Setting up and using Lab Cases in Open Dental helps you monitor cases as they move through the process and provides visibility to labs attached to planned and scheduled appointments, to help prevent situations where a patient shows up for a seat/delivery appointment without their lab being ready for them!

First, a couple basic setup steps before you start using Lab Cases

1. (optional) Set up your custom lab slips
Doing this first will allow you to quickly attach the lab slip in the next step.

• • If you have a specific form required by your lab, scan that form in as an image. Then go to Setup> Sheets. Click +New, then insert the scanned form as the image for your sheet and add export fields & text boxes in the appropriate places.
  • To customize the lab slip provided in Open Dental, click on the Lab Slip in “Internal” then click Move to make a copy and start customizing. You can create a custom lab sheet for each lab you use.
    New to customizing sheets? Watch our Sheets Customization webinars.

2. Set up your laboratories (Setup> Laboratories)
If you’ve created a custom lab slip, attach it under Lab Slip.
Entering lead times for various items will allow the system to show you a “due date” for the lab case and will help you estimate when that lab should arrive.

3. Add Lab to your Appointment View (Setup> Appointments> Appointment Views)
This will allow you to see lab case status for any appointments that have labs attached. You will also see an alert if any of the labs attached to today’s appointments have not been received:

Now you’re ready to start using and tracking lab cases!

Create the Lab Case

• Create the lab case when you’re creating the planned or scheduled appointment for seat/delivery
  Create a patient’s planned or scheduled appointment for the seat/delivery. Click the Lab button, then in the Select Lab Case window, click +New to create a new lab case. Don’t worry if you don’t see your appointment attached yet – once you click ok, it will attach the appointment to the lab case.
  
• Alternatively, create the lab case first, then attach it to an appointment later
  From the Chart Module – click on the LabCase button in the Chart Module toolbar to create your lab case. Open any planned or scheduled appointment, click the Lab button. Any lab cases that have been created but not attached to appointments will show under Lab Cases. Click to attach the appropriate lab case, and click OK.
  

TECH TIP: Instructions in your lab case will populate on the generated lab slip.

Once a lab case is created, an entry will be added to Progress Notes.

Create the lab slip

Create the lab slip while you’re creating your lab case. Just click the New Slip button at the bottom of the Edit Lab Case window. Edit the lab slip as needed, then print.

Update and Track Lab Case Status

Access all your lab cases from the Appointment Module using the Lab Cases button.

Filter for a date range, by Clinic, or to show only those not attached to an appointment, or only show completed labs.

To update the status of a lab case in the list, double-click on the lab case, then update the status in the Tracking area in the upper right.

A couple of things to note:

• Only one lab case can be attached to each appointment. If you have more than one lab case, make another appointment right next to the first one, move the associated procedure to that appointment, and attach the lab case.
• If you’re performing procedures over multiple visits, you may find the “In Process” procedure status helpful.

Watch how this works in our YouTube Video QuickTip: In Process Status for Multi-Visit Treatment

New to Lab Cases? Check out our Lab Cases Webinar, which walks through setting up and uses lab cases in Open Dental. If you have questions along the way, we’re here for you – just get in touch with us.