Data conversion question

[LewLashmit]

For those of you who've been using Open Dental, do you think it's preferable to have the OD staff do the data conversion for you, or to enter patients into OD yourself as they come in?
Thanks

[Rickliftig]

Lew -

I was amazed by how much data James was able to get from my program (Intellident). If you have a small practice, it will serve as a starting point and allow you to review the basic data (name address and phone and insurance) before procedrues are added and perhaps eliminate old info that is no longer relevant - old insurance plans, decesased patients, etc.

FWIW, we are running the two systems in parallel over three months to 1) accumulate history for statements (decrease confusion for the patient) 2) to confirm all data (probably about five accountsin a week needed tweaking (out of 65-70) 3) allow the staff to get up to speed (please don't even ask me about this! People do not like to change their old habits!)

It was well worth the $700.

[murmsk]

I had my daughter come in after school and type in records. It worked fine and kept her off the streets. There were many mistakes that had to be fixed as they were seen in the office. If I had it to do over I would have had Open-Dental do the conversion and make all the changes all at once rather that . I too ran both systems for a number of months. Staff fought the changes but eventually came around. It was a short term ordeal but the long term gains were well worth it.

steve

[jclaydds]

I converted from Patient Base Software in March 2008. I also worked with James. I was amazed with the amount of data he was able to convert over to Open Dental. He will do a test conversion for you. I would recommend you spend a good bit of time looking it over and see what improvements/tweaking that need to be done to your data prior to your final conversion.

I also considered not doing a conversion but starting over and entering patients as they came in but I have a two doctor practice that has been in existence for 25 years so I had huge amounts of data in the old software system. I am very glad I went with the conversion to bring as much of that data over as possible. In my case, James did everything I asked (and more!) to give me the best possible conversion. I considered the $700 I paid for the conversion a real bargain! Come to think of it, the entire Open Dental package is a real bargain.

[gongguy]

I have to throw in my 10 cents...

James did an amazing job with our conversion! We came over from a little known, off the beaten path, dental program and we were able to get more data than I could have ever dreamed from our old system. We had the Eaglesoft people do a trial conversion and they couldn't get much more than the names, addresses, and scattered insurance stuff. (I considered switching to Eaglesoft when my rep told me it was free... boy am I glad I didn't do that! But that's another story!)

We converted on the last day of August and we have been up and running without missing a beat since the first of this month. I am simply amazed!

If it were anyone else but these guys doing the conversion, I would say manually enter... but give them a shot... I'm sure you will decide, as we did, that it was worth every penny!

Bob

[Shoagland]

I converted from Softdent about 1 year ago, after using it since 1989. We had conversion done in late afternoon and were using OD the next morning, the old system was in the rearview mirror right away. Manually entering every patient only makes sense if there is no conversion available, or you are a new startup. It also forces you the learn OD faster, which is easy anyway. Trying to manage 2 systems at once is a recipe for financial confusion. SH DDS