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December 2, 2008
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Twice the work in half the time


Getting the most from these timesaving products can improve practice efficiency and provide extra hours for you and your staff.

By Noah Levine

	Practices using Patterson Dental’s EagleSoft practice management software can automate claims processing, perform real-time insurance eligibility checks and send appointment reminders to patients via phone, e-mail or text message. Click here for more information.

Providing patients with the high quality care they want and deserve is the ultimate goal of any dental practice. Accomplishing this as efficiently as possible is the real key to success. Saving a few minutes here and there adds up to extra hours in the day, so implementing systems and technologies capable of accelerating routine procedures and automating time-consuming tasks should be a priority.

With fast-acting materials, digital technologies and customizable software readily available, there are many ways to find those extra minutes. However, Dr. Lorne Lavine, founder of The Digital Dentist dental technology consultants, believes practices looking for efficiencies should begin by examining ways to improve tasks involving documentation and communication.

“There’s so much that a practice does on a daily basis that is not efficient,” he says. “(Practices that increase efficiency are) able to see more patients and spend more time doing productive things. It’s going to bring more income into the practice and at the end of the day, it’s what you bring in that counts.”

Maximum impact
Before practices start investing in new technologies and systems, they need to optimize the use of what is already on hand. A vast majority of practices use some form of practice management software, but Dr. Lavine thinks most are “only using about 5% of what their software can do.”

Some practices use the software just for billing, while others incorporate electronic scheduling but do not take advantage of other automated features. State-of-the-art practice management systems—sometimes combined with third-party software—can tackle a range of patient communication tasks, including appointment reminders and confirmations.

“A lot of offices are not taking advantage of that. They’re sending out postcards or phoning and obviously that’s a huge time waster,” Dr. Lavine says. “How much time does a typical office spend confirming patients a day, an hour? What if that hour was spent going through inactive patients and trying to reactivate people?”

Automated ease

Practices using Patterson Dental’s EagleSoft practice management software (eaglesoft.net) can automate claims processing, perform real-time insurance eligibility checks, accept credit card payments, post electronic remittance advice, send patient statements electronically and send appointment reminders to patients via phone, e-mail or text message. EagleSoft inside sales manager Jennifer Westendorf says the software is designed to simplify the collection of information and consolidate everything in one place. Features like electronic patient statements free up time at the reception desk.

“It’s important for the office to know that they still control which patients receive statements, what the notes on the statements look like and how they appear,” Westendorf says. “The only difference is that instead of sending those statements to a printer within their office, they’re going to a printer at our clearinghouse who does the printing, folding, stuffing, stamping, sealing and sending behind the scenes.”

Features that remove paper from a practice’s daily operations almost always save time. Although Dr. Lavine sees the completely “paperless” office as somewhat impractical, he recommends shooting for a chartless environment with easy to find and store digital patient records able to make numerous routine tasks (including documenting progress notes and updating records) simple and quick. Electronic charts offer numerous ways to speed things up chairside, but even offices with paper charts can make use of their practice management and other software while seeing patients.

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