In this series, we are looking at a number of different patients that any new dentist could encounter on their very first day in practice. As there is another class of recent graduates in 2015, it’s always exciting to think about beginning to practice in the real world. The first patient had a number of prescription drugs that required consideration in terms of interactions and implications for dental care. I also talked about what I would like for my dental software to do for me to quickly enable that process.

Lets get to the second patient:

He is a robust healthy thirty-five year old male. Your examination reveals a healthy periodontium, but the patient has ten carious lesions with possible pulpal involvement in four teeth. He has dental insurance and cost is a moderate but not over­whelming issue. He is busy so he wants your decision today.

Your responsibility – Review the medical history, medication list and dental history. Complete a full examination, chart your findings, prepare treatment plan options, and inform the patient of the problems you find and solutions to resolve them. You must cover: prognosis, consents, patient education, risks in seeking care, risks of not seeking care, benefits of treatment, optional care and financial responsibilities.

This list covers essentially all of the unique concerns that you patient might have and is an important way to show him that you are prepared to offer him great care. Even on day one, it’s important to present an organized practice because that instills confidence. Answering his questions before he even thinks of them about these different issues can go a long way in doing so.

However, the question becomes how can you perform all of these tasks and assemble of this personalized information quickly? Dedicating a staff person to this is impractical, because it could easily require 20 minutes of their time per patient and pretty soon that is all they are doing.

My Solution Using Dental Symphony: 

In order to meet these important needs, I now rely on my clinical software to generate the content quickly.

• Expedite the collection of information and review the history as it relates to care.

• Quickly chart the healthy periodontium and hard tissue pathology.

• After charting your findings, and based on your treatment preferences, Dental Symphony will automatically create your initial treatment plan – ready for customization.

• Quickly create multiple treatment plan options:

• A conservative approach using alloys, composites, root canals and crowns at a cost of $ 11,000.00

• A not so conservative approach involving extraction of endodontically involved teeth, restoring the remain­ing teeth with amalgam and composites and recommending two removable partial dentures at a cost of $ 5,500.00.

• Extraction of remaining maxillary teeth, an immediate maxillary denture and restoration of mandibular teeth with alloys and composites at a cost of $ 4,500.00.

• In just a few minutes your staff will deliver to your patient a thorough “PATIENT CARE PACKET” that covers all aspects of proposed treatment, office policies, consents and financial information.  Your treatment plan will be divided into Preliminary care, Active Care and After Care; a real plan of care (rather than an invoice) complete with all your recommendations.

 

Click here to schedule a LIVE online demo to see if we are  fit for your office!

Dental Symphony offers ePatient: the only HIPAA compliant Online Patient Registration System with the exclusive “Pre-Clinical Analysis” tool.

ePatient was created by Dentists for Dentists and is easily adaptable for any type of practice with free customization.