When it comes to protecting the practice you’ve built, you want to make sure you’re using all the tools at your disposal, and Open Dental provides tools to protect your practice from everything from HIPAA compliance to reputation management. Read on to find out more.

HIPAA Compliance

Open Dental has several tools to make sure your practice is HIPAA compliant and sharing PHI in a secure way.

Security Setup

Setting up unique users and passwords for each employee is an important step. This ensures that not just anyone can access Open Dental and actions taken in Open Dental are logged in the Audit Trail attached to the correct person when they are logged in. Go to Setup, Security to add or edit users. You can also set an Automatic logoff time in Global Security Settings to ensure Open Dental does not stay logged in and open while someone is away from their desk for an extended period of time.

Appointment View

If computers are viewable by patients in operatories, you can change the Appointment View settings, so other patient information does not appear on screen, since this module is not patient-specific, so you can create a view for use in operatories to help prevent this.

In Setup, Appointments, Appointment Views, add a new Appointment View. In this Appointment View, make sure not to add the “PatientName”, “PatNumAndName” or other identifiable fields. Make sure to also check the “Disable appointment bubbles” box, otherwise patient photos may appear when hovering over appointments, and change the Waiting Room Format to First or First, Last Initial.

Patient Portal

Patient Portal is an eService, available at no additional charge to customers on support. This tool allows patients to see things like statements, Treatment Plans, upcoming appointments, and more, and message providers – all from a secure portal.

WebMail

WebMail is the secure messaging portion of the Patient Portal. This feature will send a notification to a patient’s email inbox letting them know they have a message waiting in the Patient Portal. The patient must log in using their credentials to read the message, making this a way to safely send PHI. The patient is also able to respond to messages.

Secure Email

Secure Email is another way to safely send messages containing PHI. This is a paid eService with a monthly fee. This can be used to securely communicate with both patients and other providers as needed. Instead of needing to log into a portal, the recipient (e.g., patient) will be prompted for a one-time passcode when viewing their email. This is sent to their email, once enter they will be able to view the message.

Sneak Peek:
Coming soon in Version 23.1, Practices that are signed up for Secure Email will also have email statements automatically sent by Secure Email (instead of standard email) when sending statements through the Billing List.

Embezzlement

Embezzlement can be a serious concern in the dental profession. Take a look at our previous post: Open Dental Tools to Mitigate Embezzlement Risk for the best tools in Open Dental to help prevent embezzlement.

Backups

Backups can help with a whole host of things. They’re important to maintain HIPAA compliance, they can help mitigate your embezzlement risk, and of course, they’re a lifeline should you have a data breach or data loss.

Open Dental has a built-in Backup Tool to ensure making manual backups is simple and straightforward.

Fully Managed Backups

UnisonBDR from Central Data Storage is integrated into Open Dental to provide fully managed, HIPAA-compliant cloud backups of the data that is so critical to your practice.

Reputation

Protecting your reputation as a business is one of the most important things you can do to help your business grow and thrive. In Open Dental, you can use our built-in tools as well as integrations to help you grow your practice with review generation.

General Messages

General Messages are an eService, available at no additional charge to customers on support that can be sent via email or text message if signed up for Integrated Texting. Messages are sent automatically after a patient’s appointment and can be customized to remind patients to leave a review.

Podium Reviews

Enable the Podium bridge to take advantage of the integration and automate the process of getting patient reviews.

If you need any help with these tools, our Support Techs are here to assist you. Just Contact Us.