Ask the Dentrix Expert: How do I clean up old, outdated treatment plans?

Editor's note: This year, we are once again providing a series of articles focused on practice management software tips. These articles are designed to help dentists and team members understand their individual practice management software programs better.

Today, we are providing you with a tip from Dayna Johnson, a certified Dentrix trainer and founder of Novonee.com. If you have a Dentrix question you would like Dayna to answer for an upcoming column, you can email her at [email protected].

Look for an article focused on Eaglesoft later this month. An article focused on Curve Dental ran earlier this month.

Dayna Johnson.

Q: One of my goals this year is to clean up our old and outdated treatment plans and make sure that, moving forward, they are accurate and up to date. This feels like a big project; how do you recommend I proceed?

A: Well, your question has a couple of different processes in it, so I will answer it in two parts.

First, to clean up your old and outdated treatment plans, I would use the Treatment Manager Report because you can filter the report by date, provider, procedure code, and other parameters. This report is similar to an Excel spreadsheet, so it is very interactive and can also be worked without printing it. If you would like my tip sheet on using this report, I would be happy to forward it to you.

Next, moving forward, here are some ideas for how to make sure your treatment plans are more accurate. The most important thing with treatment planning is that you are entering the correct codes and that you make the process as efficient as possible, since the clinical team is doing the treatment planning. The use of multicodes is a great way to control what codes are being used in the treatment planning process. When you use multicodes, you can also group codes together to reduce the amount of time it takes to build a patient treatment plan. You can then attach the multicodes to the procedure buttons. I have a tip sheet on this as well, so please reach out to me if I can help.

Dayna Johnson is the founder of Novonee, a Dentrix online community. She can be reached via email at [email protected].

The comments and observations expressed herein do not necessarily reflect the opinions of DrBicuspid.com, nor should they be construed as an endorsement or admonishment of any particular idea, vendor, or organization.