As a past dental practice manager, I cannot stress enough the importance of the continuing care list in your Dentrix software. It’s not just a tool; it’s a lifeline of our practice. Managing overdue hygiene patients and avoiding issues with third-party automated systems is crucial, and the continuing care list is the key.
One of the most valuable features of Dentrix is the ability to run custom views and generate custom lists. This capability has been a game-changer in all my practices. With just a few clicks, we can create targeted lists of overdue patients based on specific criteria such as appointment type, date range, or even insurance status. This streamlines our outreach process and ensures that no patient falls through the cracks.
The continuing care system is not just about filling schedules or boosting practice profitability. It’s about providing the best possible care for our patients. By managing the continuing care list effectively, we can prevent patients from being missed and ensure that they receive the care they need when they need it.
In my view, the continuing care list in Dentrix software is an essential tool for managing overdue patients and avoiding issues with third-party automated systems. Running custom views and generating custom lists can help streamline the process of reaching out to overdue patients. The continuing care system is the lifeblood of a dental practice and should be managed effectively to prevent patients from being missed.
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Full Transcript provided by Riverside AI (please disregard any grammar or spelling mistakes.
Dayna (00:03.186)
Okay, so a couple of weeks ago, I did a recording about the unscheduled list. So we dove in a lot deeper to the unscheduled list because we started out this kind of this quarter of content all about keeping your schedule full. So if you are with me, if you are looking for ways to keep your schedule full, then keep on this journey with me because
Today, we’re going to dive into a lot deeper with the continuing care list. So a couple of weeks ago, I did a deep dive into the unscheduled list, and hopefully you have been able to implement some of my tips to making your unscheduled list a lot more user-friendly, make it a much more resourceful list, like I talked about. That is a…
huge asset to your practice to use that unscheduled list. I mean, it is a, just a wealth of appointments to help you fill, keep your schedule full and also just make sure that patients aren’t falling through the cracks, you know, so let’s go back and listen to that episode about the unscheduled list. I did a deep dive. Um, but one thing that I do talk about with the unscheduled list is if you have, um, if you’ve reached out to that patient,
three times, so you’ve made now three contacts to the patient and you’ve made notes on the office journal and now the patient is still not reaching back out to you to get rescheduled, then I tell you, boot them off this list, kick them off this list and because they should not be taking up real estate on your unscheduled list and that’s one reason to keep the, or one way to keep the unscheduled list. So.
up to date and accurate is to kick people off of it. And so, but many of you might be thinking, well, Dana, like what happens to that patient if I kick them off the unscheduled list? How am I going to keep track of them? And I’m like, don’t worry, don’t worry. They will show up on another list. And so today I want to deep dive into the continuing care list. So the ways that you can
Dayna (02:23.862)
for re-care. So if you are kicking someone off of your unscheduled list who was scheduled for a hygiene visit, whether it was, you know, a pro-fee or it was a perio maintenance or whatever the hygiene visit was, and you kick them off the unscheduled list, then they will show up on the continuing care list. Okay, so don’t worry about losing them.
Now, another thing that I hear from you is, oh, well, we use dental intel for all of our re-care lists, or we use Addit, or we use RecallMax, or we’re using our online system, and we get really good lists from there. I’m like, okay, great. But can those lists find patients that
maybe are on multiple lists. What I find is that your continuing care list might be a little bit broken, and those third-party software lists, they can’t find if your continuing care system is broken. And when I say broken, what I say is because sometimes you have patients in your system that are tagged with Prophy and Perio.
Have you ever seen that? Do you ever have patients that are scheduled and then your auto automated system, like your dental intel or your added or whatever it might be, is still sending the patient reminders that, hey, you need to come in because you’re overdue, but the patient’s already scheduled. Do you ever have that happens?
I know you’re shaking your head. Yeah, yeah, we do. And it’s so frustrating. Our patients get really upset because we’re sending them out text messages that they’re overdue, but then I look it up and they’re already scheduled. Exactly. That’s because they’re tagged with the perio and the profi. So they may be scheduled for their perio maintenance, but then they’re still tagged with a profi. So then your automated system is still sending them out messages saying, hey, you’re overdue, you need to come in.
Dayna (04:44.138)
And the patient’s calling you up and saying, I’m already scheduled, what is going on with your system? And so it’s kind of embarrassing because those automated systems work great. I love automation. You definitely need automation, I love it. But in my opinion, you should be running your lists and following up with overdue patients inside of your Dentrix software, okay?
Dentrix is Grand Central Station. And this is where all the magic happens. All inside of your practice management software is where you’ll be able to find over due patients. You’ll be able to find these little mishaps when patients might be scheduled and they might have been tagged with different continuing care types. It’s also possible that your patient is scheduled for
maybe scaling and replaning, but maybe they came in as a new patient and had a pro fee. So they got tagged with a pro fee, but then now they’re scheduled for scaling and replaning. And so your automated system is telling them that they need to come in for their cleaning and the patient gets totally confused. And so we don’t want that to happen. We really want this seamless workflow and the only way that you can make that happen
is inside your practice management software. So I’m going to help you figure out the lists to run in order for nothing to fall through the cracks, nothing to get missed. Nothing will get missed because you’re going to set up your lists properly in order to follow up with patients that are truly unscheduled.
These are true unscheduled patients. Like they do not have another appointment scheduled or maybe they have an appointment scheduled for a filling or a crown or something, but they’re definitely not scheduled for their re-care visit, okay? So we’re gonna take a quick little break. And when I come back, I’m gonna talk to you about two continuing care lists that you could run inside of your DENTRIX software. So I’ll be right back.
Dayna (07:09.17)
Okay, welcome back. And so there are two continuing care lists inside of DENTRIX that I want to talk to you about. Now, if you write down some notes and you’re like, Oh my gosh, I really need to see this. I really need to see it visually. And I need Dana to explain it to me just a little bit more.
or maybe you need to onboard a new hygiene coordinator and you really want them to have a deeper sense of how this actually works inside of Dentrix, then I really invite you to book a call with me so we can talk about some other options that I can actually do some training and coaching for your team to make sure that your continuing care system is working the best it can because your continuing care system is the lifeblood of your practice.
It is just the heartbeat of your practice. And we wanna make sure that your continuing care system is working the best it can so that patients don’t fall through the cracks and patients are not getting missed. And so I really want that for you. Okay, so let’s dive in. There’s two continuing care lists that I’m gonna talk about. The first one.
is the traditional list. Now this list has been around for a very long, I think since Dentrix was born, the traditional continuing care list has been around forever. You can find it right on the appointment book. Just click on the continuing care icon on the toolbar. It looks like a little recycle center icon. It has the blue arrows that go around in a circle. Okay, that’s the continuing care. So,
When you click on continuing care, it’s going to start loading up a list. All you have to do is you can just hit stop and it’ll take you to the main page where I want you to be. Now, when you’re on this main page, you’re gonna have a tab at the top of the toolbar and then you could go into views. If you click on views, this is where you can have some custom views set up or you can create a temporary view, whichever you want to do.
Dayna (09:28.842)
Now, I love to create custom views. And the reason I like to do that is because it makes it super easy for you and your team to generate a list. For example, when I was in my own practice, I would create custom views for each of my hygienists. OK. And so when my hygienists had an opening, like an unexpected opening in their schedule,
my hygienist got on the phone and started calling their overdue hygiene patients. Okay. And so I had a list on my custom continuing care list. I had one that was called Katherine. I had one that was called Jennifer, and then I had one that was called Sarah.
because we tagged our patients were very strict on like which hygienist they wanted to see. So we always tagged our hygienist name or provider IDs on the family file in the provider too. So I can generate a custom list for them specifically. And then if patients didn’t care about what hygienist they saw, then I would always or my hygiene coordinator, she would call.
or reach out to the patients that really didn’t care which hygienist they saw. So we had custom lists for everything. So we created a custom list for like, profis, three months overdue, perio, three months overdue, and we can generate these custom lists, and then all we have to do is click on the title of the list that we want to generate, and then it auto-generates us a list, which is beautiful.
Okay, we don’t have to go through too much setup process to generate a list. And then you get this list of all these patients that are overdue. And you have your office journal right at the top of this report. So when you start to reach out to patients, whether you’re going to text them from, you know, patient engage, or you’re going to send out an email, whatever you’re going, however you’re going to contact the patient.
Dayna (11:37.686)
then you can make notes in the office journal. It’s super quick and easy. The office journal tab is right at the top of the list. Now, what thing you’re going to notice when you create this list is there’s a column that says appointment with a question mark, okay? Now, that whole column should be entirely empty. Now, if you have a little plus in that column, then that means that patient is scheduled for something, okay?
Now it could be that they’re scheduled for a crown prep. It could be that they’re scheduled for a filling or something. It could be that they’re scheduled for scaling and replaning. It could be that they’re scheduled for a perio maintenance, but they’re coming in, they’re showing up on your overdue profi list. All right, so this is a red flag. This should be sending off.
red flags, ding ding. Okay, there’s something wrong here because this patient is on my overdue profi list, but they’re scheduled for apparel maintenance. Okay, now there’s something wrong here that I need to fix. Okay, now I don’t know of any Recare third-party automated system that can pick up on that problem. Okay, so that’s why I am still a huge fan of running these continuing
because this is where your entire database of patients lives is inside of Dentrix. So what you have to do then is figure out, okay, is this patient a profe? Is this patient a perio? Why are they scheduled for perio maintenance? But they’re showing up on my profe list. Okay, so that’s gonna require a little bit of work on your part. But then all the other patients on this list where there’s no plus in the appointment column, they’re free game. Okay, they’re not scheduled for anything.
So you just have to either pick up the phone, old school, and maybe give them a call, or maybe just do some two-way texting with these patients. More than likely, they have already received an automated appointment reminder that they’re already overdue, and they’re still not scheduled, so they obviously are ignoring your automated messages. And so this is a good way to reach out to patients.
Dayna (14:02.686)
Now, the second continuing care list that you can generate is a little bit newer. It’s a little bit more interactive. And it came about when Dentrix added the letters and custom lists feature. Okay. So if you go to the office manager, you can generate a letters and custom list. Uh, of your patients that are overdue. This list does require a little bit more. Um,
manipulating of the date ranges and things like that. So it’s not that you can just create a template, click on it and it’ll generate a list. It does require a few more steps. But if you do like the interactiveness of the letters and custom lists, then you will really like this continuing care list. And so if you wanted to deep dive into those two continuing care lists,
Then we have a course in our membership called continuing care is the lifeblood of your practice. So definitely you can check that out. Skip, just schedule a free call with me and we’ll talk a little bit more about it. But what I started out with this episode with is if you delete the appointment off of the unscheduled list, I want you to know that your hygiene appointments, your hygiene patients
that you delete off the unscheduled list will show up on a continuing care list. So you will not lose track of them. So remember I told you, trust me, and you won’t lose track of them. So that’s the two continuing care lists. I am super excited for you to start working this list. And so, but before I leave you today, some of you may be saying, well, Dana, we just don’t have…
room to put these patients. We’ve stopped calling our continuing care patients because we don’t have anywhere to put them. And so what I say to that is you still have a responsibility to your, you’re an oral health physician, you’re an oral healthcare office, and it is your responsibility to take care of these patients, oral healthcare. And so if you reach out to them and they want to
Dayna (16:25.646)
put them into your first available opening. Okay, and then what can you do? Okay, so if you listened to my podcast a few weeks ago, you know how good of an asset it is to use the ASAP list. Okay, so if you put that to put them out into your schedule a ways out, put them on your ASAP list, so then they’re ready when you have those short notice openings, okay? It’s actually a benefit.
for you to reach out to them, because now you can start building up your ASAP list more. Okay? All right, so I’m gonna leave you with that. I’m excited to hear from you. So please reach out to me if you have any questions about this episode. If you enjoyed this episode, if it was helpful and informative, please rate it. Give us a five-star review. If you haven’t reviewed our podcast yet, today’s the day.
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