Problem areas

[Mtmccluredmd]

What are the worst features or functions for open dental? What doesn't work well? Does it lock up? Easy or not to navigate? I'm looking to make a change from Softdent and I'm wondering what the biggest issues are for switching to Open Office. Thanks
Mike McClure DMD MAGD ABGD

[Manny Ramirez]

I think the biggest issue OD has is that you don't have to pay thousand of dollars to obtain quality software. Another issue I see is that a lot of doctors feel intimidated by technology and since OD has a lot to offer in terms of integration with the web and converting a practice into a paperless office, they prefer sticking to more traditional mediocre software. What I mentioned above is just scratching the surface (and I don't mean the new Microsoft Surface) I've migrated dozen of doctors to OD and they never had a complain about OD freezing. The few ones that did were because they were using an old clunker for server but any decent computer in the market today will run OD pretty decently. My wife migrated from Ace Dental two years ago and never had to look back. She now has more control over her reports and audit the system like a pro. I think I've had more complains with Softdent being slow than OD freezing. Just download a trial, have the OD team run a trial conversion and give it a whack. What do you have to loose ?

[MKM]

I will be honest. The best and worst feature about Open Dental is how good it is. We switched from Softdent three years ago and it was the best decision we ever made. My frustration with the program is that the deeper and deeper we use the program, we come up against things it could do better. We track everything using this software, and my entire staff loves it. Every day we ask Open Dental to do things we never would have asked Softdent to do, because Softdent was so limited to begin with. Because Open Dental is Open Source and because they are actively improving it, literally constantly improving it, you kind of get miffed when the particular improvements you want don't happen immediately. It's like driving a Rolls Royce and getting used to the ride and the quiet so when you notice even a little sound, it is magnified. Now when I drove a clunker (ie Softdent) it was so loud and unreliable that I didn't even notice a little noise.
Does this make sense?
Make the switch. You won't be sorry.