Dentrix vs. Open Dental

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B.Thomas
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Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by B.Thomas » Sun Feb 16, 2014 10:44 pm

So there is this new member of Dental Town who just joined last month, "Drphannie". He or She has started two topics in Dental Town. One titled "Dentrix vs. OpenDental" the other "If Dentrix and Open Dental were the SAME PRICE, which PMS would you really choose?" Both topics subtly undermine Open Dental and promote Dentrix. Here are some of the "Drphannies" comments;

"My partner wants Dentrix because ... he thinks that the learning curve for OD may be steep for assistants and other dentists"

"When trying the OD trial version, he found Dentrix to be more intuitive"

"Most of our colleagues use Dentrix"

"Just wondering if the low upfront costs make people look over any shortcomings that OD may have"

"When I open up OD, I see grayness everywhere - it's a bit bland"

"I think... overwhelmingly OD is outdated. In fact, one of the first things that comes out of peoples' mouths when I mention OD is "I heard it's great, but it looks like safe mode" "

Is it just me or does this seem like a sales rep from Dentrix managed to get a fake Dental Town account and is trying to spread some negative press? I took offense to this at first but realized Dentrix must really be losing customers to Open Dental to resort to this.

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jsalmon
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by jsalmon » Mon Feb 17, 2014 9:05 am

"My partner wants Dentrix because ... he thinks that the learning curve for OD may be steep for assistants and other dentists"
It's funny to hear that. I cannot say whether it's easy or hard to learn to use but just the other day I asked a coworker if they had a juicy "unhappy" customer story for me in the break room and they said "Actually no, most of my calls end with "Oh, it's that easy?""

"When trying the OD trial version, he found Dentrix to be more intuitive"
I can actually see this being true. Our trial is the full blown version of the software with a 30 patient limit. Makes sense that they'd be overwhelmed with the entirety of Open Dental thrown at them. There's just so much to Open Dental it's probably software overload for some users that want to test out "simple" tasks at first.

"When I open up OD, I see grayness everywhere - it's a bit bland"
I can't argue with this one. I feel the same actually. We've been talking about giving Open Dental a nice visual update but it will take a lot of time and right now we're focused on getting some feature requests pumped out for you guys now that we're done with EHR 2014.

"Is it just me or does this seem like a sales rep from Dentrix managed to get a fake Dental Town account and is trying to spread some negative press? I took offense to this at first but realized Dentrix must really be losing customers to Open Dental to resort to this."
People will always have their opinions. It makes me happy that you took offense but I really don't feel it's worth getting too worked up over. It reminds me of the Droid / iPhone arguments that still ensue to this day. The way you can get back would be to spread the great things about Open Dental. Our main marketing source for getting customers to use Open Dental is by word of mouth. It speaks for itself.
The best thing about a boolean is even if you are wrong, you are only off by a bit.

Jason Salmon
Open Dental Software
http://www.opendental.com

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Justin Shafer
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by Justin Shafer » Mon Feb 17, 2014 4:14 pm

She called me.. She is from Pennsylvania.. And she asked me these questions.. I kinda thought she was a Schein spy trying to get me to say something.... bad. I made a blog post about it.
http://justinshafer.blogspot.com/2014/0 ... -same.html

I have her phone number if you wish to call her. :lol:

She is REALLY nice. Her son likes computers. But I was still kinda weary to talk to her... I was careful not to hate on anyone. :lol: I thought at first her tone.. her tone sounded like she had an axe to grind, until she started talking about her son.

Check out my blog.... It may explain a lot.. may not.. Maybe I am just paranoid, as usual. 8)

Side Note:
Oh wait your Open Dental I don't have to worry about you telling me stuff.. Nevermind.

"It's EASY".... :o........ :idea:

There is a reason I tested Faircom 9 before testing Dentrix. I wonder.. what that reason is?

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Hersheydmd
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by Hersheydmd » Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:06 pm

"When I open up OD, I see grayness everywhere - it's a bit bland"
I can't argue with this one. I feel the same actually. We've been talking about giving Open Dental a nice visual update but it will take a lot of time and right now we're focused on getting some feature requests pumped out for you guys now that we're done with EHR 2014.

It's looks just fine the way it is. This is a non-issue.
Robert M Hersh DMD, FAGD
Univ. of Penn 1982
Brooklyn, NY 11234
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Robert-M ... 1471599429

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Justin Shafer
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by Justin Shafer » Mon Feb 17, 2014 5:33 pm

I think it could use an update to its gui in certain aspects, but.. I guess looks don't impress me as much as functionality.

I would rather see a stronger reporting engine for fancy graphs I suppose. They LOOK great. Think about all the old 486 computers you wanted that had graphs on the monitor. :lol:

Graphs have been used by the IT marketing industry for years... :mrgreen:

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B.Thomas
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by B.Thomas » Mon Feb 17, 2014 6:19 pm

I must admit, some 3-D user interface graphics would be nice. Maybe add some rounded corners and a Windows 7 Aero Theme look....just don't follow Microsoft with their Windows 8 Metro disaster :(

As a specialist I visit many dental offices and always check out what system they are using. In my opinion all of the dental software program systems look pretty much the same; Tabs on the left, a multi colored block calendar and a spreadsheet looking accounting section. That's why I thought someone calling out Open Dental was unusual.

Can someone give me an example of of practice management system with a really outstanding user interface?

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drphannie
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by drphannie » Fri Oct 30, 2015 11:22 am

Hello all,

I saw this thread before and had to laugh.
I am a real person, a real dentist, and have been using Open Dental for the 1.5 years because I was actually able to convince my partner to use OD instead of Dentrix. The only way I could do that was by showing him the poll that I had made and all the threads and posts and opinions of dentists on DentalTown.

Whomever said that I was Pennsylvania - wrong. Not sure who you were talking about...and I don't have a son.
But I do think of myself as a nice person :D

Anyhow, life is grand. There are definitely still some issues that we've come across that makes my partner wish OD did better. But overall, I've been happy and he's been content.
As for the issues I brought up - they are valid issues. Even if you don't agree with them, there are many people that think this way, and that is why I brought it up.

And no...I don't work for anyone else other than myself. Not dentrix, not schein...

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Justin Shafer
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by Justin Shafer » Wed Nov 04, 2015 5:03 pm

Strange... because I still have that call on my call log. It was probably someone just pretending to be you.

.....

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Justin Shafer
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by Justin Shafer » Thu Dec 10, 2015 3:24 pm

http://justinshafer.blogspot.com/2015/1 ... enter.html

Heh... Got document compression????? Not Dentrix! HAHAHA

JoeWilliams
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by JoeWilliams » Sun Jan 21, 2018 10:41 am

Yeah i used Dentrix for 5 years and i am more than happy, but i heard that my friend in Germany has a better software i think it is called Prolom 777 or something like that, he sent me snapshots, so i want to hear what are your thoughts on that,, are you ever heard of that software?

stjames70
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by stjames70 » Sun Jan 21, 2018 5:33 pm

Seriously? We tried to implement the latest version of Dentrix in our systems -- Dentrix G6 -- eh, how should I express my experience?

POS comes to mind. Dentrix is so poorly written and you have to go into the various 'modules' to accomplish the same tasks you can do in Open Dental at a much faster clip.

Dentrix is NOT intuitive. You need lots of hand holding and their update system is something from the dark ages. A few years back there was an update to Adobe Flash for a security patch in Windows -- the good folks at Dentrix decided that it must not have been important because this critical security patch just killed Dentrix, and it would freeze all systems. Henry Schein tech support is a joke -- you have people reading from a script with little to no knowledge of computer systems, and it literally takes hours before you connected to 'higher' level support to get your issues resolved.

As for Open Dental looking bland -- are you kidding me?!?!? -- Dentrix looks like something my 5th grader put together as his first go at creating a GUI for a program. I need reading glasses to figure out what the icons do since they are not intuitive. Dentrix database is huge, it was not easy to back it up myself, and the program is so clunky -- I mean, it is really slow. It is the opposite of elegant -- it is like the Windows Vista team was hired by Dentrix to put a GUI together. If feels, so 90's.

If you want to pay more for the software, more for the support, work with a clunky, unintuitive program, have at it and join the Dentrix 'revolution'

I love my OD

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Justin Shafer
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by Justin Shafer » Sun Jan 21, 2018 6:03 pm

Dentrix got into trouble with the Federal Trade Commission for advertising encryption that would protect you in the event of a databreach like a lost or stolen hard drive...

Say what you want, but to me, that says it all.. I don't think the UI is that bad, honestly.. I kinda like it... Having different modules to do different tasks across multiple monitors, people seem to like that... But what got me is the Federal Trade Commission problem... What does that say about the company?

From the Federal Trade Commission: Dental Practice Software Provider Settles FTC Charges It Misled Customers About Encryption of Patient Data
https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-r ... -it-misled

From Databreaches.net: Dentrix claims it encrypts their data, but does it?
https://www.databreaches.net/dentrix-cl ... t-does-it/

Now Dentrix recommends BitLocker....

Open Dental is open source, and uses MySQL, can scale for multiple locations with "Clinics".. etc... Open Dental users can query their own database... It's NICE. :D That is more important then a fancy UI. Updates are a breeze and the program is fast.

JoeWilliams
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by JoeWilliams » Mon Jan 22, 2018 2:22 am

"Now Dentrix recommends BitLocker...." You are right :D :D :D

My friend from Germany has the Prolom, what are your thoughts?

http://prolom.com/x/en/

http://prolom.com/

I think it is maybe German software but has a good design and options in my opinion? Any thoughts?

bpcomp
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by bpcomp » Tue Jan 23, 2018 10:57 am

The Prolom software appears to be Czech in origin. I have a lot of questions about it. Is it a 300 € site licence or per computer? How does support work? I would need English support, but what language is tech support in? Because the interface is in a different language, it's hard to tell from the videos if the program has all the features that a mainstream dental practice management program would have. Does it support my countries teeth numbering system?

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Justin Shafer
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by Justin Shafer » Sat Jan 27, 2018 8:20 pm

http://justinshafer.blogspot.com/2018/0 ... tolen.html

Sigh.... Someone with Dentrix lost a hard drive, and.. they told patients that the person who stole it cannot read the patient data without a dentrix username and password, or their serial number, or a copy of Dentrix.. which is not true.

I am willing to bet that Dentrix told the doctor that.

stjames70
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by stjames70 » Sun Jan 28, 2018 6:41 pm

I don't understand. If you are using something like Windows Server 2012 in the computer that hosts Dentrix's database, can't you set any disks that are connected to that server to use BitLocker? Thus, when a copy of the database is copied to a mass storage device, the mass storage device itself is encrypted. Would that not negate the need to have Dentrix deal with encrypting its own database?

From what I remember, Dentrix's database is huge compared to OD, and to boot, it is not easy to back it up yourself. I think Henry Schein prefers to provide that service for you through Tech Central. Did I say how difficult it is to get to someone on the phone who knows anything at all at Tech Central? It is like jumping through multiple hoops of incompetency and easily wasting 3,4,5, hours yourself or of whomever in your staff you really dislike and want to punish through slow, painful torture by the wonderful elevator music provided to you while they wait and wait and wait on hold.

Sorry, I had to bash Dentrix one more time for all the grief and pain they gave me through the six months of torture I suffered before going back to Open Dental.

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Justin Shafer
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Re: Dentrix vs. Open Dental

Post by Justin Shafer » Sun Jan 28, 2018 9:23 pm

stjames70 wrote:I don't understand. If you are using something like Windows Server 2012 in the computer that hosts Dentrix's database, can't you set any disks that are connected to that server to use BitLocker? Thus, when a copy of the database is copied to a mass storage device, the mass storage device itself is encrypted. Would that not negate the need to have Dentrix deal with encrypting its own database?

From what I remember, Dentrix's database is huge compared to OD, and to boot, it is not easy to back it up yourself. I think Henry Schein prefers to provide that service for you through Tech Central. Did I say how difficult it is to get to someone on the phone who knows anything at all at Tech Central? It is like jumping through multiple hoops of incompetency and easily wasting 3,4,5, hours yourself or of whomever in your staff you really dislike and want to punish through slow, painful torture by the wonderful elevator music provided to you while they wait and wait and wait on hold.

Sorry, I had to bash Dentrix one more time for all the grief and pain they gave me through the six months of torture I suffered before going back to Open Dental.
One thing nice I had going with Dentrix, I knew a tech that was senior level and I just emailed him for all my problems, and I was friends with their product manager..... WAS friends. Yeah... they could of recommended BitLocker starting in 2012... but... they didn't.. they told everyone their database itself was encrypted when it wasn't.. They relied on their database vendor.. a database engine called Faircom ACE. Dentrix has been using Faircom since the beginning. Faircom had something called Faircom standard encryption... and then they had Faircom AES encryption (real encryption). Dentrix went with the standard encryption for G5. I got invited to a Dentrix Summit where they explained the whole thing, but then an employee secretly told me they were lying, and it was EASY to read the data. He was right. So I took it upon myself to get Dentrix to change their ways... because they were advertising their encryption could help you with HIPAA, and that implies lost hard drives... They could of just told everyone to use BitLocker, but they didn't. Even if they went with AES encryption, the encryption key would most likely be stored on a backup drive... so having real encryption in the database and the encryption key stored on the same drive in some folder somehwhere isn't exactly safe if it falls into the wrong hands. Bitlocker doesn't have this problem, the entire usb drive is encrypted.

Faircom stopped calling it encryption and renamed it to Data Camouflage because NIST\US-CERT got onto them because I blabbed to them. So Dentrix suddenly didn't have a leg to stand on, but they decided to keep calling it encryption. Then I met a lady at databreaches.net that likes to be called PogoWasRight or DissentDoe and she got them into trouble with the FTC, with a complaint and my statement. It took a lot of time to write..
Statement to FTC:
http://www.onsitedentalsystems.com/FTC_ ... ein_JS.pdf
and they got some exposure...
https://www.csoonline.com/article/29238 ... -risk.html

They got fined... as someone on DentalTown said 250K to Schein is like money you find under your couch.

Why did they do this??? Why didn't they just tell everyone to use Bitlocker? I am sure if they knew this was all going to happen they would of just said use bitlocker. I believe It had to do with charging other people money to read the database, like Lighthouse 360, and the countless other companies that want to read the practice data. Open Dental doesn't charge other companies to read the data, and they are Open. Dentrix is not open. Of course, Open Dental started because Jordan Sparks was a Dentrix User and now we all have him to thank for Open Dental....Anyways, with G4 other companies could just read the data, but with G5, Dentrix wanted to make it harder so they could charge other companies, in my opinion. Starting with Dentrix G5, a company can join the Dentrix Developer Program, which costs money. And then their marketing people thought well... lets just tell customers it's for security and HIPAA... I am assuming, which was a bad idea. All they had to do is leave out the HIPAA and security stuff, but they didn't...

I still can't believe after all this they would have the gaul to tell a dentist that with G6.. someone can't read the data without a dentrix username and password, serial number.. blah blah blah.. At least I assume Dentrix told Dr. Adkins that.... I could be wrong. Doubt it though. Too bad we don't have an Eaglesoft vs Open Dental thread... Oh the stories I could tell. :D

Check out https://hipaahelpcenter.com.. A dentist I know showed it to me.. he likes it.. You probably will too.

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