Open Dental Forum

Hello Dr. Jordan / Team,

I am having challenges in dealing with Broken Appointments within open-dental.

I have read through the manual at http://www.open-dent.com/manual/aptdele ... plete.html but It does not talk about what to do when you want to 'Break' and appointment and not delete it, move it or put it on the unscheduled list and yet not mess up the 'Treatment Plan' with all the procedures that were part of a broken appointment..if I just leave the 'Broken Appointment' on open-dental (which i want to do since I want to track what procedure was that appointment for..like want to differentiate between Hygiene vs Non-Hygiene appointments broken.

Any Thoughts / suggestions...

Cheers,

OpenSource

You have to delete it or move it or put it on the Unscheduled list. Leaving it there is not an option yet. You could go vote for that feature.

I have my staff break the appointment. Double click on the apt, click the lock time button, and unselect the procedures. This lets me see how long of an apt the pt broke and how my schedule looked before pts didn't show up. Then we have a task list called "Call patient to schedule list." They hit the send task button which auto adds the patient's name to the task and they are done.

That sounds like an acceptable workaround that would not cause any other problems.

I just tried Robert's workaround and I like it a lot. One thing that I did notice Jordan, is that there is a difference between the "send to task list" on the menu bar (patient-type tasklist) vs. the "send to tasklist" within the appointment window (appointment type tasklist). I showed this to my front desk and she asked the reasonable question, "why do I have to type all of the information in the window, why can't it just transfer?"

So, a couple of ideas: one - have the "send-to task list" button create a task with more info or more intelligence and detail. If I click on Bob Smith's appointment and send it to a task list, all of the info will go there regardless. two- integrate the task list with the appointment lists so the two work together.

I think that the task lists are far more visible than the appointment lists. We've fallen in love with the simple, yet capable system.

PPS - slightly off topic - It would sure be nice to be able to re-order the task list.

Instead of enhancing the workaround, I am more inclined to focus on the final solution of allowing appointments to remain on the schedule after being broken. There are only 30 votes on that feature.

Dr. Jordan,

I would tend to agree with you..that we need to be able to keep the appointment broken with the procedure details (maybe do some kind of a flagging of the procedures..so that it does not show up twice as a pending treatment or whatever). Basically, this is what I was looking for...as per my original post. The Work-around does not give me that ability completely.

Sorry, I cannot add to the votes since I am non voting member of this community.

Cheers,

Opensource

Jordan, you wrote

"You have to delete it or move it or put it on the Unscheduled list. Leaving it there is not an option yet. You could go vote for that feature."

In addition, on the cited page, http://www.open-dent.com/manual/aptdele ... plete.html we read "A broken appointment should be moved before the end of the day, however, so that incomplete appointments do not get left on the appointment book." Perhaps the page should further clarify the issue by stating something like: "Individual procedures cannot be attached to multiple appointments simultaneously, eg. a broken appointment plus a new appointment, so the broken appointment must be rescheduled immediately or sent to the unscheduled list, or if the broken appointment is intended to stay on the schedule, the procedures must be removed from the broken appointment freeing them for attachment to a new appointment."

Working on the final solution seems better from certain standpoints, but then how does this work? Suppose I break a #8 crown appointment, keeping the broken appt on the schedule with #8 crown. Then I schedule a new appt so that #8 crown appears in a second appt. Then my staff who didn't get the memo about leaving the broken appt on the schedule send the first appt to the unscheduled list. I eventually see the pt on the second appt, set it complete, and but now, the chart will show crown #8 still pending.

Suggestion: How about when the appt is broken, OD automatically locks the time of the appt, copies the procedure descriptions to a "broken appt procedure list", and detaches the procedures. Double clicking on a broken appt shows the "broken appt procedure list" but not the normal procedure list, and does not allow click selecting or deselecting of procedures. If the broken appointment is UNbroken [plus ensure that broken appointments can only be UNbroken on the same day, since {IMHO} there is no good reason to do so on a subsequent day!!!*], OD checks whether the procedures listed in the "broken appt procedure list" are treatment planned in the procedure list, and if so, reattaches them to the unbroken appointment. If instead, the broken appointment is now sent to the unscheduled list, OD checks whether the procedures listed in the "broken appt procedure list" are treatment planned in the procedure list, and if so, {reattaches} them to the unscheduled appointment. If instead, the broken appointment is moved to a new position [plus ensure that broken appointments can only be moved forward in the schedule, since {IMHO} there is no good reason to move them backwards**], OD checks whether the procedures listed in the "broken appt procedure list" are treatment planned in the procedure list, and if so, {reattaches} them to the new scheduled appointment. {I'm not sure how that will integrate with the Planned Appointments}.

* It should be possible to UNbreak an appointment on the same day, since appointments can be accidentally broken by the receptionist, or a patient may call to cancel then call back and say they still want to attend.
** It is currently possible to drag a broken appt to the pinboard and then drop it on a previous day. Should not happen.

Incidentally, IMHO there is no good reason to be able to schedule an appointment on a previous day. It should not be possible. (But it currently is.) Again, IMHO, there is no good reason to be able to set complete any appointments on any day except the current day. (But it is currently possible to set future or past appointments complete, eg to schedule and set complete appointments in Dec 2007 and Dec 2010 while we are in May 2009.) Of course that applies to procedures too. IMHO, there is no good reason to be able to set complete any procedures on any past or future days, but it is currently possible to do so, if I am not mistaken.

Cheers.

Right, a broken appointment will contain shallow copies of procedures. You won't be able to accidentally reuse a broken appointment. But you will be able to intentionally reuse it as long as the procedures aren't already attached to some other appointment. In other words, UNbreak it.