It may only be September, but now is the time to start on your year-end tasks to make sure there’s not a mad dash to get things done during the holidays. In this post we’ll explore some of the important tasks that your practice can do to set yourself up for a successful new year.
Assign Duties and Responsibilities
Before you even get started on your end-of-year to-do list, make sure it’s clear who is responsible for what. Use tools like Open Dental’s Tasks feature to assign employees responsibilities and send reminders once it’s time to get started. It’s also important to make sure that expectations of what needs to be done are clear. See our previous blog post on Documented Policies and Procedures for more tips and tricks.
Schedule Patients with Expiring Benefits
When it’s nearing the end of the year and holiday season, going to the dentist can often be the last thing on a patient’s mind. This can be the prime time to remind patients that when it comes to insurance benefits, if you don’t use it, you lose it, so now is the time to schedule that dental care they need. Sending a letter, postcard, or email can be the little push a patient needs to get their treatment scheduled.
Reports or tools can help you find the patients you’re looking for. In Open Dental, use the Treatment Finder to find patients and quickly generate letters or mailing labels.
Set Up Schedules
If you’re in the holiday lull, it can be a good time to complete some administrative tasks that you and your staff may not otherwise have time for. Nothing can be more frustrating than scheduling an appointment and then having to call a patient to reschedule because a provider isn’t available.
Inputting your provider and employee schedules for the new year, makes it easy to ensure you are scheduling patient appointments at the right time. If you use block scheduling, also make sure to set up your ideal scheduling layout to optimize your production.
Audit Inventory
Most if not all of us have experienced the frustration of needing an item and then realizing we’ve run out. This is why inventory management is so important, especially in a dental practice. Use tools, like the Open Dental Supply Inventory feature, to track and manage your inventory and use downtime to audit your inventory and update any on-hand quantities to make sure supplies are ordered before they run out.
While you’re auditing inventory, it can also be a good time to make sure equipment is in proper working order and to schedule any necessary maintenance. This will help prevent possible equipment issues in the future that may disrupt business.
Update Software
If you’ve been putting off those software updates, now is the time to get them done. Work with your IT to make sure you install the latest operating system updates and updates for any software you may be using.
For Open Dental, installing the latest software also means you’ll get access to the latest procedure codes. For Canadian Users, this also means you’ll get access to the latest available fee guides. Contact Open Dental Support for help updating to the latest Open Dental version.
Run Reports
Once you’re done seeing patients for the year, make sure to run the reports you’ll need for things like taxes, analytics, etc. It’s also helpful to have a hard copy of reports in case historical data gets changed. Open Dental has over 50 standard reports and over 2000 queries to help get you the data you need.
TECH TIP: If you want to prevent historical data in Open Dental from being changed, you can set a global lock date in your Global Security Settings.
After you run reports, take some time to review and analyze them. These can be used to help you make important business decisions like if you want to remain in contract with a particular carrier or which services, products, etc. you want to provide.
Review and Update Fees
The end of the year is the time to review both your office fees and any contracted fees you may have with insurance companies. Run reports to get a good idea of your production and if your margins are where you want them to be. This is also the time that you may need to renegotiate fees with any insurance carriers you’re contracted with.
If you’ll have new fees in the new year, try to set these up ahead of time to save yourself when the new year rush comes. The Fee Tools feature in Open Dental makes it easy to increase or import fees and set a future effective date, so that you can get things done in advance.
Completing these end-of-year tasks is vital in ensuring success for the new year. If you have questions about how the tools in Open Dental can help you complete these tasks, contact our Support Team.