Practice Management

NHS regulations is Wales say an active patient is one seen in the last 3 years. It would be useful to have a feature to submit a bulk archive request for patients who haven’t been seen for a set period. 

It would be extremely useful to know the length of time a patient has been registered at a practice up until the point they have been either archived or blocked from making any further appointments.Just like the patient’s age and date of birth is listed at the top of the patient’s page, can we please also add a line with the length of time they have been a patient.The rationale for this is that it is useful when having to make sensitive decisions about deregistering a patient due to a number of cancelled appointments / failed to attends or bad behaviour.Whilst we can calculate this ourselves, it’s far quicker and nicer to see this information presented to us for every patient at the top.  It also acts as a nice talking point when they come in and recognise loyalty.This is such an easy and quick feature to implement as it not difficult to calculate this from the time they either first were setup or if that information is not available (because a practice migrated to dentally from anothe

Hi team, We have the Dashboard where we can see a forecast of our practitioner utilisation (commonly referred to as CTU or chair time utilisation), which is really helpful for practice management.However, to my knowledge, there is nothing to review historical CTU which is a major gap for practice management. Or if I am missing where it is already there, please point it out to me on Dentally as it would be really helpful.One of the key metrics for any business is productivity of resources, and CTU is a key element of practice productivity. I have heard that your add-on software lets you access this, however I think its a huge gap that Dentally does not let you report on historical CTU as a very basic metric for practice performance. Also not to mention, I am aware from some peers that several competitor software platforms do offer this in the standard offering. It should be a standard metric given in the software - The data is already available through the calendar (available hours), an

Hi Dentally team/community,I’d like to suggest a feature to link a treatment code to a default Appointment Reason.Implementation Ideally, each treatment code could have an optional Default Appointment Reason setting. When an appointment is created from that treatment, the reason would be pre-populated but could still be changed when appropriate.For exampleCrown preparation → “Prosthodontics” appointment reason Extraction → “Surgical Treatment” appointment reason Root canal treatment → “Endodontics” appointment reason Scale and polish / periodontal treatment → “Hygiene” appointment reason Fixed appliance bonding → “Orthodontics” appointment reasonThe idea would be that, when an appointment is created from a planned treatment, Dentally automatically selects or suggests the most appropriate Appointment Reason. Handling appointments with multiple treatmentsOne consideration would be appointments containing several planned treatments. I think this could remain simple:If all treatments in th

Tasks are difficult to manage in Dentally, the team can change due dates without it being clear on the audit. it would be nice if a due date was changed a reason was added in so we have transparency as to why due dates are being changed. Also Task reporting - can I see how many were created, closed on time, overdue - longest wait time etc. at the moment a task is as useful as a note when it comes to performance management which means we use it but trying to manage the team on these tasks is near impossible! 

Hi Dentally, I’m reaching out to ask whether you offer any support or guidance for tracking bookings related to Google Ads campaigns. It is essential for our marketing to have accurate data on the effectiveness of our ads and patient booking numbers through our Dentally booking system. Without this data, it’s challenging to optimise our campaigns effectively and ensure a strong return on investment. Google Ads tracking is normally set up through Google Tag Manager and GA4, however, it doesn’t look like you currently have those available as integrations. Is this something you are going to be offering soon? In the meantime, is there an alternative method for setting up Google Ads conversion tracking that you could provide a step-by-step guide for, or help us implement? Lastly, I can see that we have a Tag Manager added to our Dentally booking system. Please could you let me know how that’s possible, given that Tag Manager is not currently available as an integration? Thank you,TwentyOneD

Hi,Zoning the diary seems to be a freeform kind of thing to do - what i mean is that we can write whatever title and select any colour...which is fine...but i’m thinking how do we maintain diary integrity. Not that it happens often but if someone books in the ‘wrong’ type of appointment in a zone - how can i see this without manually hoovering over the diary?(actually scrolling through the diaries to do stuff is a regular thing but maybe another post) It’s something we push hard on is A using the zones, B putting in the right appointments in the right zones, it would be useful if we could see a list of incorrect appointments to then help coach folks or understand the causes.Having some more defined zone categories perhaps might help with future features ie online booking for treatment :) 

Hi team,We use the deposit feature regularly to discourage patients from cancelling on short notice/FTA and it is really helpful in keeping our utilisation up.There are a couple of things that would really help with making this feature more effective:1)A way for reception to follow up on unpaid deposit links sent out. There is currently no way to check which deposit links remain unpaid. The “send payment link” option has a generic message. We would like to update this with a template with additional text (to avoid manually typing it each time). However, if we try to set up an SMS template, the “ [payment_request_link]” for that deposit amount is not a tag available, ie we can’t link in that specific deposit amount, just the patient’s whole account (which wouldn’t work anyway as deposits are not listed as an invoice)… Could you look into making these enhancements to make taking and following up deposits more efficient?

We need end of day banking sheets for each clinician rather than a banking sheet that have everyone on. 

Has anyone experienced a low recall sending rate? We are set up for automated recalls, as we were with Exact, but have been told our recalls are not sending unless our patients have checked the marketing consent box!Recalls are not marketing!!!!! They are reminders agreed with the patients. They wish to have recalls but may opt out of other non- appointment related contacts.Seriously considering opting out of Dentally after one month in,  if this not resolved. Serious risk of loss of income due to increase in white spaces we never had before!!Any solutions out there? 

I’m trying to create a separate waiting list in Dentally for patients who have failed to attend, as I do not want them mixed in with our regular short-notice list.The aim is to keep these patients on a separate list so they can only be offered appointments that become available at short notice, while keeping our main short-notice list for patients with a good attendance record.Is there a way to create a custom waiting list for this purpose in Dentally? If so, could someone point me towards the correct setup or permissions required?

We went live with our online booking some 6 weeks ago.On average we’re getting only 3-4 online bookings a week despite having the portal link in all our recall emails and reminder emails and mainly from existing NHS patients.  More importantly, we’re seeing a large number of these patients making multiple bookings and failing to turn up for any of the appointments.  Why does the portal allow users to book more than one of the same appointment without warning them to either cancel or rescedule an appointment? There is no feature to switch off online booking for persisten offenders, only an option to prevent further appointments in general (in the patient’s details tab) which is not the same thing as I might be happy for them to call and my staff book them inWhat is the solution here because I can see this becoming an issue as not only are we seeing wasted appointment slots but multiple text msgs which just add up?

Hi guys,  I’ve been told theres a feature to add the reason why a patient has refused their treatment plan, e.g cost, finance failed etc.  Does anyone know how I go about setting this up? If not is it a feature that could be added it would help with KPI  Thanks

We recently migrated to Dentally and although there is many features that are fantastic 😁. There are some things I am missing from SOE 😶The biggest example is an invoice generated for Zero fee treatments. As there is no option to charge £0 on treatment plans, we cannot create an invoice. Why?We have capitation plans and pay our Clinicians a set fee for Examinations. We also pay our hygienists a set fee for patients seen under capitation plans. If these automatically generate an invoice even with a 0 balance they can then be found on the Income breakdown as a lovely total of that treatment code seen. In a format I can print/save. I am aware I can run a practioner activity report and add lots of filters but this gives me pages of information - since it shows every individual patient, when all I need is a sum figure of the code we use for these capitation exams. So if there is any other suggestions or can add this feature in it would be fantastic 😁    

I would be great if there was an option to send short notice lists via email rather than sms, also options to select what days/times appointment the pt would like to be notified for!

When corresponding with patient’s, it would be nice to be able to refer to them not just by name but with (he or she). The option of which pronoun they prefer could be included within the medical history or elsewhere within the program.Kindly let us know if this has or will be addressed.

Hi all, just wondering if you have a practice plan and how you pay your associates in regard to this? We are having to create a penny payment and then charge an invoice through as a penny - very confusing. Thank you :)

Am i missing a trick with zoning? for example our hygiene clinics are every 30 mins, is there an easier way of zoning this than having to create separate 30 mins zones? is there an option to set up a zone and make the slots occur every 30 mins between a set of times easily?

Hi all - I'm Luke, a product designer working with the Dentally team. We're building something we know a lot of NHS practices have been after: clear reporting on how you're tracking against your NHS contract. Where you are against your ACV/UDA target, how individual clinicians are performing, and where the gaps are - without having to piece it together yourself.We’re focused on Wales at the moment, but keen to hear from NHS practices from any region.Who I'm looking forPractice managers and clinicians/associates who deal with NHS contract performance day to day. You don't need to be a Dentally expert or have any technical knowledge - if you've ever had to work out whether the practice is on track, or had that conversation about an associate's numbers, you're exactly who I want to hear from.I'm keen to hear from both sides, because what a practice manager needs to see and what an associate needs to see aren't always the same thing.What's involvedA short, informal video call - 30 to 45 mi

HiDo Dentaly have any plans to improve the Xero integration?If a site is a single practice it works really well but multi sites who have seperate bank accounts for each practice, it doesnt work for as Dentally sends one massive invoice for the whole business to Xero. Would be nice to have better integration including xero’s invoicing system Tom 

 ​@Hebe Lowen HiCan I pls make some suggestions for improvement to the Dentally email screen - is it best listed here or on a fresh thread? Can we have the ability to pin emails please which are important and need to be worked on otherwise they fall down the list as new emails come in and get forgotten  Can we have the ability to assign emails as tasks to team members to action? Please introduce spell check and grammar check options into emails before we send them Let’s have the ability to have a list of emails without showing the one line content on the screen, and have a view like Gmail or Outlook where you can preview the message in the lower pane of the screen and toggle on the upper part of the screen with the keyboard up and down arrow to reach emails. Can we have the ability to view or filter messages which were manually sent by a staff member to a patient for important matters compared with hundreds of automatic emails sent out.  It makes it extremely difficult if not impossibl

Hey everyone! Did you know we’ve recently introduced some exciting updates to make Personal treatment plan templates even more customisable? Now, they’ll retain details like custom pricing, clinical notes, and appointment specifics, all tailored to your exact needs! We’d love to hear how you’ve been using these templates to streamline your charting process. Are there any features you’d like to see added? Let us know how you’re making the most of this update or if you have any ideas for future improvements! 👇 Head over to the blog for more details on the update.

HiCould I please request improvements to the following: Lab related featursLab work received - nice feature but the green lab bottle does not appear on the calendar in some circumstances.  I’ve played around with it and whilst it appears for patients who are booked in and have no long preferred name, I’m finding that where the name is long or we have additional comments in the preferred name and we want to set a short appointment time of 5-10 min, the green bottle will not display.  The only way I can make it display is by increasing the appointment duration to 20 min which we dont need that long.  I am able to book some 15 min appointments but only where the patient name is short.  Perhaps text wrapping or something is preventing the lab icon from appearing A logical extension to the lab work received is to have the ability to write somewhere which lab we have sent the work to (if we use and have several different labs).  Yes I know we can write it in the yellow sticky or in the chart

cannot delete clinical notes now since  last Thursday changes. Is any one else having this error even with level 4 permissions

It would be great if we could send the same message to a group on Dentally Chat in the way one might do on WhatsApp and the like. For example, if this was a feature we could send a message to all dentists, all nurses, all staff etc. like a bulletin.