Moving confirmed appointments and Patient Statements

[Jay]

Two (perhaps obvious) issues.

1. Moving 'Confirmed' appointments even to another day does not change their 'Confirmed' status. So, any automated confirmation services (say, Lighthouse) and even other staff members will ignore the appointment simply because it is marked 'Confirmed"

2. Generating a Patient Statement for one patient has a default Date Range from the beginning of time to 'Today' so it maximizes the number of pages printed. I think the default option should include minimum (not maximum) information. More information (including the current default of Everything) can always be created if required or requested by the patient. Employees often get careless and print large number of pages and add to postage costs. So we can either make Today the default Start Date or better still create a new default with no procedures at all. Thereupon people can choose what to include.

Sorry if the solutions are blatantly obvious to old hands.

[jordansparks]

2. It prints the same as it shows on the screen. So just change the Account view to be the way you want it to print by default.

[Jay]

2. It prints the same as it shows on the screen. So just change the Account view to be the way you want it to print by default.

Thank you Jordan but my request is to be able *by default* to see the maximum information at our end in the Account View and still put down the minimum information on a generated Statement. Thereupon if more information is needed on a Statement we can always change individual statements or even a batch. Just a thought.

[jordansparks]

This was never an issue in our dental office. I'll ask my old receptionist why not. Maybe because walkout statements were generally printed on demand, and those only show today.

[Jay]

1. Ok great. We snail-mail our statements and do not want to mail out bulky items. And those who use email might want to keep details to a minimum as well.

2. Any insights on the other issue (#1) on why moved appts continue to have Confirmed status?

[jordansparks]

If you are talking about mailing statements, then that's totally different. The bulk billing part of Open Dental does have defaults that can be set. See the second screenshot at http://www.opendental.com/manual/billing.html

[Hersheydmd]

Moving 'Confirmed' appointments even to another day does not change their 'Confirmed' status. So, any automated confirmation services (say, Lighthouse) and even other staff members will ignore the appointment simply because it is marked 'Confirmed"

I agree with you Jay. Even with all the training in the world, when staff is multitasking and rushed it is only human nature to forget to do something as trivial as "unconfirming" a previously confirmed appt when moving it. It stays confirmed even when moved to the Unscheduled List, and then back onto the schedule. I am surprised more people haven't complained about this issue. It is quite an inconvenience and occurs so easily, that it seems more like a bug than a feature request.

[jordansparks]

It's request 1208, with zero votes. I agree 100% that it's annoying. But lack of automation isn't a bug. And that feature request is competing with thousands of other requests. I just changed the difficulty to 1, and due to the low difficulty, it is likely to get done sooner rather than later.

[Hersheydmd]

Jordan, I realize it's not really a bug, it just feels like one. It's more a nuisance and illogical behavior. Anyway, my votes are all tied up on other requests, I don't have any left to add to this one. But I did put a few pesos on it.

[teethdood]

My staff never move any appointments to another day. They just break them, then make another appointment. I think that works better because it is easy to see how flaky a patient is, and by extension how flaky your patient base as a whole is for that day. If you keep moving confirmed appointments, then you don't really get a "paper trail" of how many appointments they have missed. Patients can't use that excuse of "car trouble" too many times. My office does this and so we never run into the moved confirmed appointment stays confirmed problem. Just my two cents.

[Jay]

@teethdood: I like what you are proposing and to be honest we are considering it. Unfortunately it needs discipline which is often in short supply. As @Hershey said, too often people take the path of least resistance in a high pressure situation. Maybe moves should be permissible within a day (to accommodate someone who is stuck in traffic) but not across days or permissible across days after flashing a warning. Anyway we'll try to implement this suggestion.

[jordansparks]

We don't recommend leaving broken appts in place. You are at least detaching the procedures and then reattaching them to the new appt, right?

[teethdood]

Jordan: I don't see any ill effects when breaking appointments without detaching procedures. When I make a new appointment, the attached procedures from the previous appointment still shows up (albeit with the "other appt" tag). I can then choose those. I've always done it this way. Should I be worried?

[jordansparks]

I think that only works because of the recent improvements (within the last few years) that we made to let you grab procs from other appointments. If it's been working for you, then I guess it's ok. It's not how we train people to do it.

[Hersheydmd]

Philip,
No harm in leaving a broken (no show) appt on the schedule if it is too late to put someone else in.
But what about cancelled appointments that aren't immediately rescheduled. You should send them to the unscheduled list so you can book someone else in that slot.
What we do is, we first "break" the appointment, which opens up the "Edit Adjustment" window. The procedure date is changed to the appt. date. Under "Additions" we choose "Cancelled Appt", and in the "Note" we enter the reason for the cancellation. If it happens too many times and they don't give enough notice we also add in a fee.
The cancelled or broken appointment will show up and stand out in the patient's ledger for all to see. Thus, you keep your "paper trail" of how many appointments they have missed or cancelled. I also like that it shows up on their statements.
Then we send the appointment to the "Unscheduled List" so it can be recycled later and the appt slot opened up for another patient.
Here is where the status needs to be changed from "Confirmed" to "Not Called".