patient Chart. Simply copying a procedure note to a clinical note when it is completed is a great option for procedure codes that don’t require any changes to the way the note is written.

Clinical Notes and Templates

However, if there are variances in the way the note should be written, for example in the case of a procedure when one patient may require more anesthetic than another, I would recommend using clinical notes and templates in the Patient Chart. Using clinical notes is the best way to make clear, concise notes regarding how a patient was treated. You can write clinical notes in two ways: free-form, where you enter all the text for the note manually, or by using clinical note templates, where you are prompted to enter information specific to the procedures you complete. You can create and customize clinical note templates in the Patient Chart.

Although it may take some time to set up the templates initially, I believe they are well worth it! And once clinical note templates are set up, they will be available on all workstations in your office.

Writing clinical notes is so important to properly document the patient’s Chart. Make the process of writing accurate notes easier for your team by using the options Dentrix provides. My preference is using clinical note templates because of the prompts they can provide. These prompts help to eliminate any information being forgotten.

If you have questions about this or any other topic, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.


Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

7 Tips for Hiring a New Team Member

The human resources aspect of the job can be a challenging part of being a dental office manager. Counseling or reprimanding staff as well as interviewing and hiring can be both time consuming and stressful. Here are some tips to think about when it comes to hiring a new team member.

Be Specific in Your Want Ad
Let prospective employees know exactly what you are looking for. For example, your ad could say: Searching for a schedule coordinator for a busy general private practice. Must have at least two years of dental office experience, and experience using Dentrix software is preferred.

Set your expectations for potential team members from the beginning. This will avoid you having to interview unqualified applicants which would be a waste of your time and theirs.

Get the Word Out
I’ve found great employees by placing an ad online for free. Most cities have a Facebook page for dental offices which can be a great place for you to post the job, and for potential employees to see the job listing.

Also, talk to your local reps. My Henry Schein Field Sales Consultant is always a great source to let me know who is looking for a job in the area.

Contact Candidates
After receiving resumes and reviewing them, contact qualified candidates and set up an interview. Schedule interviews at a time that is convenient for you with limited distractions. Hiring a new team member is an important decision and you want to be able to give the interview your full attention.

Learn their Personality
When the candidate arrives and is filling out an application for employment, also consider giving them a personality test. I’ve found this to be a valuable resource. For example, I like for the Schedule Coordinator in my office to be an extrovert because they are typically good at greeting people and like to talk on the phone. The results of a personality test can also tell you how this person will best be managed.

Test their Dentrix Skills
Have your prospective applicants take a Dentrix Mastery Tracks test. That way you can determine how well a candidate knows Dentrix and know up front how much additional training they will need. There are courses and tests within Dentrix Mastery Tracks for each team member’s role in the office and you can test their skills and know where they need to improve.

Get the Team On Board
My best piece of advice when it comes to hiring a new employee is to involve the rest of your team.  We spend a lot of our time at work. You are often with your coworkers more than your own family! Once I have chosen a qualified candidate to fill the position, I take them out to lunch with my team. Let everyone get to know each other. In my experience this has helped to transition the new employee into the team.

Do a Working Interview
For some positions it is critical to do a working interview to be sure the candidate is the right fit. For example, it is imperative that an assistant work with the doctor to make sure they work well together. I prefer to do a working interview for all roles in the office to be sure that each candidate is the right fit for the office.

Try using these tips the next time you hire a new team member to be a part of your work family. If you have questions, e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

Establishing an Effective Continuing Care Process

Having an effective way to contact recall patients is important. Automated text and e-mail reminders using Dentrix Patient Engage can make that task easier. However, there will still be a need for you to contact patients by phone to schedule their recall appointment. You can use the Dentrix Continuing Care List to find and contact patients who are due for recall, but who don’t yet have an appointment scheduled.

An effective way to use this list is to update the continuing care status for each patient you contact to indicate what action was taken last, and let your staff know what action should happen next.

Continuing care statuses assist you in tracking where patients are in the stages of your recall process. Not only can continuing care statuses help you to mark where you are in your list, but they can also tell you what action needs to be taken next. I recommend that you create the following continuing care statuses: Call 1; Call 2; Call 3; and Letter Sent.  (For information on how to create a continuing care status, click HERE.) These four statuses will help you know where in the contact process your patients are. Because Dentrix limits you to ten continuing care statuses, I recommend you add the four statuses I described and use the remaining six statuses for common situations you find in your office, for example, when you left message on voicemail.

After you have added these continuing care statuses, generate a Continuing Care List by selecting the Continuing Care icon in the Appointment Book.

Another thing you can do is to create Continuing Care Views that will generate lists of patients based on the date ranges that correspond with the statuses you created (Due this month, 30 past due, 60 days past due, 90 days past due).

Here’s how you can use the new statuses you created when working through your continuing care list. The first week of the month, call patients who are due for a prophy this month, and when you get a hold of them, change their continuing care status to Call 1.  This lets your team know this patient has received one phone call to schedule their Continuing Care but have not scheduled an appointment yet. The second week of the month contact patients who are thirty days past due and change their status to Call 2. This lets your team know that this patient has been called twice but have not scheduled an appointment, and your office will make one more phone call to attempt to schedule the patient for Continuing Care. On the third week of the month, contact those patients who are sixty days past due and change their status to Call 3. On the fourth week of the month send a letter to the patients who are ninety days past due, and change their status to Letter Sent.

When you use this combination of continuing care views to find patients who are due, and then update their statuses as you attempt to contact them, you will ensure that all patients are being contacted regularly (at least monthly). By implementing the continuing care statuses as described above, anyone in your office can look at the Continuing Care List and know what the next step should be for that patient (after you’ve taken the time to explain the process to them). 

When contacting patients using the Continuing Care List, it’s important that you not only update their continuing care status, but also to document the phone call in the patient’s Office Journal which is accessible from the Continuing Care list.

One final suggestion I would give you is to designate a staff member to be responsible for Continuing Care. The Schedule Coordinator in the office is often a good choice. He or she should contact patients using the Continuing Care lists every week. Staying on top of the recall system is an important job to ensure patients are being seen on regular intervals. This will help to keep your hygiene schedule full, as well as give your doctor an opportunity to diagnose potential treatment plans. It’s a good idea to have one team member responsible for this. That way you can hold that team member accountable. It also eliminates too many team members being involved in this task. If too many employees have their hand in Continuing Care, it can create an opportunity for mistakes as different people have different ways of doing things. 

Contacting patients who are due for Continuing Care on a consistent basis is a good way to keep your hygienist’s schedule full, and to let your patients know you care about their oral health. 

If you have questions on how to effectively contact patients using Continuing Care, please e-mail me at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.

Charlotte Skaggs, Certified Dentrix Trainer

Charlotte Skaggs is the founder of Vector Dental Consulting LLC, a practice management firm focused on taking offices to the next level. Charlotte co-owned and managed a successful dental practice with her husband for 17 years. She has a unique approach to consulting based on the perspective of a practice owner. Charlotte has been using Dentrix for almost 20 years and is a certified Dentrix trainer. Contact Charlotte at vectordentalconsulting@gmail.com.