Practice Admin

Hi, We are trying to figure out the most streamline way of patients signing consent forms digitally on our iPads. It would be great if there was a ‘consent tab’ available on the dentally templates, so they can sign consent just like they would sign an estimate. Can anyone shed some light on what you currently do with this. Thanking you in advance :-)

Hey Dentally Community! 👋 We know recalls can be a bit of a headache sometimes, so we want to hear from you. What’s tripping you up the most, and what nifty tricks have you discovered to get your patients in the door? Drop your vote and any extra tips or stories in the comments. If you want more info, check out our Help Centre and revisit our recalls tips post for some extra inspiration. Thanks for sharing your experience!

Hello, I have just been in a meeting regarding FTA Fees and deposits. We are in 2 minds what to do….Charge a deposit to pts who pay for treatment - the only downside to this, if the pt has an outstaanding amount from a previous course of treatment, Dentally automatically allocates the payment to that treatment, which will cause problems further down the line.  Start taking a charge for missed appointments through charitng a “Missed Appt Fee” which will show on pt notes. The only slight drawback to that is that if a pt doesnt ever come back we wont get the money. Is there a way to automatically take a payment through something like GoCardless. Obvisouly none of the above can be used on Denplan Care pts as they pay monthly but for Essentials pt and PFPI then it will work. I just wondered what other practices do to reduce FTA’s Tom 

Is there any way to add a digital signature to a letter composed for a patient?

A feature to incorporate would be to be able to send a patient a link to fill out their personal details and information prior to the appt. At the moment they can only fill out medical history, but I think it would be very efficient for workflow if reception when booking an appointment gather the name and phone number to sms or email a link for patients to fill out the remainder of their information. Which can then be reviewed by staff and confirmed

Hi would anyone know how to help me with a query?So we had a patient who was treated and paid in full, assigned to correct practitioner and site, the payment is showing up in the takings report but not in the practitioner’s report. I have used all filters correctly to no avail. I would appreciate anyone’s help with this!

I’m advised that Dentally does not currently support Chinese characters in Letters and Estimates.I can paste in my Chinese characters. I can hit save. But if I press Preview, it becomes a mess.Has anybody found a work-around for this? I’d love to have our Chinese templates loaded and able to be used :)  

We use the log a call drop down in the correspondence tab for about half of phone conversations that we have with patients. For example if a patient is phoning up because they are in pain or have lost a filling we have a list of questions that we ask to be able to triage them. It would be really useful to be able to pull across a template for this type of conversation to save us typing it up every time.

Has anyone else had an issue with the Bot closing a conversation with one of the help desk team without the person actually answering the question or is it just me?

Hi team,I was really glad to see the Lab work icons introduced - it really helps our team track at a glance where our jobs are at, and be on the front foot to manage this in advance of clients coming in.However, we offer Invisalign and many patients have short 15minute appointments booked in to change over their aligners.The problem here is, Lab work icons only show on appointments say 30min long - the icon is showing underneath the pending/confirmed/seated/complete icon.So therefore, we cannot glance at our diary and check lab jobs ie Invisalign retainers for many of our patients with shorter appointments.Can we have a fix for this?

We often have patients booking in for a series of appointments such a dentures which are 5-6 appointments in our diary and they ask for a list of appointments. We then have to type them all separately. A data tag for all future appointments would save so much time. 

A patients invoice is showing up on takings report but not under the individual practitioners report. Any ideas on how to rectify this? 

Good Afternoon, Would anyone know how to get the PRSI report for practioners. I have gone into reports and used all filters but the report keeps coming up blank. I need it to cross reference list of patients who were charged PRSI. Thanks 

I’ve recently come across a couple of children who’s accounts are “linked” to the account of a parent, but I can’t find a way to “unlink” them. I’ve tried changing the name on the patient screen but when I try to save the chnage it reverts back to the parent.I can see why some practices might like this feature, but I don’t. It’s too confusing for an inexperienced Receptionist as it shows both patients’ charges and payments on both accounts.Can anyone explain how to “unlink” these please?

Does anyone know if there is an unallocated payments report?

Can the development team look at changing the colour of the Completed and Confirmed drop downs in the Appointments Tab under Status. As both of these drop downs are slightly different shades of green, it's hard to differentiate when glancing at the appointments tab. Thank you 

Hi Is there a way that our patients with only a home telephone number can receive a text reminder for their appointment(s). Kind regardsSarah SleapChalkwell Dental Practice

I was wondering if there was an option to show the treating dentist when printing a daylist? Our hygienists charge the dentist a fee for seeing their Denplan patients and it would just be quicker if this was written on the daylist instead of checking each patient individually as they keep forgetting and then come pay day, it is my job to go through the entire month and check for them 🙃

Are the team @Dentally aware that when you add a family member from the patients record, it automatically pulls through information from the family record to the new member, this includes: Payment Plan Dentist Hygienist  Recall Dates Email addressThis is far from  ideal :-(

Is anyone else having issues with error messages popping up for missing essential information? This appears to be because the Mobile Tel is an essential field but surprisingly not all patients have mobile numbers. One of my team has also reported the same issue when entering Emergency Contacts via the portal, it doesn’t like landline numbers? 

Hi!My diary is not showing.Can you help please?THanks.Ana

Hi everyone,Is anyone else using the new Lab Work feature in the diary? I believe it’s still in beta testing, but I introduced it to my team today, and they absolutely love it! It’s such a handy addition to streamline lab case tracking and ensure nothing slips through the cracks.As an aside, @Saymon, can I put in a request for a similar prompt for Consent Forms that may still need signing? It would be incredibly helpful to have this feature available on the Visits screen too!Looking forward to hearing how others are finding the Lab Work feature!

Is it possible to assign tasks to multiple people rather than setting sub tasks?

We often send  feedback requests/ aftercare instructions/ tx plas to patients post appointment but prefer to not bombard them with estimates/invoices emails all at the once. Is there an option to schedule emails so they can be sent at more strategic times of the day when patients are likely to respond ? Bit like the gmail boomergang?  

Hi everyone, we’re looking to label treatments on our treatment plans more effectively to differentiate between those that require immediate attention and those that are part of a second phase of care or proactive/preventative treatment. While we can rename the appointment numbers on the plan, the titles don’t seem to reflect these changes when the plan is printed. Does anyone know a workaround or a way to customise the printed plan to show these distinctions clearly?