The Appointments Module is an integral part of Open Dental. When you arrive at the office in the morning it’s one of the first things you look at to get an idea of what your day will be like, and it’s used throughout your day to manage patient flow and scheduling. This post will cover the essential tools that will make the Appointments Module the powerhouse you need it to be.
Providers and Schedules
There are many things in the Appointments Module that are affected by the provider’s schedule:
Production Goals
When calculating production goals, Open Dental takes the provider’s hourly goal and multiplies it by the number of scheduled hours for that provider. Make sure to add Production or NetProduction to your appointment view to see this!
TECH TIP: When setting up the provider schedule, make sure you include a lunch break. If the provider doesn’t have a lunch break in their schedule but is taking one, their Daily Production Goal will not be accurate.
Make Recall and Appointment Search
The Make Recall button is used to schedule the patient’s next Recall appointment and the Search button is used to find openings in the schedule. These buttons make scheduling recalls and finding available openings quick and easy.
Search results show openings for scheduled providers in the selected appointment view.
Provider Scheduling Note
Add a provider-specific scheduling note that will appear when clicking on the header of their operatory. This is useful as a reminder if providers only work certain days of the week.
This is how it appears when clicking the operatory:
TECH TIP: When setting up a provider’s schedule you can copy and paste the schedule for a single provider. When pasting schedules, days marked as holidays are automatically skipped so you won’t need to go into each one individually after initial setup.
Blockouts and Blockout Types
Blockouts are a great tool to visualize how you want to schedule out your day or to prevent appointments from being scheduled at certain times.
Block Scheduling
For offices that want to use block scheduling, you can create a blockout type for certain appointment types. Block scheduling allows you to reserve time on the schedule for certain procedures (preventative, restorative, etc.) You can easily search by these blockout types by using the Advanced button in the Appointments Module.
You can also modify appointment types with allowed blockout types, restricting those appointment types so they can only be scheduled on those blockout types, or where there is no blockout scheduled.
Operatory Setup
You can set up operatories with default providers and hygienists. This is useful if one provider always works in that operatory. If providers share the operatory, rather than assigning a default provider in the operatory itself, attach the operatory to the provider’s schedule instead.
You can also set an operatory as hygiene, making the hygienist the main provider in that operatory.
If you’ve just had your final conversion, or a provider recently left the office, the Update provs on future appts tool can be useful. This will update the provider or hygienist for all upcoming appointments in the operatory.
Procedure Setup
Several procedure features can be useful when scheduling appointments.
- Notes and Times for Specific Provider: This can be used to override procedure time patterns to allow for more time if needed by certain providers. It also allows provider-specific notes for treatment planned or completed procedures. (See screenshot below)
- Is Hygiene Procedure: If the procedure is always done by the hygienist and they should be getting credit for it, mark it as ‘Is Hygiene Procedure’. When the box is checked, the procedure will be automatically assigned to the hygiene provider when scheduling an appointment with two providers.
When it comes to keeping your office running smoothly and efficiently, knowledge is power. If you need help powering up your Appointments Module, give us a call!
Information in this post reflects features available in Open Dental Version 24.4. For the most up-to-date information, please visit our manual.