Technology Toolkit

The litigious nature of our society is changing the culture of dental care. Too many practitioners have been forced to think less about what is best for the patient and more about how to best guard against legal action. Dental liability protection doesn’t have to interfere with quality care. A good program of documentation provides substantial protection for any practice.

If You Didn’t Write It, It Didn’t Happen
A malpractice action without proper documentation boils down to “he said, she said” and that is not the best method of dental liability protection. This also leads to the problem of fallible human memory. Are you really going to remember details of an incident that occurred months ago, especially an event that didn’t seem exceptional at the time? Proper documentation is absolutely essential to any modern practice.

While a narrative description of a visit or procedure is a good place to start, it’s not the best method of documentation. Many practices find that using standard forms is a better way to record important information. By filling in each box on the form, the staff is prompted to think about and write down every detail.

No documentation is going to be perfect, but the effort to create an accurate and detailed record will count for a lot in court and is a powerful tool for dental liability protection.

Checklists Lead to Better Care
People aren’t perfect and we all forget to do things. This is especially true when something becomes routine. Our minds get bored and wander and then we lose track of what we’ve done and what we haven’t. You leave for work and can’t remember if you locked the back door. You remember locking it, but maybe that was one of the other thousand times you did. This becomes a huge problem when dental care is involved.

Documentation helps regiment activities, providing a checklist that ensures every step of a procedure is carried out. If the hygienist, nurse or dentist can’t remember if something was done a quick look at the checklist provides the answer. If you didn’t write it, it didn’t happen. This attention to detail not only provides dental liability protection but leads to better care for patients and easier dental staff training.

Dental Practice Software Makes It Easier
While pen and paper are still invaluable documentation tools, advances in dental software have taken much of the drudgery and inaccuracy out of the system. Old software applications were clumsy to use and difficult to learn. They were limited in scope and often had to be supplemented with traditional paper charts.

Today’s software makes documentation a snap, in many cases allowing notes to be taken right at the computer while the patient is being seen. Dental applications are designed to be easy to use without a lot of training or confusing commands. The addition of such a system is a valuable investment that will protect a dental practice from legal action and help provide better patient care.

Every dentist wants more time to spend with patients. But unfortunately, many practices are burdened with paperwork: insurance filings, staff training, chart maintenance, and record keeping all take time away from patient care. The right dental software can change that balance by making your office more efficient.

However, there are many varieties of dental practice software, and sifting through the different features to find what your office needs can be difficult. You will need to consider many aspects of your practice, everything from your staff’s comfort with a new system to the level of computer assistance you want. Modern technology can be fully integrated, providing everything from behind-the-counter assistance with patient check-in to reference elements in the individual treatment rooms.

Although there are a number of different options to consider, a few stand out as particularly important for any office. Before you can file dental electronic claims with an insurance company or optimize your practice management with dental software, you need to get the right software for the job. There are a surprising number of features you need to be aware of. However, two of the most important are staff training and dental electronic claims. Both these aspects of dental software can have a huge impact on your office, and many dentists don’t realize the full potential of either feature.

Dental Staff Training
Whether you have new staff members or older, established technicians taking on new roles, dental software can be invaluable during and after the transition. Properly designed and customized dental practice software includes actual checklists, allowing your employees to follow an exact, proscribed working routine. This checklist can help manage everything from patient check-in to actual dental procedures.

With a checklist, you get unprecedented control over the quality of the work your technicians perform. Furthermore, checklist-driven dental practice software helps protect against malpractice lawsuits and provides dental liability protection. You can track employee performance and see which actions were performed on the checklist, rather than guessing based upon a scant paper record. Dental software checklists should be fully customizable based upon the needs of your practice and specialty.

Dental Electronic Claims
The idea behind electronic claims is simple: filing online saves time, money, and helps the environment by cutting down on paper use. Many claims submitted online are reviewed and resolved more quickly than those submitted the traditional way. Sending insurance claims electronically almost always makes them easier to manage, compile, and send than their less high tech counterparts.

With dental electronic claims, your office can electronically manage and create dental insurance claims. This software will interface with your patient data, meaning you don’t have to spend time filling in the basic patient information. A good dental insurance software system will automatically know the relevant basic data, and the computer can complete the initial part of the form without your assistance. You simply step in for the parts that cannot be filled in by a machine, entering the unique details of the particular claim. However, even when a computer cannot fill out a claim form entirely by itself, it can still help maintain the accuracy of those forms. Some software can provide feedback on your entries and alert you if a mistype is suspected.

When you understand these two features and use them to your best advantage, you can optimize the way you use your dental practice software. Your accounts, transactions, and appointments will all run more smoothly. Check-in and staff management will be simple. But most importantly, you and your staff with more time to devote to what matters most: your patients.