Practice Management

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?

I was looking at the Dentally NHS report and I was wondering why does the Dentally UDA report differ from the compass year end report in regards to UDA and UOA count. Would there be any reason for a discrepancy there?

Ability to send a group message rather than copying and pasting to individuals . We are a 9 surgery practice and find opening every dentist message box and copying and pasting far too time consuming. 

Hi Dentally team,More than a year ago we flagged with our Dentally contacts (Product Lead and Consultant) that Dentally does not have Cross Domain Tracking with Google.What this means (simplistically), is that when patients see a Google ad and click through to book via Dentally, the link is lost and we have no way of knowing how many leads convert to a booking. The Dentally team are aware of this and the associated issues, such as almost all competitors (at least, in Australia that I am aware) already do offer this, and also, it means investment in advertising has a poorer effectiveness/return on investment as Google cannot track and optimise the advertisements to get the best results. In short-  wasted expensive advertising dollars.In July, I was told by our Practice Success consultant that there was good news that CDT had been prioritised in the next quarter. However, he left  Dentally soon after, and despite following up at least 3 times via email, I have not heard anything at all b

Hi, As it is pretty much general policy that the use of remote access and cloud services in healthcare require a multi-factor authentication to be set for access.Is it possible to make this a requirement for new users to set up, or is it possible to at least allow us as a company to have it so new users must set up MFA in order to create their login?Many Thanks

Hi, i am looking for advice on zoning the practice Diary, we are mixed practice and feel the practice is extremely busy , the team seem burnt out. I am looking for ideas to help the practice feel more smoother . 

Hi, When we initially moved over to dentally we had put a feature request in for a month view of the diary, that could be filtered by clinician. We had this feature on our old management software, this allowed a straight forward easy view of how busy the diaries were for each clinician. It also allowed reception to see white space very quickly in order to book appointments, and to see any closed days.I understand dentally has the utilisation analytics, which we also had previously. I understand we cant use this to book but it at least gives us some idea of how busy diaries are. My request for this would be then simply add the ability to go forward month by month in the utilisation feature, rather than just allowing us to see the next 24 days.

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 :)

HI We have been using dentally since January, and having difficulty integrating the NHS referrals onto Dentally, we are having to flit in-between SOE and dentally . Is anyone else having issues or can advice us on how to refer through dentally?

We have moved over from Pearl to Dentally and have noticed that patients who have previously opted out of marketing aren’t getting recalls? As recalls aren’t marketing I’m wondering how we rectify this? 

  We’ve reached the final week of our six-part series - and we’re closing with something powerful: Dentally Vision AI!Designed to enhance clinical confidence and clarity, Dentally Vision AI uses intelligent overlays on your clinical images to help identify patterns and highlight areas of interest - like caries and bone loss - before you’ve begun your review. 👉 Read the full blog here  📚 Missed a week? Start back at Week One and catch up on the full series in your own time. That’s a wrap on Summer School/Winter Workshop 2025! Which tool/area have you found most useful in your work? Vote in the poll below 👇

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

For this week’s Summer School/Winter Workshop, we’re exploring the improved patient account screen, and the features that make payments a breeze!From deposit management and family payments to automatic allocations, your Dentally tools can remove the tedious admin and improve the patient experience - without compromising on accuracy. Check out our blog! 👉Optimise your accounting workflows to ensure your reception experience is as streamlined as possible for both you and your patients.What do you think of the improved account screen? What are your favourite tools? What would you like to see next? Drop a comment below! 👇

Cancellations have been significantly higher over recent months for us - anecdotally we are hearing the same from colleagues in Aus, I'm sure this can be validated by Dentally also.Cancellations and unutilised time are a challenge for practices to manage. At our practice, we try to be as proactive as possible to prevent issues arising.We are looking into what we can do to improve Cancellation rates - one initiative is to inform patients of our Cancellation policy (that we may take a cancellation fee out of their deposit, if they cancel with short notice - to deter them from cancelling). The ‘deterrant’ effect is important, psychologically, and used by many business across industries.  The difficulty is, as our online bookings are with Dentally, there is nowhere we can display this policy at the stage of booking. Eg "do you consent to our cancellation policy" or something similar.Could we please have this added as an improvement on the Portal for booking, as it could have the potential

For this week’s Summer School/Winter Workshop, we’re talking about the regional tools that work for you, freeing up your time so you can focus on what matters.For UK/AU users 🇬🇧🇦🇺, it’s all about integrations - the features that support your practice behind the scenes, from faster payments to better reporting. Let us know in the comments which integrations have made your life easier! 👇Read the full integrations blog here 👉 For CA users 🇨🇦, we’re reminding you of the powerful claim management tool, which takes out as much of the manual admin as possible, while ensuring you have everything you need. Check out our blog to see if you’re getting the most out of this handy features, and share your tips below! 👇Check out our CA insurance blog here 👉

Hi, does anyone know if it’s possible to search for a referral that has been sent and is stored on the patients “Referrals” tab. We have received a rejection email for a patient but I can’t locate it on Dentally and would like to be able to search by LAN number. Thanks

It would be really handy if there was a way of running a report to find any appointments that are booked when the calendar is set to unavailable due to override. For example; we have a clinician who has booked annual leave- so the day is set to unavailable and turns grey. The only way you can find this is by manually searching but if you could run a report it would be much easier.

Dentally had a feature of outbound calls, that was very convenient to make calls when other phones are busy but it seems to be discontinued. Is there any plans to bring it back anytime soon?  

I have a question about NHS claims on the API.There are several claim state but do you have a definition of these states by any chance? “The status of the claim new, queued, submitted, completed, error, invalid, received, queried, withdrawn” -  this is from the API docs do you have any definition by any chance? In addition when I query the API for approval_date I always get null values is this normal?Any advice is appreciated!

Would it be possible to update the new search bar…If you input all the information required such as 45mins for a new patient examination with dentist X. if you go to the diary and the patient then can’t do that time etc. If you go to search again you need to re-input all the information. It would be really helpful if it could save your last search.

Is there a way to change the payment allocation settings? At present they seem to allocate once the treatment is completed, but I was hoping there could be a way to allocate payments to specific dentists at the time of payment as we have a lot of treatments, Invisalign for example, that can take up to 6+ months and the dentist isn’t getting paid for the treatment until the whole course is complete. It would be nice to be able to filter it monthly. 

How are people please tracking their revenue/the practice position?As far as I am aware there are at least 3 different reports which all give slightly different amounts:Takings Allocated payments InvoicesAs many do, we work to a target each month so it would be really useful to know what other practices do which gives the best overview of practice performance on a monthly basis. Many thanks.

Hey Dentally Team,I have encountered a possible bug during my workflow. Patient has booked in online for a recall, paid a deposit. However, when I charged the patient for the account we were unable to do electronic HICAPS claim. I have checked the date of charge and it is correct. There is no bug for the deposit as it is unallocated and it did jump into the invoice.Or if I did something wrong please let me know. Joe

Good morning All 🌞I would like to know how practices keep track of referrals especially urgent referrals within Dentally. We currently use a custom Wait List but it is a workaround and not efficient.  We would also like to use automated SMS to contact patients 2 or 4 weeks after the referral to confirm that they have been contacted by the specialist. 

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.