How to fill out a form and look up patient info?

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ryansmithdds
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2012 11:56 pm

How to fill out a form and look up patient info?

Post by ryansmithdds » Thu Mar 10, 2016 9:22 pm

So i have a chart prep form that I am trying to digitize. This requires the staff to open up a form and then research things in the chart/images/insurance etc to fill out the form. However, as far as i can see.... Once a report or form or anything is open in open dental you cant keep that open and look through the patients chart.. Is this correct? Now i know you can open up two instances of open dental but that can't be the only solution. Seems like such a simple thing that should have been changed a long time ago.

There are just no multitasking features at all? No keyboard shortcuts etc. Now i like a lot of the simplicity of Open Dental but the lack of these things is quite limiting.... Anything I am missing or any way for me to accomplish this without using multiple instances of open dental?

ryansmithdds
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2012 11:56 pm

Re: How to fill out a form and look up patient info?

Post by ryansmithdds » Fri Mar 11, 2016 8:32 am

bump.....

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dgraffeo
Posts: 147
Joined: Wed Sep 24, 2014 3:19 pm

Re: How to fill out a form and look up patient info?

Post by dgraffeo » Fri Mar 11, 2016 9:54 am

I definitely agree that it's a bummer you can't view the patient chart or change patients while you have a form open, but enabling that functionality is one of those things that seems easy but is actually quite difficult. I can't find a feature request dealing with this, and so I urge you to create one. Being able to view patient information while using a form will probably be very popular!
"To understand what recursion is, you must first understand recursion."

David Graffeo
Open Dental Software
http://www.opendental.com

ryansmithdds
Posts: 18
Joined: Fri Oct 12, 2012 11:56 pm

Re: How to fill out a form and look up patient info?

Post by ryansmithdds » Fri Mar 11, 2016 11:15 am

Alright, I submitted a feature request. Req #4501

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Rickliftig
Posts: 764
Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2008 4:50 pm
Location: West Hartford, CT
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Re: How to fill out a form and look up patient info?

Post by Rickliftig » Fri Mar 11, 2016 11:27 am

Ryan... I will oftentimes open up a second instance of Open Dental on the same computer and work back an forth - form on one screen, chart on the other (a two monitor setup of course). It's a little kludgy, but it works.

Best,

Rick
Another Happy Open Dental User!

Rick Liftig, DMD FAGD
University of CT 1979
West Hartford, CT 06110
srick@snet.net

bpcomp
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Location: Tucson, AZ
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Re: How to fill out a form and look up patient info?

Post by bpcomp » Tue Mar 15, 2016 8:36 am

I use AutoHotKeys to make my own keyboard shortcuts. One of my favorites is selecting a patient. Control+Shift+s

Code: Select all

; Click on the select patient dialog.
^+s::
IfWinExist, Hubrich Open Dental
{
	WinActivate  ; Automatically uses the window found above.
	WinMaximize  ; same
	Click 75,55
	return
}
else
{
	run %A_ProgramFiles%\Open Dental\OpenDental.exe
	return
}
This script will bring Open Dental to the foreground, maximize it and then click the select patient dialog. Useful when you are on an insurance website and want to bring up a patient in OD quickly.

You can change the keyboard shortcut to anything you want and edit the title match so that it finds your Open Dental and not "Hubrich Open Dental"

We also do text replacement shortcuts. For example, if I type the letters lma and then hit space, I get the message (Left message saying I needed to speak about account. Asked to call us back.) in it's place. The code for that is as simple as this...

Code: Select all

::lma::Left message saying I needed to speak about account. Asked to call us back.
Yes I do wish that Open Dental had more built in shortcuts, but we are able to work around it.

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Arna
Posts: 444
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 3:16 pm

Re: How to fill out a form and look up patient info?

Post by Arna » Tue Mar 15, 2016 9:38 am

^^
You could just use quick paste notes. ?(abbreviation) will auto populate any quick paste note you create. http://opendental.com/manual/quickpastenotes.html
Entropy isn't what it used to be...

Arna Meyer

bpcomp
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Location: Tucson, AZ
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Re: How to fill out a form and look up patient info?

Post by bpcomp » Tue Mar 15, 2016 12:51 pm

I did not know about the quick paste notes. Thank you for bringing them to my attention. It seems though that the limiting factor is it will work only in text boxes that support it. AutoHotKey will work anywhere on the computer.

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