Practice Management

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 “The status of the claim new, queued, submitted, completed, error, invalid, received, queried, withdrawn” -  this is from the API docs do you have any definition by any chance?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. 

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 etcWould like to know more interesting autom

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 look at when organising this space? 

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 

hi,hope everyone is doing well.Any advice how to use dentally specially when we need to paid practitioner? how can i run the report?I’m so new in this software. Many thanks for your help.

Hi Community!We have recently activated recalls on our system. We have 2 problems that we need help to resolve, please:When patients are contacted about a recall, a letter is mailed by Dentally, with a charge to us. Our preference would be to send via email, SMS or if a letter is needed, for us to mail it ourselves as we have plenty of spare stamps! The second problem is that some patients are getting recall letters despite them having future appointments booked according to the dentist set recall interval - how can we resolve these issues? TIA

Hi, how can I get my API key for my practice for a custom integration I am building?

Im trying to do report on dentally for the actual amount of time spent treating patients. However, it seems that when an appointments is double booked ( like a family appointment where all members have one time for the appointment) then dentally does not calculate this accurately, and only allocates the whole time of the family appointment to the report rather than the time spent on individual patients in that family.  so the reports are inaccurate. This is a very important report so we can work out the actual time spent for therapists treating patients , as some of these therapists are paid on an hourly rate.  how can we work the actual time spent iand take account of the actual time rather than the double bookings time in the diaries?

Hi, I am a new small practice in my first 6 months and just working on building the patient list…..i was hoping to introduce a “recommend a friend code” for patients and their friend to benefit from a small discount.   Has anyone had any experience of using this feature or if it is even available? Many thanks,