Other than the "history" option in the appointment view, there should be a way (in the family file?) to track scheduling/rescheduling of appointments, including deleted appointments and also a possible "reason for cancel" as well. We had a minor come in the office, but mom cancelled the appointment. The appointment was deleted instead of broken so there was no way of tracking anything. The mother claimed she did not cancel this appointment and there was no way (to our knowledge) of resolving this. This also comes in handy for patients who have a long history of cancelling/rescheduling/no-showing. This would be helpful to have all of the patient's appointment history in one window. Possibly similar to how the ledger reads, where there is options to place notes.
We've been posting our own invented procedures such as "canc" or "no show" on the ledger and making a note as to the reason or whether there was a warning given for the missed appt fee, etc... Also, insurance plans now have a code for us to use but we never agreed to it. We find it ludicrous that insurance companies think a missed appt is somehow equivalent to $5 lost production.
There IS broken appointment tracking in the Office Journal. (not sure what version that was added) But does make sense to add an option to [Add deleted appts to OJ]. Maybe that should be another check box into [Office Manager-Maintenance-Practice Setup-Preferences] as Im sure some office might not want that and some will.
This would make dental life easier for sure! Also, I'd like a boxing glove to shoot out of their end of the phone and sock them in the face when appointments are not cancelled 24-48 hours ahead of time (except in the case of an emergency which we all understand).
this is HUGE! in our office. We really would like to have a log of rescheduled or canceled appointments during the day/week. When we look back on the schedule and see nothing but holes, there is no way to know if those holes existed prior to the day starting unless we look back at printed copies of the schedule and do physical research into each day. If there were a report you could run, similar to a day report that would show the number of patients, who they were, and where they rescheduled or if they did not. That would be a dream!!
It should be tracked in the patient's chart and/or ledger as well. Would be simple to add a view button that shows cancelled appointments the same as we can select to see exam, referrals, existing work, etc... The reason it should be tracked in chart is for clinician liability. If tracked, we'll be able to defend ourselves when a patient claims we did not see them and developed some issue or problem, yet it was they who cancelled their visits or exams.
These work arounds are great but very time consuming and storing data in too many different places. A simple forced drop down when canceling or rescheduling with a couple basic top answers and an other box would be sufficient 1 place in Dentrix where all of this data is stored. Please review Athena health software for this. There system has an exceptionally quick and easy tracking.
I like this idea...using patient journal is time consuming. we need something that is automatic and put into pt's file quickly. We are busy at the front desk!
ABSOLUTELY need a Reason for Cancelling. This should be a given in the world of stats. How can we make improvements to the Practice if we don't have a way to see why patients decide not to keep appointments?
uniformity of information would always be good. But until that day comes...keep copious notes including quotes. Use "this call will be recorded for quality assurance and training" notifications. We note everything in tickler notes with appropriate headings: Cancel, disappt. etc. Patients will always remember what they want to remember and notes prevent that from being an issue.
We actually made a codes that we can post in the ledger to keep track...like missed appt
no show appt, we also included fees for missed and no shows. that might help you guys
Office journal is the best place --also if patient cancels via email, text or your automated system you can go into Doc center and acquire screen shot of that certain item and have it in the doc center exactly as it was delivered to you. I put it under Correspondence and put Cancelled or rescheduled appointment from what date to the new date and who was spoken to.
Not sure if this would help but at least in that situation you can still pull up in the Audit Trail (Office Manager | Maintenance | Office Journal) to get that information, including the appointment date and when it was deleted. If you have passwords set up you would be able to see who deleted it also.
Create a separate notes box. Just as we have a g-notes area, and clinical notes area, we really NEED a separate area to note all of the scheduling interactions (calls/conversations to schedule an appt, patient requests about when they are available, broken appts/reasons, cancelled appts, office sequencing info, etc.) It can be as simple as the g-notes box, with an option to add prewritten notes from a list. PLEASE!
I would like to request that deleted appointments are also tracked in office journal due to this function is used frequently. Why document the reason,I have several reasons, 1) if someone is sick,family emergency or whatever reason we can follow up with it the next time they come in to show we are a caring office. 2) to track "how many times their car won't start - which is the most used excuse 3) as the original post for this request states, with divorced parents there sometimes is a conflict on who or why appts were canceled. Currently we track all reasons in the patient alerts, which they should be tracked in office journal.
Yes, this would be very useful to be able to do for each patient. Full appointment history. Currently you can see completed and future appointments but not deleted and unscheduled appointments (without going to unscheduled list). It would be good to see all the appointment time changes too. We have issues from time to time with receptionists who do not multi-task well and sometimes they will delete the wrong appointment or unscheduled the wrong appointment! Our rule is that we do not delete appointments unless they are new patients who did not show up. But sometimes appointments still get deleted.
Audit trail should show deletions but adding to tracking on appointments would be helpful. Regarding appointment/scheduling type conversations, we use the note section of the scheduled appointment for any moves, changes, cancellations, etcs. This works well for our tracking conversations and history that is appointment specific. The only downside is on broken appointments. Dentrix does not allow notes to be added without the appointment actually on the scheduler. We use this note section to track attempts to reschedule as well. It would be helpful if we could add notes to a broken appointment that has not yet rescheduled....thank you.
Audit trail is a convoluted process. I agree this is regular problem with booking/breaking appointments. People mistakenly delete appointments and loose important tracking features...
Guest
We've been posting our own invented procedures such as "canc" or "no show" on the ledger and making a note as to the reason or whether there was a warning given for the missed appt fee, etc... Also, insurance plans now have a code for us to use but we never agreed to it. We find it ludicrous that insurance companies think a missed appt is somehow equivalent to $5 lost production.
There IS broken appointment tracking in the Office Journal. (not sure what version that was added) But does make sense to add an option to [Add deleted appts to OJ]. Maybe that should be another check box into [Office Manager-Maintenance-Practice Setup-Preferences] as Im sure some office might not want that and some will.
This would make dental life easier for sure! Also, I'd like a boxing glove to shoot out of their end of the phone and sock them in the face when appointments are not cancelled 24-48 hours ahead of time (except in the case of an emergency which we all understand).
this is HUGE! in our office. We really would like to have a log of rescheduled or canceled appointments during the day/week. When we look back on the schedule and see nothing but holes, there is no way to know if those holes existed prior to the day starting unless we look back at printed copies of the schedule and do physical research into each day. If there were a report you could run, similar to a day report that would show the number of patients, who they were, and where they rescheduled or if they did not. That would be a dream!!
It should be tracked in the patient's chart and/or ledger as well. Would be simple to add a view button that shows cancelled appointments the same as we can select to see exam, referrals, existing work, etc... The reason it should be tracked in chart is for clinician liability. If tracked, we'll be able to defend ourselves when a patient claims we did not see them and developed some issue or problem, yet it was they who cancelled their visits or exams.
These work arounds are great but very time consuming and storing data in too many different places. A simple forced drop down when canceling or rescheduling with a couple basic top answers and an other box would be sufficient 1 place in Dentrix where all of this data is stored. Please review Athena health software for this. There system has an exceptionally quick and easy tracking.
I like this idea...using patient journal is time consuming. we need something that is automatic and put into pt's file quickly. We are busy at the front desk!
You can always use the Patient Journal to document phone conversations and change of appointments.
ABSOLUTELY need a Reason for Cancelling. This should be a given in the world of stats. How can we make improvements to the Practice if we don't have a way to see why patients decide not to keep appointments?