Dentrix Ideas

Yes, adding information that the patient did not fill out on the medical history at home would be very helpful. I have to write this down and transfer it in the clinical note later which is separate from all of the patient's notes. This information needs to be in one place for reference later.

I am a Pediatric Dentist. I need to be able to EDIT the Patient information Bundle or to have a PEDO Patient Info/Medical Dental form. Our PEDO patients do not have spouses, we need to know what school they go to, and we need info about BOTH parents and their marital status for EVERYTHING(appointments, Tx plan and billing!). How can you help me? Helena Urrea-Feldsberg Hollywood. Florida

I, too, am a pediatric dentist and I am very disappointed in the questionnaire portion of Dentrix. I switched from Eaglesoft to Dentrix primarily for the questionnaires. Our office wanted the patient to be able to complete the forms online and to have the information integrate into the software with little re-keying by the office members. However, the programs is only limited in what is does. The some fields, as stated Dr. Urrea-Feldsberg, do not apply to pediatric patient but there is no way to alter the fields and have them auto-populate in Dentrix.The preset PI's do not allow for these specific pediatric information. We have spent countless hours on the phone with Dentrix/eCentral with very little results. It would be great to update the patients' health history every six months with the parents being able to see what they answered the previous visit. However, this is not possible with Dentrix if any changes have been made to the form the parents originally completed, even if you change a misspelled word somewhere in the questionnaire form. The program does not recognize that fields completed have not changed. Dentrix only saves the form and information if no changes have ever been made to the original form. The program will does not save the past forms signed and saved in the Kiosk mode. At a six month recare appointment parents have to complete the form again in the Kiosk mode because they no longer have access to that form. Or, team members have to enter Dentrix and make the updates - not the parents online. As well, the questionnaires are very restrictive as to what can be included on their forms, for example, only ONE parent information can be correctly added to the patient, the questionnaire pages can only have a few questions on each page (lots of wasted space on a page), only five forms can be attached to each patients; medical alerts sections will attach incorrect alerts to patients if any changes have be made to the alerts section; you can never delete/combine the number of alerts you have (you have to replace it with a fake one or have duplicates); and the program does not have a solid system to alert parents when they skip or miss questions on the forms. These "hiccups" are very frustrating to a specialist. It seems Dentrix wants specialist like myself to purchase and use the program, but you cater most things to the general dentists. I am very disappointed in the response our office has received regarding the questionnaires. We have been on the phone an extraordinary amount of time trying to adapt what we do to the software versus having the software do what we want it do. We are actually in the process of researching other vendors for another program that truly does what we were told it would do. We have had the program since August 2010 and not been able get a call back from the sales representative when we had issues. I hope these comments will be read by someone who takes the clients responses seriously. I see Dr. Urrea-Feldsberg made her comments about a year ago prior to the latest version being released without any adjustment in the programs. Children will always be patients in any office so our concerns should be addressed and not just swept under the rug. Other programs are doing electronic forms, like Paperless Technologies. Therefore, I/we are not asking for anything that has not been done before. The "wheel" has already been invented. Dentrix just need the programmers to work on integrating the technology into its program. You would have a very happy client base. I would appreciate a response, if possible, of the issues above.

There needs to be a comment box for notes about the pt med hx . At the patient visit, we can hit a button that shows the alerts And any commenst the patient makes about those conditions. Without the comments we may need to dig through the document center or search appts for any comments. Its a waste of time and can lead to missing vital information.

Medical history is an important and time consuming task. We need a quick way to update the patients medical history particularly when there are no changes. But we need a way to track that the medical history was checked, and probably the easiest way is to have multiple signatures attached to the Med/Dent History that does not change. And when there is a small change, we should be able to move the current responses to a new Med/Dent History form and allow the patient to modify for the slight changes and begin the signature process again. When there is a major change to the Med/Dent History, then we can start with a fresh copy of a new Med/Dent History, and start the signature process again. Time is of the essence, so this needs to be a quick process.

Furthermore, for offices that go to a paperless chart, which we are just beginning, we need an at a glance view for each patient to see which forms have been signed and when. For instant financial policies, dental material disclosures, privacy act information, and Medical/Dental history as well as patient information. FMX, fluoride, etc... but all at a glance like a summary page before the patient chart, ledger, or appointing can be viewed or modified.

Dentrix --please review this --it is really important!

We recently went paperless, and the hardest part is that you have to look in all different modules and previous appointments to review medical, and medication etc, there should be 1 spot that holds a "snapshot" of the history that we can update on each appointment or simply" no change in med hxy"

STRONGLY AGREED with Kris M. We are an educational institution, and the importance of having pertinent information available in one spot cannot be overstated. With 35-70 dental hygiene student providers, it would be wonderful to be able to direct them to one location and know that they have the information they need to treat the patient. One missing step in checking the paper chart, document center, questionnaires, alerts, clinical notes, etc. could make a crucial difference. We are not able to go entirely paperless because it is too difficult to teach the use of every module. Kris has the right idea.

Some patients have extensive medical issues. The current form is too short for these patients. I would like to see an additional information needed when certain areas are checked to expand on their personal history. Do I need to create a second medical history for those people that have so many medical issues?

I agree with N D Gilbert. We are a pediatric office and are going to look into other 3rd party options as the kiosk/questionnaires/ and inability to integrate a custom form are not acceptable. Also that parents have to update a complete form rather than reviewing what they have entered before is not acceptable. Please work on this issue Dentrix. If other programs can do it surely you can.

Would like dr to add comments on questionnaire for NP Medical Form during NP interview. IInteractive form perhaps. Thank you!

Just had a Delta Dental Insurance Audit and in reviewing our medical history form, Delta has indicated that California, for best compliance, needs medical history forms that are proactive in format. This format is proactive in that it requires the patient to answer yes or no for all medical alerts. In Dentrix, unfortunately, medical alerts are set up as single check-boxes to affirm the condition applies and in the negative there is nothing for the patient to do as their is no check-box to affirmatively indicate that the condition does not apply. The idea being that the patient may claim that they overlooked the question, and this is not the best position to be in when in a California court.

I have used another software that alerted us when a patient did not have HIPPA forms on file.It was helpful to remind us to get documents signed

Where do the notes appear?

The notes area great and the new layout is much better now. I think some would like to add notes in various places to clarify conditions or history of a condition happened or is current, although I think those could get lost. Many notes additions to histories now are done in a way that could be considered modification of the document and really should be placed in the note section that is currently available. Being able to add a date to discontinued conditions and hopefully Rx history soon would help in that as well. Maybe having multiple radio buttons for conditions (no, current, past or Hx of) for pts to select would also help with clarification by the patient and the California office concerns.