What does Head-of-Household mean in Dentrix?

When you add new patients to Dentrix, you need to designate someone in the family as the "responsible party." Dentrix refers to that person as the Head-of-Household (or Guarantor). As you are designating head-of-household, keep the following in mind:

• The first patient added to a family is automatically designated as the head-of-household.
• Dentrix addresses all account correspondence (billing statements, letters, etc.) to the head-of-household.
• Dentrix attaches any financial transactions (payments, finance charges, etc.) not attached to a specific patient, to the head-of-household.
• The head-of-household can be a non-patient.
• The insurance subscriber for a family does not have to be the head-of-household.

For more information about adding new family account or how to change the Head-of-Household in Dentrix, see the "Adding new family accounts" or "Changing a head of household" topics in the Dentrix Help.

Working with Patient Referrals

Recording referrals in Dentrix helps you track patients who repeatedly give referrals so you can send thank-you messages. It can also help you monitor the effectiveness of your advertising campaigns. Today's tip will focus on how to add patient referrals. 

To add patient referral information:

1. In Family File, select the patient who was referred to your practice, and double-click the Referred By block to open the Dentrix Patient Referrals dialog box.
2. In the Referred By section, click Add Referral.

3. In the Select Referral Type dialog box, select Patient if this patient was referred by another patient in your practice, and click OK.

4. In the Select Patient dialog box, select the person who referred the current patient and click OK. The referring patient now appears in the Dentrix Patient Referrals dialog box, in the Referred By section.
5. Once a Referred By source has been added to the Dentrix Patient Referrals dialog box, the Analysis button becomes available. Click Analysis to display the Referral Analysis dialog box.

6. The Referral Analysis dialog box shows the name of each patient that was referred to your practice, the date the referral was entered in Dentrix, and the amount of production associated with that referral. 
7. After a patient has provided referrals, you can specify a Referral Date Span to look at referrals the patient has made that fall within the dates you specify from the drop-down list. You can also specify the Production Date Span to view the amount of production that has resulted from those referrals.
8. Record and track gratuities using the New Gratuity and Gratuity Analysis buttons.
9. Record notes about the referral with the Notes button, use the Send Email button to send an email thank-you message to the referring patient and/or the Office Journal button to record an entry in the Office Journal.

For more information about how to attract new patients using referrals, and how to analyze referral statistics, see the "Grow Your Practice with Patient Referrals" magazine article in the Winter 2011 edition of Dentrix Magazine. For more information about adding referrals from other sources, such as advertising campaigns or other doctors, please see the "Adding Referrals from Outside Sources" topic in the Dentrix Help Files.

Setting View Filters in the Document Center

The Dentrix Document Center is a fantastic module that allows you to digitally store and organize documents you previously used to keep on paper or in file folders. By using the Document Center you are well on your way to becoming a truly paperless office. Not only can you store documents, but you can search for and find documents within the Document Center quickly. By using filters, you can easily view documents that are attached to patients, families, providers or staff, employers, insurance carriers, and referral sources.  You can also use filters to find documents acquired within a date range and assigned to a particular document type.

To view documents:

1. In the Document Center, from the View menu, click one of the following options:
• By Patient
• By Provider/Staff
• By Employer
• By Referred To
• By Referred By
• By Dental Insurance
• By Medical Insurace






When you choose any of the options above, a Select dialog box will appear, allowing you to select the appropriate source. Once selected, the current View By option displays on the bottom, left corner of the Document Center window (see image above).

You can also view documents according to filters that you set.

To select filters:

1. In the Document Center, from the View menu, click Filters to select the filters you want to use.

2. Select the document type(s) from the list that you want to view in the Document Tree, or click All Document Types.
3. Under Include Documents Attached To, select the options to include the documents attached to the patient's provider, employer, insurance, and/or referral sources in the Document Tree.
4. Enter a date range of the document you want to view or click All Dates.
5. To save the settings you have selected for the next time the Document Center is opened, click Save as Default.
6. To apply your selected filters to the current source, click OK.

Creating Views in the Appointment Book

To help your office stay free of problems, make sure that computers in treatment rooms aren't showing confidential patient information.

Because the Appointment Book contains information for more than one patient at a time, you should make sure your display doesn't show patient information by creating a view that hides it.

To create an Appointment Book view that hides patient information:

1. In the Appointment Book, click the View menu. From the Select View dialog box that appears, click New (or click Edit to modify an existing view).
   
   
   The Select View dialog box appears.
2. In the Appointment Display Info group box there are several drop-down boxes where you can specify the patient information you want to appear in the appointment block. Make sure Line 1 is set to Name.
   
   
3. Set Line 2 - Line 4 to Appointment Reason, and set Line 5 - Line 9 to [none].
4. Click OK.

This hides confidential patient information so that it doesn't appear in the Appointment Book where it could be seen by patients. If you need to view more patient information while in this view, you can easily use the Hover Window feature, or click the appointment block and then click the More Info (Dial) button on the toolbar.