Top 10 Posts of 2019

As the end of the year is fast approaching, I thought we could take the time in this week's post to reflect on some of the topics that have been popular with readers throughout 2019.

Some you may have read, some you may have missed, and some you just may need to be reminded of! Here's our top 10 posts of the year:

10. Route Slips or Patient Visit Forms: Which is Right for Your Office?

9. Speed Up Your Note Writing Process

8. Using the Appointment Checklist

7. How Dentrix Questionnaires Can Streamline Patient Paperwork

6. Assigning User Password Rights in Dentrix

5. Customizing the Hover Window to Fit Your Needs

4. CareCredit Integration with Dentrix G7.1

3. Dentrix G7.2 Health History Features and Why They're Great

2. Managing Accounts Receivable

and our most popular blog post of the year...

1. 5 Tips for Efficient Patient Checkout

Updating Office Fees for the New Year

Do you have a protocol in your practice for how and when you increase your office fees? The insurance companies your office is contracted with will increase their fees periodically. You also need to increase your office fees for patients who are either uninsured, or for whom you are out of network with their insurance.

Some practices don’t increase their fees regularly.  I suggest that fees be increased annually. A good time to do these fee increases is at the first of every year. This ensures this process will be done on a consistent basis.

The cost of running a dental practice goes up. The cost of supplies, lab fees, and other monthly bills increase annually so it makes sense to subsequently increase your office fees.

Every January, make a note on your calendar to increase your office fees. A fair increase is 5-10%. You can increase your office fee schedule by a percentage in the Dentrix Office Manager.
If you aren’t sure how your fees compare to offices in your area, consult with your Henry Schein Field Sales Consultant. They can run a fee analysis to see how your fees compare for your area.

Once you have increased your office fees, any new treatment plans will reflect those updated fees. If a patient has had a treatment plan presented to them recently, those fees should be honored for a defined period of time—and make your patients aware of that timeframe. I would recommend honoring fees for three to six months. When printing treatment plans for patients, add a fee expiration date so that patients are aware of your office policy regarding fee increases.

Make increasing your office fees a part of your annual routine. Do it every January so that it’s done consistently.

Additional Information

• Updating Office Fees Using Automatic Fee Schedule Changes
• It's Time to Update Office Fees Again
• Setting Expiration Dates for Treatment Cases

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

Happy Holidays!


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.

Prioritizing those End-of-Year Openings in the Schedule

Does this ever happen in your office? The new year is quickly approaching and there aren’t many more working days left in 2019. All of a sudden, the patients that had treatment diagnosed throughout the year realize their insurance maximum is about to start over and they will lose any unused benefits. They want an appointment, and they want it this month!

This can put a strain on your office as you try to squeeze these patients into your already busy schedule. Ideal scheduling is a puzzle during a normal month, and the month of December can be even trickier. My recommendation is to prioritize patients when scheduling.

Here’s how to prioritize patients to decide which ones to schedule in the last few appointment times you have available:

Prioritize by Procedure

For example, I would consider a patient who has four crowns treatment planned, as a high priority patient. Not only will their treatment plan exceed one year’s insurance benefit maximum, but it will also benefit the patient financially to spread their treatment out over two years. Scheduling these treatment-planned procedures also benefits your practice too, because crowns are higher production procedures. 

An example of a patient I would consider to be a lower priority to get in before the end of the year would be a one surface filling. 

Similarly, you can prioritize hygiene patients. Patients treatment planned for scaling and root planing can be scheduled this year, as this is a procedure that will utilize a lot of their insurance maximum. This will leave 2020 insurance benefits to be available for other restorative procedures.

Prioritize by Insurance Benefits

Patients whose insurance covers two prophys per calendar year should also be scheduled before the end of this year so they don’t lose their second prophy benefits. And patients whose insurance covers prophys once every six months can be scheduled next year since their benefits are not based on the calendar year. When verifying insurance benefits, make notes regarding frequencies and limitations as Insurance Plan Notes in Dentrix for a quick reference.

Prioritize by Patient

The appointments you have available between now and the end of the year are precious. Do not schedule patients that typically cancel or no show for these openings. 

With few working days left in 2019, it’s important to prioritize which treatment and which patients you put on the schedule. Have a daily conversation with the schedule coordinators in your office to make sure they are scheduling the procedures and patients that work best for your practice during this last month of the year. You can also use Perfect Day Scheduling in the Dentrix Appointment Book to create time blocks for procedures to help the with scheduling. If you have any 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.

Requiring Referral Sources for New Patients

With the release of Dentrix G7.3 comes some exciting new features. One of them is an option to require a referral source for a new patient. I really like this new feature because I think it will benefit all types of offices.

To enable this new feature, in the Dentrix Office Manager go to Maintenance > Practice Setup > Preferences. At the bottom of the Additional Options section, check the box for Require Referred By for new patients.

Occasionally, an office team member may forget to enter a new patient’s referral source. This can cause reports regarding referral sources to be inaccurate. If these reports are inaccurate, it makes it difficult for a practice to use these reports to analyze data and make future marketing decisions.

By requiring a referral source for new patients, you can rely on the data you receive from these reports to be accurate. With accurate information, you can:

• Determine whether your practice advertising efforts are successful and what type of return on your investment you are receiving. Because these reports also include production generated from referred patients, it allows you to put a monetary value on each referred patient, therefore giving you the ability to analyze the return on your advertising investment.
• Know who your main referring doctors are and develop a way to thank them. This is particularly helpful for specialty offices.
• Evaluate which patients are referring their friends and family, especially if your office relies on internal marketing through patient referrals.

The Referred by Patient and Referred by Doctor/Other Reports provide valuable information regarding referral sources to your office. This information can be used to analyze current and future marketing plans. However, these reports are only accurate if referral sources are being entered into Dentrix.

By requiring a referral source for new patients, you can eliminate the problem of no referrals being entered. I’m excited about this new feature. I believe it will benefit all types of offices, both general dentistry as well as specialty, to create more accurate reports and therefore make better marketing decisions.

If you have questions about this topic or others, 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.