Time Calculation of Appointments

[jclaydds]

I am a relatively new user to Open Dental (2 months) but the "Time Calculation" feature for length of appointments of Open Dental is causing me more trouble than any other feature presently. I have tried my best to set up accurate time patterns for specific procedures in the procedure list but this is variable based on the type of dentistry you provide. I do a lot of quadrant or full arch treatment with sedation. There is an "time efficiency" factor based on quantity of work. It takes a certain amount of time to do a MOD restoration but it won't take you 3 times as long to do 3 MOD restorations in the same quadrant in a single appointment. This causes the "time calculation" feature of Open Dental to overestimate the time needed. It wouldn't be a problem if I could manually change the time on an appointment and somehow "lock" the edited time so it could not be easily changed. As most of you know, if you go into that appointment and try to change any of the procedures on that appointment (for instance you add a periapical x-ray) , the "time calculation" feature overrides the time you have manually entered and changes it to the length of time it thinks it should be. I believe it to be nearly impossible to train yourself and your staff to always notice the time allotted before editing an appointment and to set it back to that time after you edit the appointment. It is one of those things you just don't think about. Last week, someone edited one of my appointments and I had 3.5 hours allotted for an appointment I only needed 2 hours to complete. Talk about wasted time! The opposite often happens. I may know that a particular problem a patient is having is going to take more time than usual to diagnose/discuss and I schedule some extra time on a Limited Exam procedure. If someone edits the appointment, Open Dental will reduce the time back to the shorter time I usually need for a Limited Exam.

I think I would prefer to set my own times for an appointment and not have Open Dental try to calculate them. My hygienists have expressed to me the same. Some adult prophys take more time than others and they would prefer to make this decision on an individual basis and not have Open Dental override it if the appointment is edited. Is there a way we could simply turn this feature off so the user would be responsible for setting length of the appointment? If not, the next best option would be for Open Dental to ask you if you want it to change the length of appointment when you edit it so you would have the opportunity to say No.

I read this forum for some time before becoming a Open Dental user. I think I remember this topic being discussed before but I don't see any changes planned on the Planned Feature List.
http://ww\w.open-dent.com/manual/future.html
Thanks

[jordansparks]

I agree. We have outgrown our existing time calculation feature. We will probably eliminate the "Adj time" box and replace it with a "time override" box of some sort. I've moved it to the top of the priority list.

[DavidWolf]

THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.....

Will this also stop the automatic changing of the provider blocks (x's) in the appointments as well?

[jordansparks]

Done.