Practice Management

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 la

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

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 

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.

I am exploring this as its much easier just to take the payment automatically than trying to do it manually or retrospectively. I know Stripe has this feature but keen to have a system that integrates with the appointment and makes sure there is a card added with details of cancellation policy when they confirm their appointments.Thanks

Hi Everyone, I’m looking for feedback from anyone using Chairsyde in their practice.specifically:Are your clinicians actively using it during appointments or when treatment planning, and if so how are they finding it? Do patients seem to engage with or benefit from it? Do you audit its usage to track how often it’s being used and its impact?I’d be grateful to hear about your experiences, both the positives and any challenges so I can assess its effectiveness and how best to make use of it in our practices or decide whether it is an unnecessary business expense in my practices!

I’d be interested to know some examples of non-standard automations other practices have setup and the rule logic they applied in the settings to get it to work.An example of a few that I have setup include:Missed appointment warning - Automation set to send an email to a patient whose state is DID NOT ATTEND and email them 2 hours afer their missed appointment warning them that essentially 3 strikes and they are off our NHS list if they miss or late cancel (within 48-working hours) 1) their first appointment with us, 2) 2-3 appointments within the last 5 years or 3) a family appointment consisting of 3 or more family members (nearly 45 min of clinic time!)iMOS referral appointments - oral surgery referrals to us where we send them pre-operative instructions for the extractions.  We send this T- 48 hours and again T-12 hours as there are various things the patient needs to do e.g. not drink alcohol, eat several hours before, where to find us etc

Hi. What are you using for dentist wages calculations? Is it the practitioner activity report or the payment allocations? We are struggling with errors on the allocation of some treatments and been using practitioner activity. is there a better way to do this?Thanks

With the launch of our new appointment search function, I’m keen to understand how sites are managing diary zones to make sure they're hitting financial goals while seeing patients promptly as well as keeping practitioners happy.I usually stand by the blend of the 3 P’s - Patient, Practitioner & Practice, by taking each into consideration you can achieve the perfect day across your practice.To break down the diary zones into its basic format I normally suggest starting with the below zone groups:- Emergency- Recalls- New Patient consultations- TreatmentI’m keen to understand what other sites are doing to Zone out the diary or what's stopping you from zoning yours out.@Lesley Morgan-Barlow & @Esther Egan I know you both have a great set-ups for making sure each day hits your targeted day rate to ensure success but what does everyone else loo

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 

I want to know what tips people have for managing their membership plans in Dentally including how to keep track of quotas and discounts (not necessarily only through the portal but also keeping track in core Dentally) and also ensuring correct pricing for each plan?

This is one for the @Dentally team. Are there any plans this year to repeat the Elevate workshops?

We have previously instructed the team to explain all transactions, including deposits, to ensure that incorrect deposits are not linked when a new invoice comes in. However, they are frequently forgetting to unlink and match the deposits to the correct invoices. I would love to hear how you are managing this @Lesley Morgan-Barlowx 

Hi, I was thinking of upgrading plan and I was interested to hear experience on lock in e.g is it possible to upgrade from standard to advanced and if I don’t feel the benefits in a few months can I downgrade back to standard easily?

Hi, what are the guidelines for customising email signatures to be more on brand and match that of our main email system, or ideally, will Dentally ever integrate with Office 365.for example as a mail relay so it's all handled in one place?I am keen to tailor the messaging and offers on the patient Comms as we send most of this out through Dentally to existing patients. Thanks