New job....This practice, six months ago, migrated from MacPractice to Dentrix Ascend. The migration was disappointing at best and now devoted staff are leaving over the frustration. I will analyze the efficiency or inefficiencies and make possible recommendation to change PMS. I had been on Dentrix for many years (up to G4). I have recently been on Open Dental for the last 3 years. We used it in a very non-traditional "practice". I was with a school based dental sealant program. We ran 25 remote connections with a main server. I did not have experience with traditional clinical functions, like x ray, Intra oral photos and the like. I did fall in love with the customized reports and the customer service was the best I have experienced in 37 years of dentistry.
I do not want to recommend this new practice to migrate again with out understanding the potential transfer of data problems that can cripple this practice, even more.
Any wisdom and insight would be greatly appreciated. Thank you for your attention, Lauren
Dentrix Ascend to Open Dental
Re: Dentrix Ascend to Open Dental
Wow. Sorry for your frustrations, Lauren. Data conversions can stress even the smoothest running practice.
Our conversions team is amazing, if I say so myself. We offer free test conversions for you to work with and really get a feel for how the process and the data will convert.
The biggest problem I see here is the data that was in MacPractice that didn't make it to Dentrix. Our Dentrix conversions are possibly the most comprehensive of any conversion we offer, however we can only convert the data that already exists. That means, if there is junk in Dentrix, you'll be faced with junk in Open Dental. Has your office been able to clean up the mess from the conversion?
We will be here to provide support along each step of the conversion, so as long as you, or another member of your team is willing to take ownership and work with us, we can absolutely get you through it and cleaned up.
Contact us for a test conversion sometime, if you're interested. Also, if you want more information, please do reach out. We'd be happy to assist you with any questions or concerns you may have.
Our conversions team is amazing, if I say so myself. We offer free test conversions for you to work with and really get a feel for how the process and the data will convert.
The biggest problem I see here is the data that was in MacPractice that didn't make it to Dentrix. Our Dentrix conversions are possibly the most comprehensive of any conversion we offer, however we can only convert the data that already exists. That means, if there is junk in Dentrix, you'll be faced with junk in Open Dental. Has your office been able to clean up the mess from the conversion?
We will be here to provide support along each step of the conversion, so as long as you, or another member of your team is willing to take ownership and work with us, we can absolutely get you through it and cleaned up.
Contact us for a test conversion sometime, if you're interested. Also, if you want more information, please do reach out. We'd be happy to assist you with any questions or concerns you may have.
Entropy isn't what it used to be...
Arna Meyer
Arna Meyer
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BestDentalHelp
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:23 am
Re: Dentrix Ascend to Open Dental
Dear Arna,
Thank you for your quick reply. I want to be sure not to use the word "Dentrix", it is misleading. The program should be called (IMHO) Ascend, so that we do not assume this program has any Dentrix code. This practice has been referring back to MacPractice and Ascend seems to need many exported functions. I notice they are in excel, paper charts and iCloud, constantly. I am aware of the garbage in garbage out reality so recommending yet another new software would be a last resort. After 6 months, they are at least considering it. Has Open Dental facilitated a migration from Ascend in Mac OS, if so, I would enjoy a conversation/dialog with the parties involved.
Thank you, Lauren
Thank you for your quick reply. I want to be sure not to use the word "Dentrix", it is misleading. The program should be called (IMHO) Ascend, so that we do not assume this program has any Dentrix code. This practice has been referring back to MacPractice and Ascend seems to need many exported functions. I notice they are in excel, paper charts and iCloud, constantly. I am aware of the garbage in garbage out reality so recommending yet another new software would be a last resort. After 6 months, they are at least considering it. Has Open Dental facilitated a migration from Ascend in Mac OS, if so, I would enjoy a conversation/dialog with the parties involved.
Thank you, Lauren
Re: Dentrix Ascend to Open Dental
If they were using MacPractice then can I assume that all the computers in the office are Macs? If so then you will also need to consider that Open Dental is a Windows program and you will need Parallels, VirtualBox, or something of that nature. I'm sure the Mac users in the forum can give you a better idea of how they run their offices. I don't say this to try and discourage you from switching to OpenDental because I think it's great, but I just want that to be a part of the thought process.
I consider running the office on virtual machine to be a benefit and have almost every computer in the office run as a virtual machine, including the server. The only computers not running virtual are the ones that capture xrays from our usb based size #0 schick xray sensor. No matter what I try, it will just not reliably capture xrays unless the OS is not virtualized. Our network based xrays from Planmeca all work perfectly on the virtual machines.
Another thing to consider is that OpenDental does not have strong imaging functions built in. It has some but most practices will use another program for xray capture and management. OpenDental bridges with almost anything and there are many great imaging programs out there. Any recommendations for your office would be based on what xray hardware is in the office or if there is already an imaging program implemented.
If you could appraise us of some of the specifics of what made the conversion to Ascend not go well, we can spend some time and thought on how to address those issues in OpenDental so that you don't face the same issues.
I consider running the office on virtual machine to be a benefit and have almost every computer in the office run as a virtual machine, including the server. The only computers not running virtual are the ones that capture xrays from our usb based size #0 schick xray sensor. No matter what I try, it will just not reliably capture xrays unless the OS is not virtualized. Our network based xrays from Planmeca all work perfectly on the virtual machines.
Another thing to consider is that OpenDental does not have strong imaging functions built in. It has some but most practices will use another program for xray capture and management. OpenDental bridges with almost anything and there are many great imaging programs out there. Any recommendations for your office would be based on what xray hardware is in the office or if there is already an imaging program implemented.
If you could appraise us of some of the specifics of what made the conversion to Ascend not go well, we can spend some time and thought on how to address those issues in OpenDental so that you don't face the same issues.
Re: Dentrix Ascend to Open Dental
Hi Lauren,
We have been running OD strong for eight years in Apple machines using VMWare Fusion. Speed has never been an issue, and in our scenario, OpenDental and Dexis work flawlessly in VMs. Very fast and very stable -- we have made it even better by switching from Win8 Pro to Windows Server 2012 R2. Now we no longer get random messages that say our database cannot be accessed because too many connections to the database computer.
We tried to switch to Dentrix G6 because we wanted better confirmation tools. First of all, Dentrix is written very poorly. Its hardware requirements are fairly heavy, so forget trying to use computers that are older. Second, a recent Adobe Flash update through Microsoft Auto Update, stopped Dentrix from functioning. Thirdly, Dentrix uses Microsoft SQL 2000. SQL 2000!!! Why oh why would you use a database engine that is over 16 years old!?!??! Fourthly, Dentrix was just fined by the FTC for using encryption below the standard necessary for HIPAA compliance. Look at Justin Shafer's post.
So if you are going to go the way for Open Dental, go for it!!! I just hope that the conversion team can help us migrate 47 days of data back to the OD database......
And if you are thinking of moving to Dentrix G6, don't. Trust me, I spent 122 hours trying to love it, but the headaches far outweigh all the perceived benefits they claim that their software can provide. It is slow, poky, not intuitive. If you like spending money in IT, then Dentrix is your ticket! Otherwise, stay away from it.
We have been running OD strong for eight years in Apple machines using VMWare Fusion. Speed has never been an issue, and in our scenario, OpenDental and Dexis work flawlessly in VMs. Very fast and very stable -- we have made it even better by switching from Win8 Pro to Windows Server 2012 R2. Now we no longer get random messages that say our database cannot be accessed because too many connections to the database computer.
We tried to switch to Dentrix G6 because we wanted better confirmation tools. First of all, Dentrix is written very poorly. Its hardware requirements are fairly heavy, so forget trying to use computers that are older. Second, a recent Adobe Flash update through Microsoft Auto Update, stopped Dentrix from functioning. Thirdly, Dentrix uses Microsoft SQL 2000. SQL 2000!!! Why oh why would you use a database engine that is over 16 years old!?!??! Fourthly, Dentrix was just fined by the FTC for using encryption below the standard necessary for HIPAA compliance. Look at Justin Shafer's post.
So if you are going to go the way for Open Dental, go for it!!! I just hope that the conversion team can help us migrate 47 days of data back to the OD database......
And if you are thinking of moving to Dentrix G6, don't. Trust me, I spent 122 hours trying to love it, but the headaches far outweigh all the perceived benefits they claim that their software can provide. It is slow, poky, not intuitive. If you like spending money in IT, then Dentrix is your ticket! Otherwise, stay away from it.
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BestDentalHelp
- Posts: 3
- Joined: Mon Dec 21, 2015 8:23 am
Re: Dentrix Ascend to Open Dental
Thank you so much for your contribution to this thread. I have been on OD for the last 3 years. My new office has come to terms that "dentrix" Ascend must be ditched. They have been in it for 8 months now and it has crippled this very highly efficient practice. The Dentist is convinced that the cloud is the future, me not so much (due to lag time for upload and download between every key stroke) So now he is shopping a cloud based, Mac based program. I am not finding many acceptable options. I think he may have a hard time recovering from the past mistake (dentrix-ascend) and then making a bigger mistake in going with another untested, unproven dental management tool. He is not interested in a huge hardware investment (servers and PC based workstations) His current apples are from 2007 so I think he may be looking into hardware costs soon anyway. So my challenge is to convince him that in the end Open Dental is better for the practice or I can always look for a practice that is not as "broken".
What a mess.
What a mess.
Re: Dentrix Ascend to Open Dental
One of the big arguments for switching to OpenDental is our office was the much smaller hardware requirements. What this means in practical terms for us is that we didn't need to spend 20K upgrading all the hardware in the office so that it would be powerful enough to run Dentrix G5 (latest version at the time). Because of switching to Open Dental, we were able to run on all our old hardware and have only needed to replace computers as they die. This process is much easier if you run virtual machines because you can move a copy of the fully configured virtual machine on to the new computer as needed.
I somewhat agree with your Dr in saying that cloud based software is the future. The problem is that in many cases, it isn't the present. The present is that cloud based software will never run as fast as software running in your practice. If the internet goes down, your practice is down. If you don't have enough bandwidth and someone starts watching a youtube video, your whole practice could be brought to it's knees. Another issue for me is that the security to keep all of your patient's data private is only as strong as the username and password you use to login to a web based solution (unless they have some extra security measures I'm not aware of). If someone somehow got a hold of the server login credentials in our office, they would still have to know our public IP address and then get through our hardware firewall. Having broken through that which is no simple matter, they have to figure out a way to extract all our patient data without being detected. With web based software, once you know the login credentials.... game over.
I somewhat agree with your Dr in saying that cloud based software is the future. The problem is that in many cases, it isn't the present. The present is that cloud based software will never run as fast as software running in your practice. If the internet goes down, your practice is down. If you don't have enough bandwidth and someone starts watching a youtube video, your whole practice could be brought to it's knees. Another issue for me is that the security to keep all of your patient's data private is only as strong as the username and password you use to login to a web based solution (unless they have some extra security measures I'm not aware of). If someone somehow got a hold of the server login credentials in our office, they would still have to know our public IP address and then get through our hardware firewall. Having broken through that which is no simple matter, they have to figure out a way to extract all our patient data without being detected. With web based software, once you know the login credentials.... game over.