Understanding Database Maintenance

[Hersheydmd]

Any explanations of what causes some of these problems and how to fix or, even better, prevent them from occuring in the first place would be greatly appreciated.
10/24/2011 10:54:30 PM------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1) Claims found with no procedures: 1
2) Mismatched claim InsSubNum/PlanNum values: 50
3) Mismatched claimproc InsSubNum/PlanNum values: 166
4) Mismatched patplan InsSubNum/PlanNum values: 3
5) Mismatched payplan InsSubNum/PlanNum values: 1
6) Payments with no attached paysplit: 1
7) Procedures which are attached to appointments with mismatched dates: 1
8.) Warning! Hidden provider HYG-MB has claim payments entered as recently as 12/19/2010. This data will be missing on income reports.
Done

[jordansparks]

And you already ran the fix?
#8: Either unhide the provider, or be aware that old income reports will not be accurate.
What version?

[Hersheydmd]

And you already ran the fix?
#8: Either unhide the provider, or be aware that old income reports will not be accurate.
What version?

No, I didn't run the fix. I wanted to understand what is causing the errors first.

#8- The employee in question worked until 12/31/2010. Does that mean that income reports for 2010 or 2011 or both, will be inaccurate if she is hidden? Payments have been made in 2011 on some of the work she did in 2010. Should you never hide an employee (provider)? It's not a big deal, just hate having so many people who don't work here anymore show up on the sign in list.

What's with all the insurance errors? How are they caused?
Do I use the Ins Pay Fix button to fix them, or the regular Fix button?

[drtech]

I get your same errors all the time. I usually just hit the fix button, but I too would really like to know what is causing them and how we can prevent it.

[jordansparks]

Things that can cause database inconsistencies:
1. User opens a window and does some stuff, but then never hits the OK button. Perhaps OD is forcefully shut down, computer powered off, or whatever.
2. Bugs in early beta versions. So beta users will notice more of these and the resulting issues can hang around for many subsequent versions.
3. Conversions from other dental software can be messy.
4. Subtle bugs that we haven't actually found yet.
But whatever the reason, the first step is to fix the inconsistencies. A completely separate step for some of them is for us to figure out why it happened. This is especially true if it continues to happen.

8. If you hide the provider, any income will be hidden for that provider as well on certain reports. So you do have to make some decisions on how you want to manage that. For example, you could unhide, then run certain reports, then hide again. We're just reminding you about the issue.

Also, I don't know what version you are on. If you are or have been on beta versions, make sure to stay very current on the build numbers.

[Hersheydmd]

Jordan,
When you click FIX, what actually happens? Does it just hide the error? How does it know how to fix the error correctly. For example #7, if the appt and procedure dates don't match, does it assume one is correct and change the other one? How does it know which date is correct? What if it should be the other way around? Wouldn't it be better if we could see where the error is and fix it manually whenever possible?

[jordansparks]

When you click fix, it safely fixes the problem. If it can't safely fix it, then the problem might remain, and we might look at your specific database to see why.
7. In that particular case, it detaches the proc from the appointment, leaving both dates unchanged. As you can see, this is safe.
All fixes have been very carefully crafted by us to be very safe. Yes, it would be better if you could see where the error was, but the current compromise is the best balance of cost/benefit that we could arrive at. We do have plans for an improvement that would let you fix individual issues while excluding others.

[Hersheydmd]

Sounds good and makes a lot of sense, as usual.
Jordan, you are the man!!!