Frustrated by Procedure Code Limitation

[Jess]

Our practice makes a lot of dentures. Some patients want the cheapest they can get. Others want to spend more for better materials. We're happy to serve both types of patients. Actually we have three different "grades" of complete denture. All three are D5110 and D5120. That's why it's frustrating that there is a seemingly arbitrary restriction on duplicate procedure codes. I looked in the database: the "procedurecode" table has a separate "CodeNum" primary key and the index on "ProcCode" isn't unique. The fact that this silly restriction is enforced in the GUI leads me to hope that there is a way to change it via configuration, but I haven't found that yet. I'll be very grateful for this information!

We can simply change the charge on a procedure when entering it, but then there is no indication on the statement why your denture costs $589 while your neighbor's costs $370. Also this is an extra step that will occasionally be forgotten. There are a couple of other ways to get different charges for the same procedure code, but all of them require more work from our staff than simply changing the price manually and are also unsuitable for this requirement in other respects. Discounts have some weird treatment plan limitation, and are completely manual. Fee schedules are focused on charges that differ by provider and by PPO membership. If discounts could populate automatically from e.g. procedure buttons, that would probably be enough, but that doesn't seem possible either.

Thanks for any suggestions!

[Arna]

You can create another procedure code with a suffix if you want to differentiate materials used, but still bill the same code to insurance. Only the first five digits of a code are submitted to insurance, so I suggest you create a D5110a or something similar.

[sam-I-am]

Its actually easy, just add a letter to the code.
We did this for fluoride varnish...D1206. We didn't like the the official wording of the varnish code , 'cause it used to describe its use for only very high caries rate, and I didn't want the description printing out on the bills.

So we made a code D1206a, put our own description in. The "a" gets truncated off of the claim.

So make codes D5110a, D5110b, D5110c, etc.
I didn't think this up, someone told me on this forum. Sam Barr

[Arna]

@sam-I-am - Procedure descriptions are copyright by the ADA, so we cannot allow changes; however if you want a description to 'display' differently in the program, you can use the Layman's Terms in the Edit Procedure Code window. That will display in the chart and Treatment Plan instead of the CDT description.
http://opendental.com/manual/procedurecodeedit.html

[Jess]

Thanks so much for the help! Our system is looking much better now...