Using Dental Software to Streamline Your Practice's Operation

Posted by Rajpatil on July 7th, 2016

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.

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