Dentist: The dentist needs to concentrate on general use, charting and administration. He or she must be able to launch the software, find a patient record or appointment and to enter treatment if needed. However, the doctor’s primary duty is to maintain the dental record and to manage the practice. For that reason the dentist needs to be able to find a specific procedure in the patient chart then retrieve and edit existing procedure notes or enter new notes. The dentist needs to be able to run financial reports, understand what they mean and create custom reports. The dentist also needs to understand and administer the security features of the software such as passwords.

Assistant: The clinical dental assistant should concentrate on general use and charting. The assistant needs to be able to launch the software, find a patient record or appointment and to enter treatment. The chairside assistant also must know how to find an image—­either a photo or an x-ray­—specific to a procedure and display it for the dentist to refer to during treatment. The assistant is primarily responsible for chart entries. Therefore, he or she needs to know how to enter existing, planned and completed treatments, as well as how to enter and edit procedure notes. More advanced practices also may want the assistant to learn scheduling to set up appointments from the treatment rooms.

Hygienist: The dental hygienist should learn the general use, charting, financial and communications capabilities. He or she will need to know the basics and how to chart treatment the dentist prescribes in the hygiene room as well as any treatment he or she performs. The hygienist must know how to set up continuing care procedures, schedule appointments for recall and how to use the patient data to communicate with patients through postcards or e-mail.

Administrator: The front desk business administrator needs to know everything. The only function they can routinely leave to others is charting. The administrator’s primary duty is finance and he or she is the only team member with responsibility in this area. They need to know how to create a treatment plan and an estimate, how to determine insurance benefits, how to submit claims and how to manage the patient ledger. The administrator also has primary responsibility for the schedule and will need to use communication features for correspondence, insurance claims and appointment reminders. Finally, the administrator will have shared responsibility with the dentist for creating financial reports.

Dentist: The dentist needs to be able to launch the software, find a patient record and take a radiograph, if needed. However, the doctor’s primary duty is to examine the image and make a diagnosis. For this reason, the dentist needs to understand the enhancement tools and learn which tools will help with diagnosis.

Assistant: The dental assistant needs to be able to launch the software, find a patient record, find the proper radiograph for the procedure and then display it for the dentist to refer to during treatment. The assistant also will need to know how to set up and take an image.

Hygienist: The hygienist takes most of the radiographs in a typical office. He or she needs to know how to launch the software and find a patient record. Beyond that, he or she should be able to quickly and accurately take an image. If there are problems, he or she needs to be able to recognize this and correct the problems to get a proper diagnostic image.

Administrator: The front desk person does not need to know the clinical procedures of capturing and diagnosing an image. However, the administrator needs to know how to find the proper image and copy or transmit it to another party, such as an insurance carrier, a dental specialist or even the patient.