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Consistency is key if you and your team are going to create better non-verbal communication systems. If you are having breakdowns in communication and you are constantly looking for information in your Dentrix software, this episode is for you.
CLICK HERE to download Dayna’s tip sheet she talked about during the podcast. This action plan will give you an added resource to create more consistent notes.
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Transcribed by Riverside AI (please excuse any grammar errors and punctuation)
Dayna Johnson (00:02.07)
Hey, my friends, welcome to the High-Performing Dental Team podcast. And I hope you’re enjoying our podcast. And so if you’ve been listening for the last few weeks, we’ve been talking a lot about closing the loop or taking it to the finish line. Claire and I talked about that when we kicked off fourth quarter. And then Kevin and I talked about it last week when we talked about.
working with different personalities and how we can bridge that communication gap. And so we’ve been trying to just give you different information and processes when it comes to team communication and making sure everybody’s on the same page. Making sure also that you are taking your task or your process or your system, whatever you want to call it,
all the way to the finish line. So, you don’t leave things hanging. You don’t leave things unfinished because when tasks are unfinished, then it will lead to miscommunication with everybody on your team. It will also, you run the risk of having patients that are unhappy, you run the risk of
patients walking in for treatment and not knowing what their co-pay is or, you know, patients getting upset. So, communication and making sure that you are taking everything to the finish line is really important. And when I say taking it to the finish line, I mean finish that task or finish that system before you move on to something else.
And I know that can be hard, but what I find is if you do more on the front end, if you do a better job at the front-end load of time, taking the time in the front end, then you will have less challenges, less frustrations, less unhappy people on the back end. If you just do it.
Dayna Johnson (02:26.338)
do a better job on the front end. So today what I wanna talk about is not necessarily like these verbal communications with your team, but a lot of the nonverbal communications that we deal with every day. And what I mean about that is notes, like where are we documenting notes, different types of notes, and what does your document center look like? A couple…
podcast ago, I think it was number 83 or something. I’d have to look back. Let me see if I can do that really quick. Number 81, if you go back to podcast number 81, it was just a couple of weeks ago, I talked a lot about clinical notes, how to bridge that gap of communication between the front and the back. When it comes to what did we do today and what’s next? How important that is when it comes to
collecting on the day of service, making sure that our clinical note matches what we’re billing out to the patient and to the insurance company, and what’s next for the patient? What am I scheduling? What kind of treatment does the patient need? Do I need to check and see if the FMX is covered under the patient’s insurance plan before they come in for their six month checkup? So what’s…
what happened today and what’s next will really help bridge that communication between the front and the back. So go back and listen to that podcast number 81. It was just a couple of weeks ago if you missed it. So today I want to kind of expand on that when it comes to where are we making notes and kind of give you some tips, some advice on where, where’s the best places to document certain things. So let’s start with.
personal notes. So we have a lot of notes that we document about our patients. We have personal notes. So also in that podcast, I think a couple weeks ago with clinical notes, we want to make sure we’re not putting any personal notes in the clinical note. That’s not where it belongs. I do see a lot of dental hygienists that are putting personal notes in the clinical note because they feel like that’s where they should be going to read.
Dayna Johnson (04:47.042)
relationship building things about their patients so they can remember. But that’s not the most appropriate place because if you’re putting it in the clinical note and let’s say you have to send a copy of that clinical note to the insurance company or you get subpoenaed by someone for notes or you’re sending those notes to the patient and you have those personal things in there, it just gets awkward. They don’t belong there.
And so when I think of personal notes, I think of relationship building, and everyone on the team should have access to that note. And I love the patient note for that, because it shows up on a couple different places in Dentrix. It shows up on your route slip, your visit form. So if you’re using the route slip or visit form as a communication tool with your team, then the patient note is a great spot for that.
It stays connected to your patient because it’s right on the family file. It gives you, you can put it, insert the date line so you can keep the most recent things at the top. So it’s just a really great centralized place for those personal things that we wanna remember about our patients, like their vacations or their dogs or their kids and whether they like to do, you know, their hobbies, those kinds of things. And…
So that’s a great spot for personal notes. Another thing that we have to document a lot about are financial notes. And we wanna keep financial notes in a little, in a spot that’s a little bit more, you know, harder to find. You don’t want it to be broadcasted to everyone as far as, you know, the appointment or the patient note because…
If it’s a financial note, you might not want it on the route slip or the visit form. If it’s something like, I don’t know, divorce information or if they have a credit card on file. I mean, that’s not that personal, but never put the credit card number in Dentrix unless you’re using Dentrix Pay because that’s protected under the PCI guidelines. But financial notes.
Dayna Johnson (07:03.99)
We also want them to be readily available when we’re sending billing statements or if we’re on the ledger or if we’re running the collection manager report. So we’re managing our accounts receivable and you’re looking up accounts receivable on the collection manager report. You know that that’s my favorite report in Dentrix for managing accounts receivable. So financial notes are great in the guarantor note. Some people call it the G note.
because it has a big G on the icon, so it’s easy to find. It’s on the ledger. It’s not as easily accessible as the patient note or the other note boxes. Another place, another thing that we document about for notes is sometimes we like to put notes on the appointment book. For example, we want to put a note that the doctor has a,
Rotary Club meeting at the end of the day, or we have our team meeting is on a particular day. We want to block out a note. We want to put a note across our entire schedule. And we want to maybe make a note that we need to follow up with a particular patient on that particular day. That kind of note might be great for an event. I was recently working with a dental practice that
Dayna Johnson (08:32.062)
an appointment, like a patient account. In fact, they were using the doctor’s account to make notes in the schedule. And it became very apparent very quickly that was not the best place, not the best use of the doctor’s account to make these fake appointments.
because when we went to search appointments for him and his family, I mean, he must have had 500 notes in the appointment. And also it could be problematic if you have patients on the schedule as an appointment for a follow-up note because they could potentially get appointment reminders if you’re using an automated system or a text or an email type of system to remind patients about appointments. So…
My recommendation would be to use an event. One thing to remember about events, if you’re gonna block out time in the schedule, especially for team meetings, or if you’re blocking out an entire operatory because maybe you’re having some service done in the operatory, or maybe that operatory is closed for that day, just always remember that.
Dentrix will still think that is open time under the event. It doesn’t block out the time in the schedule. It’s just a visual. So that’s also something really important to remember. Couple of other places that we could make notes just to follow up reminder notes is, there’s an appointment note on the appointment book in the upper left corner. That note is, you know, just part of that day. And you could use that for
a reminder to yourself that, okay, I need to call Mrs. Smith about her physician’s letter to get cleared for her surgery, or maybe I need to follow up on a patient who is coming by to pay off their balance. We used to use that appointment note in my own practice. We used to use that appointment note for our morning huddle. We used to put notes about if there were any missing clinical notes or if I needed a narrative
Dayna Johnson (10:45.986)
for a particular claim that I needed to get out. I would put a note there that to let my doctor know I needed a narrative. It could also be a note for maybe you’re having a birthday potluck that day and you wanna have a potluck signup sheet and you could use that appointment note for something like that. So it’s pretty, it’s like a blank piece of paper. It’s like those big wall post-it notes that some people use for making, you know.
maybe sign up sheets or something like that. And that’s what that appointment note is really good for. And then we also have notes if you need to make insurance notes, we do have there is that insurance note box in the insurance information that is specific to that plan. Now, insurance notes can be interesting if you have certain things like, like if you take a Medicaid,
then I know Medicaid, they, they up, or they, what am I thinking of? The eligibility is monthly, like you have to check the eligibility, I think every month for Medicaid patients. So I do see that some offices will put the patient’s Medicaid eligibility in the patient note instead of in the insurance note because it’s specific to that patient.
If it’s a plan, if it’s a note for the entire plan, like frequencies, limitations, things like that, that would definitely go in the insurance note. Because you can see that insurance note in a couple different places in Dentrix. You can see it in the patient chart. You can see it in the insurance claim. I love it in the insurance in the patient chart because, for example, let’s say the hygienist is wanting to just double check if adult fluoride is covered and they could see that note.
in the patient chart. They don’t have to leave the patient chart to double check any insurance information. Now, I’m not advocating that your clinical team have any training on insurance benefits or anything like that. I’m not advocating for that at all. I think the clinical team should stay out of insurance management or benefits breakdowns, anything like that. I think that
Dayna Johnson (13:10.346)
are getting all these questions asked by the patients to the clinical team about insurance. I think that takes away from their role, which is educators in the practice. So you wanna make sure that you are just educating your patients about their clinical oral health. You don’t wanna be answering questions about insurance or anything like that.
Okay, now let’s kind of turn to the document center.
Dayna Johnson (13:59.842)
So let’s turn now to the document center, because I do find that there are a lot of, just kind of, it looks like a junk drawer sometimes. I hate to say it, but sometimes the document center looks like the junk drawer in the sense that you just throw everything into one folder and it might be called miscellaneous or it might be called correspondence.
So you throw everything into one folder. Well, with a computer, I mean, there’s no reason for you not to separate out your different folders. So when you think of the document center, you think of you have the folder name, and then you put all the pieces of paper in that folder that should be represented in that folder. So for example, you might have patient correspondence,
But then you also might have referral correspondence or physician correspondence. So you know all my referral letters go into the referral correspondence. Any letter that I might send to a patient would go into the patient correspondence. And you might have a folder for insurance EOBs, but then you have a different folder for insurance eligibility. So there’s no reason why you’d…
you can’t make different folders for that, as long as everybody’s on the same page, that document, that insurance eligibility breakdown goes into the insurance eligibility folder. And then you have a folder for treatment plan estimates, and you have a folder for lab slips. So I think being very specific about the folders, and in Dendrix, they call them document types. I just like to call them.
folders because I think of like file folders inside of a file cabinet. It’s a lot easier for me and my office is to think about the document types as just a file folder. So I think it’s important that you create specific file folders, document types, for each type of correspondence that you might receive or might get from your patients or in the mail. Because the document center is
Dayna Johnson (16:23.142)
is what holds all the paper. You don’t have paper charts anymore. At least most of you don’t have paper charts anymore. You have a computer that takes care of all of your digital records. And if you have document types or file folders in your document center that don’t make any sense, then fix it. You have the opportunity to fix it in your practice so that you are not hunting and pecking for information.
You bring everybody on the same page. You’re closing that loop of communication breakdown because you don’t have to hunt and peck for information. Everybody’s on the same page. So that’s what I wanted to talk about today is the different ways that you can bridge that communication gap, close the loop between the front and the back when it comes to searching for information because…
everybody on the team needs that chart, needs that digital record. And when you don’t have a paper chart, having a consistent and efficient way of finding information and storing information is really, really important for the communication in your practice. And the better communication you have within your practice, the better…
the team will work together, the happier you’ll be. I mean, the more satisfied you will be working in your practice because you don’t have these communication breakdowns. And everybody’s on the same page, everybody’s working together, everybody’s working towards the same outcome. And when you also have, when you have documentation that you can find, it’s also better for communication with your patient because maybe they have a question about the treatment plan.
And they’re like, oh, I don’t remember you quoting me, you know, for the buildup. I don’t remember talking about that. And if you have a specific place where you’re putting those treatment plan estimates, everybody’s doing it the same way. And you’re taking that all the way to the finish line. So you’re presenting the treatment to the patient during their hygiene exam, and you’re quoting them their treatment fees. You’re giving them.
Dayna Johnson (18:46.242)
and itemized or you’re giving them an estimate of their treatment plan so that they can budget for that appointment and then you’re scheduling the patient the appointment because they agree to the financial arrangement they agree to the treatment and then the patient comes in for treatment and you know you’re going to collect their copay and the patient says oh I don’t remember you quoting me about a bill what’s a build-up
You know, and you’re able to pull up a copy of that treatment plan estimate that you gave the patient so you can revisit it with them, you know, bring it to the front burner about what did you talk about when you scheduled the appointment. So everybody’s putting a copy of that treatment plan in the document center. So it’s easy for you to pull it and look it up. So anyone on the team could do that. So that’s what I’m talking about is creating that consistency. All right.
I hope that this topic resonated with you. I do have a notes, where to make notes tip sheet. If you want a copy of my tip sheet, I will put a link to the tip sheet page. All you have to do is give me your email address and your name and the practice name. That’s all you have to give me in order to get my free tip sheet. And then you should get it right into your inbox.
You can download it and then have my free tip sheet on the best places in Dentrix to make notes. So I just talked to Fiat a few places in the notes today, but there is a comprehensive worksheet that I will give you. All right, if this resonated with you, please tell your friends, neighbors, only if your neighbor is a dentist or a hygienist or a front office team member or an assistant. You know, your study club, your, if you’re an aid on chapter,
You know, tell your friends, your chat groups, your Facebook, Dentrix user Facebook group about our podcast and please rate it, review it, share it. This is how we get our information out to more Dentrix users because you found us somehow. And if you share our podcast and review it. So if you’re listening on this on iTunes, please give us a review.
Dayna Johnson (21:10.406)
it will really help this podcast jump up to the new and noteworthy podcasts that are out there. So I appreciate it. I appreciate you so much. And I love that you are listening in today. And I will see you again next week for the High Performing Dental Team. I hope you have a great rest of your day.
