Initial training

drpham · Post by **drpham** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:21 am

Is there initial training support for new users?

Post by **jordansparks** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 1:27 pm

Yes. You will learn how to use Open Dental in a combination of 4 ways:
1. Reading the manual and learning how to use the keyword search feature.
2. Fiddling with it.
3. Structured training sessions, typically an hour long each, and scheduled in advance.
4. Calling us for help when you get stuck.

You are mostly asking about #3. We call that online or remote training. Yes, an hour of free training comes included. Each hour after that costs $50. But you'll also be using #4 a lot in the first few days/weeks. We also do onsite live training where a trainer flies out, but that gets very expensive.

drpham · Post by **drpham** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:22 pm

I am opening a new start up practice in July. When should I sign up with Open Dental and start learning the software? Does OD have remote access capability? Does VixWin from Gendex integrate well with OD? Thank you for your help.

Mark

Post by **jordansparks** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 8:59 pm

You might sign up a few days to a week in advance. A startup practice is much easier than someone with high volume who is trying to not lose momentum. Yes, we use remote access on nearly every phone call. Yes, we bridge well with VixWin. http://www.opendental.com/manual/bridgeVixwin.html

drpham · Post by **drpham** » Sat Apr 21, 2012 10:12 pm

Will Open Dental bridge well with Dexis imaging software? Thanks for the swift reply!

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 1:46 pm

drpham wrote:Will Open Dental bridge well with Dexis imaging software? Thanks for the swift reply!

I can answer that. It works GRREAT with Dexis!!!

drpham · Post by **drpham** » Sun Apr 22, 2012 5:42 pm

Dr. Hershey,

Do you recommend Open Dental over Dentrix and why? It seems like OD is too good to be true. I need something basic for my new start-up but want it to be able to handle growth. Ease of use, compatibility with other softwares, and performances is what I would like to use. Will Open Dental allow multiple users to access a patient's chart at the same time? Kodak's PracticeWorks does not allow this and it really bugs me.

Thanks,
Mark

drtech · Post by **drtech** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:26 am

Mark, We used Dentrix for 12 years before moving to Open Dental. It is much better. As Jordan will tell you, there are pros and cons of all software, but overall, OD is great.

Yes, you can open most anything anywhere at the same time. No restrictions.

drpham · Post by **drpham** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 3:06 pm

drpham wrote:Will Open Dental bridge well with Dexis imaging software? Thanks for the swift reply!

When you say OD bridge well with Dexis, does this mean a one click to access a specific patient's X-rays in Dexis without retyping name, etc...?

jclaydds · Post by **jclaydds** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 5:03 pm

drpham wrote:It seems like OD is too good to be true.

My exact thoughts when I first started looking into using Open Dental in 2008. I have been in practice for nearly 30 yrs. I had used a couple of "lesser known" practice management software programs for nearly 20 yrs. The software I was using in 2008 was not meeting my needs. I started to look at Practice Works, Dentrix, Softdent, etc and Lorne Lavine suggested I take a good look at Open Dental to see what I thought. I loved what I saw but I emailed Lorne back and asked him "What was the Catch? -- This is too good to be true. Jordan Sparks emailed a response to me that satisfied me andI made the decision to use Open Dental. Well, I converted to Open Dental in March 2008. I have been using it for 4 years and consider my switch to Open Dental as one of my better practice management decisions that I made in my career.

If you are using it in a "start up" practice, it will be even better for you. Open Dental has a great conversion department but any conversion from another software has some degree of pain involved despite Open Dental doing their best to make it as painless as possible.

Open Dental "bridges" with many brands of imaging software (Dexis, Vixwin, Apteryx, XDR, etc) and this means you bring up the patient in Open Dental and one-click on the bridge icon and you are looking at your patient's images in the imaging software.

No restrictions on multiple users accessing the same patient at the same time. Open Dental even allows multiple simultaneous logins. You can have multiple sessions of Open Dental running on a single computer. Ideal if you have dual monitors. You can have the schedule up on one monitor and doing something else in Open Dental on the other monitor.

The last thing that is so nice is the stability of Open Dental. With my previous practice management software, it seemed like we were often seeing the program "locking up or freezing" which meant a reboot. I can't remember this happening with Open Dental. It is rock solid stable.

Good Luck with your decison but you will find a lot of people on this forum that feel exactly like I do about Open Dental. It's a great deal. They have great support and the price can't be beat.

Jeff

drpham · Post by **drpham** » Mon Apr 23, 2012 6:46 pm

Hi Jeff,

Thank you for you input. This definitely help me make my decision.

Mark

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 10:04 pm

drpham wrote:Dr. Hershey,

Do you recommend Open Dental over Dentrix and why? It seems like OD is too good to be true. I need something basic for my new start-up but want it to be able to handle growth. Ease of use, compatibility with other softwares, and performances is what I would like to use. Will Open Dental allow multiple users to access a patient's chart at the same time? Kodak's PracticeWorks does not allow this and it really bugs me.

Thanks,
Mark

Mark,
YES YES YES
YES it is too good, and YES it is TRUE.
All I hear from Dentrix users is complaints. All I hear from OD users is praise.
Jordan runs a company with the best customer support staff anywhere. I never met a company that was more responsive to their customers.
Yes, more than one user can access a patient's chart at the same time. I guess you can't both be editing the same note at the same time, but I can't imagine that ever happening anyway.
I love OD.

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Tue Apr 24, 2012 10:08 pm

drpham wrote:
drpham wrote:Will Open Dental bridge well with Dexis imaging software? Thanks for the swift reply!
When you say OD bridge well with Dexis, does this mean a one click to access a specific patient's X-rays in Dexis without retyping name, etc...?

YES again. One click on the Dexis button in OD closes any Dexis file that may be open and open's the current patient's Dexis file. One click. No typing. If that patient doesn't already have a Dexis chart, one will automatically be created based on their OD ID#.

Post by **jordansparks** » Wed Apr 25, 2012 6:22 am

Hersheydmd wrote:I never met a company that was more responsive to their customers.
Yes, more than one user can access a patient's chart at the same time. I guess you can't both be editing the same note at the same time, but I can't imagine that ever happening anyway.
I love OD.

Thanks for the compliments. Actually, you can both edit a note at the same time, and all the changes get saved. In that very unusual situation, there is the caveat that the first user's note will be buried in the audit log where it won't actually be seen unless you go looking for it. This whole topic is called "multiuser concurrency", and we have an entire page in the manual describing it:
http://www.opendental.com/manual/refreshing.html
Many years ago, I used Dentrix, and their handling of multiuser concurrency was very similar to ours. In other words, it was never really a problem because it was designed in from the beginning. My understanding is that PracticeWorks, SoftDent, and some others have a more annoying way of handling multiuser concurrency, which is to simply only allow one user at a time to have access to a patient. That's not elegant enough, and it's overkill.

Hersheydmd · Post by **Hersheydmd** » Wed Apr 25, 2012 10:08 pm

That is quite interesting Jordan.

And one more thing DrPham:
Have you ever dealt with a company where you can post questions and they will be answered on a daily basis by the CEO himself?

drpham · Post by **drpham** » Thu Apr 26, 2012 7:25 pm

That is impressive customer service.

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