Starting Over From Scratch: What would you do?

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SmilingPatient
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Starting Over From Scratch: What would you do?

Post by SmilingPatient » Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:05 am

Hello OD users, administrators, and developers!

We're migrating from Practiceworks to OD, going live January 1st.

There are many different ways to setup, customize, and implement OD, and I'm just wondering what other offices can recommend. Any advice is greatly appreciated...

Looking for comments specific to implementation, customization, workflow, or anything... please please take a moment to add your ideas.

Thanks,

Alex
Alex Botvinnik, Operations Officer
alex@smilingpatient.com
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Smiling Patient Dental Care - The Smile Studio
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Rickliftig
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Re: Starting Over From Scratch: What would you do?

Post by Rickliftig » Fri Dec 04, 2009 9:44 am

Most important, Alex - is how comfortable are you that your data is 100% and that your staff is trained?

I transitioned from a primarily account based program (Intellident) and ran the two systems in parallel for six months. During this time, I would spend about a half hour each night inputting charting and checking out data for all of teh patients who came in. It was overkill, but it allowed me to see where deficiencies were located. We also began entering in appointments and recalls (which had been previously paper based).The practice entry allowed me to see what routines I was using on regular basis vs. those that were rarely used. IOW, what was I entering when I placed a restoration, or saw an emergency patient? Did I really have to have an autonote for a rarely-used procedure - like say, cast post and core.

After six months in parallel, we trained the staff in November/December of last year and went live on OD in January of this year. I have let my front desk hold on to her precious appointment book because it is a security blanket.She hasn't realized yet that it's silly to enter data in twice - once on paper and once in OD.

Once we were comfortable that the front desk side was stable and comfortable, we went live with the back office (charting and procedure notes) in July. That was a piece of cake because all of our systems had been duplicated electronically and teh result was not a hassle, but a time savings.

The front desk had to get used to new ways of scheduling, tracking insurance, entering payments, sending messages and making notes that were not paper based.

Seeing as you have been using Practiceworks for some time, your transition should be much simpler than mine.

To answer your question about starting over from scratch, what would I have done differently? Not much at all.
Another Happy Open Dental User!

Rick Liftig, DMD FAGD
University of CT 1979
West Hartford, CT 06110
srick@snet.net

SmilingPatient
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Re: Starting Over From Scratch: What would you do?

Post by SmilingPatient » Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:10 pm

Thanks for your note.

As far as how confident am I about the data and staff training?

To answer, the conversion is going well. Almost everything we need is coming over. Appointments, notes, history, treatment plans... I've identified the gaps to know where to supplement as necessary. The biggest thing so far is charting information of restoration at previous office. None of that is coming over... so we'll have to manually transfer that. I estimate that to cost our office a little over $4k over the next year...

Staff training: It's my job to define the position, provide the staff with tools and training... then get out of the way. There won't be any double entry in our system, period. We don't have any extra resources to waste time feeling comfortable (No offense of course)... Out with 1, in with the other. Practiceworks will be available as a resource, but it will not be available to enter information.

That's the plan anyway...
Alex Botvinnik, Operations Officer
alex@smilingpatient.com
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Smiling Patient Dental Care - The Smile Studio
www.SmilingPatient.com

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jordansparks
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Re: Starting Over From Scratch: What would you do?

Post by jordansparks » Fri Dec 04, 2009 12:17 pm

I would be very surprised if history was coming over, but charting was not. They are one and the same thing.

later: OK, I understand now. Procedures that are the equivalent of our "Existing Other" status are not coming through.
Jordan Sparks, DMD
http://www.opendental.com

SmilingPatient
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Re: Starting Over From Scratch: What would you do?

Post by SmilingPatient » Fri Dec 04, 2009 1:57 pm

jordansparks wrote:I would be very surprised if history was coming over, but charting was not. They are one and the same thing.

later: OK, I understand now. Procedures that are the equivalent of our "Existing Other" status are not coming through.
Again, you and I are at a battle over terminology :)

To me... history are things like charting history, treatment notes, clinical notes, documented conversations, account history, and appointment history (completed procedures). All these things are coming over.

Not coming over at all are things completed prior to patient entering our office... so if a previous dentist had done a crown on 2 and mod comp on 3, that is not coming over.

Later: HA! tag, you're it!
Alex Botvinnik, Operations Officer
alex@smilingpatient.com
___________________________________________________
Smiling Patient Dental Care - The Smile Studio
www.SmilingPatient.com

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