New to Open Dental - Need Help

[tpton84]

Hi, I have a few questions. Can you help? We are a health center and going with OD. Starting from scratch.

1. On the ada claim form, the billing dentist part - I want the NPI (#49) to show the health center's NPI and not the Doc's, and the name (#48) changed to the health center. How do I do that?

2. When you open OD, the choose database window pops up, and I enter my server's IP address into the "localhost" section. I click do not show this window, but it pops up everytime and I would have to re-enter the IP address. How do I save this configuration and bypass this?

3. How do we set procedures "in progress"?

4. The OD keeps saying that clearinghouse not found. Tesia finished installing their software, but they ran out of time to give us the training. Will OD automatically send the claims to tesia thru the OD software, because I feel like tesia won't know how to navigate around OD. Can someone shed some light on this topic?

I am new to the billing part of dentistry. Your expertise is greatly appreciated. I would like to feel more comfortable with OD. Please help.

[jordansparks]

1. Use a dummy provider for the billing dentist. Use the health center info when setting up that provider.
2. When you launch OD the first time, right click, run as admin. The config will then be saved properly.
3. I'm not sure what you mean. During the appointment? You could set the appointment "in progress". The procedures would typically be set complete towards the beginning of the appointment in order to start entering notes.
4. You will always send e-claims from one computer where Tesia installed their software. OD drops the files to a folder, and the Tesia program picks them up from that same folder. We can help you if you call us.

[tpton84]

Thank you Jordan for the clarification. That really helped.

#3. Say, you are doing a root canal on a molar, and the procedure requires another appointment. How do we set the RCT to in progress and not complete, or should we just keep it as TP and write the status in the progress note? Thanks.

[JimZ]

We have a No Fee code for RCT File. When this situation arises we add this procedure and place our notes for the day into here and set this one to complete. That way the RCT procedure that has the fee will be saved until a future date when we can complete the treatment. If on those stubborn occasions we may need an extra appointment, we can add more No Fee RCT File for those appointments and not mess up the accounting. Hope I explained that well enough.

Jim

[tpton84]

Thank you.

So in other words, make your own code just for record keeping right? Similar to "step-codes"? Thank you. Is there a function to do that in open dental... step codes... Thank you.

[jordansparks]

There are already a number of no-fee codes that we included. They start with N instead of D. You can easily add more.

[nathansparks]

Yes, as Jordan said it is easy to add your own no fee codes, and then use a procedure button http://www.opendental.com/manual/procedurebuttons.html to tp all of the grouped 'steps' together, then set them complete as they are completed.