The Scheduling Institute

[BFD676]

Our office has recently started using "Jay Geier's Scheduling Institute" ( http://schedulinginstitute.com/ ) and we are having some difficulty integrating the way they want us to do things with Open Dental. Does anyone have experience with this? Thanks

[enamelrod]

what are you trying to do? find the next available appointment? track new pts? what...i pm you

[BFD676]

In order for a new patient to be scheduled in OPEN DENTAL, you have to add them to the database and then you can use the SEARCH feature to make the DUAL ALTERNATIVE CLOSE. But SCHED INST won't allow us to ask for the name and info until after the appointment is made.

We did figure out that we can change the view to give us a week and then the DUAL ALT CLOSE is a bit easier to execute.

We're looking for any other suggestions.

?!?!?!

[irfan]

We are using Scheduling Institute methods now as well. We always get their name and number upfront before we look for an appointment. We say its incase we get disconnected. What do you do if someone doesnt want to schedule and you dont have a name and number to call them back with? You dont need to get their DOB or SSN or anything else, but still get their name and contact # upfront.

Arent you referring to the patient by their name during the phone call? how do you do that w/o getting their name?

[enamelrod]

yes we also had this come up with the SI trainers..we get the name up front so we can make a personal connection with the client. tell your mystery call person that you want the staff to know the name so you can make that personal touch ...you will then have have what you need to find that appointment. I also am kicking around the idea of using dummy codes so we can keep up with who schedules the appointment for the bonus system.

[irfan]

we just have them put a note on the appointment for NPs thats says " irfan scheduled " etc etc.

[jordansparks]

We are only a few days from adding long-needed functionality to the audit trail. It's not that hard for us to do, and it will allow you to see a running history of who made changes to each appointment. So I would say to avoid the dummy codes.

[enamelrod]

not unless you seriously upgrade the audit trail or i dont understand the audit trail. The information i need is to be able to know which new patient exams where scheduled by which employee. the audit trail will just give me a list of all the actions done by the employee. also the audit trail is DEPENDENT on who is logged into that workstation. so if someone creates a new exam appointment and does not log out then log back into the workstation the audit trail will not be accurate. the audit trail is only as good as human habit of logging in and out of the computer. not good in the SI model.

my thought is creating a dummy code for every employee and if they want credit then they will use their own code in the appointment.

[enamelrod]

ifran that has been the way we have done it to this point but some days i don't have a chance to tally up the score. having a code will allow me to run a report to tally it for me. long ago i asked if there was a way to run a report to show procedures by assistant(staff) but it never materialized. there is a option to select assistant which would solve all of our problems if you could lock this after it has been selected for a set period of time or need admin rights to change it and then run a report by assistant . well that feature doesn't exist. Also asked about using the lower right corner to have the assistants initials or maybe a color there to indicate who scheduled the appointment

[irfan]

now that i think about it more, a dummy code sounds like a very good idea. I think we will go ahead and implement that as well.

[BFD676]

A simple way to keep track of the one who scheduled is to add an Appointment Field. We use this feature for two things: 1.) to put the copay for that visit and 2.) to indicate how the new patient was told to get the welcome packet (ex: e-mail, download from website, mailed). You can run a QUERY report on these fields also.

[enamelrod]

i tried the fields thing also but it doesn't keep tabs on (production numbers). I have one person that answers the phone who somehow always seems to bring in patients that do more dentistry..not sure what she is saying but its pretty consistent

[jordansparks]

We are only a few days from adding long-needed functionality to the audit trail.... it will allow you to see a running history of who made changes to each appointment.

not unless you seriously upgrade the audit trail or i dont understand the audit trail. The information i need is to be able to know which new patient exams where scheduled by which employee. the audit trail will just give me a list of all the actions done by the employee.

Yes, it will do that. What we're adding is a Foreign Key field. It will link each audit trail entry to the actual appointment involved. The first entry in the audit trail for a given appointment would presumably be the initial scheduling. So that data becomes available by query. It would require proper logging in of the user who wants credit for scheduling the appointment. If they don't log in, then tough cookies for them, and they lose out on their bonus credit.

[zt22]

We're also just starting with the Scheduling Institute and I'm inclined towards having the staff do a manual tracking chart so that they always know where they are in terms of the goal. Unless the staff have access to a report showing the count of new patients per staff member, it feels like we will be losing the motivation benefit of the incentive. The total new patients can always be verified through reports. Is it possible to give staff access to some reports and not others?

-Camelia

[enamelrod]

exactly JS you have to login and then log out. Maybe Im not enforcing the log in and log out to the extent everyone else is? but when a staff member answers the phone they dont always login under their login. If my assistant is standing up front by a computer thats logged in shes not going to log out and then log in under her login to schedule an appointment. This was the reason i asked about LOCAL controls of the auto log off feature.

IMHO what these people are asking for is to add functionality to track appointment by assistant(staff). if you could run a query by assistant and the npx code it would give them exactly what they are tracking. The audit function is great but depends on someone logging out and then back in. If someone doesnt log out then the person that is logged in is getting credit for something they didnt do. if no one changes the assistant drop down then no one gets credit.


the SI calculates bonus from the npx code...another bonus system that is used calculates bonus on assistance productivity. the audit trail does a fantastic job at telling you what was done for a particular patient currently. I do better understand you expand the functionality of this feature, but it all depends on the correct person being logged in.

[jordansparks]

How about a faster way of logging on? Swipe cards could take the place of username/password for non-admin users. For admin users we should still force typing in a password. So click once to log off (skip if already auto logged off), then swipe to log on. Two short steps. Feature request #2306.

[enamelrod]

still doesnt allow me to do a production report by assistants... it still counts on someone logging on and off, but it was good talking about it but im just not understanding how those changes would improve anything the OD SI people are asking for.

[Pruce Dental]

Jordan...I like the idea of the swipe readers for logging on and off..every store and restaurant uses them instead of fiddling around and wasting time...what type of hardware and costs are associated with the readers..they are not the same readers for doing credit cards right?

[jordansparks]

Yes, they are the same readers as for credit cards. Just converts magnetic information into characters. The computer treats it just like someone typed in the characters. Cards should be very cheap.