Using Technology in the Office to Streamline Workflow toward Becoming Paperless

Many dentists want their office to be “paperless.” Becoming paperless is a process. There are new technologies a dentist can implement that will minimize their office’s use of paper and, by doing so, save quite a few trees while lessening office supply expenses. Just as importantly, if not more so, these same technologies hold the potential to enhance a patient’s experience in the office, minimize staff data entry time, reduce data entry errors and streamline office processes by eliminating redundancy for patients, staff and doctors.

When a patient calls to make a dental appointment, typically the front desk staff creates an account and an appointment in their practice management software by

entering preliminary demographic information, for example: first and last name of patient (parent in a pediatric practice), phone number and

ditional, personal interaction to which patients are accustomed and also provides for increased efficiencies.

insurance plan if the practice accepts insurance. During this initial contact, some practices direct their patients to a web site where they can complete registration forms. Ideally, patient data is then sent to their account in the office’s software. This kind of functionality has been available for some time, and a significant percentage of practices have adopted it.

Mark Hollis

There are new solutions available designed for Apple’s iPad and iPad mini for practices that wish to adopt new technology. This technology best mimics tra-

Mark Hollis

Using iPads in the Office to Streamline Workflow Toward Becoming Paperless

Patient Check In – Many busy dental practices like to track when patients arrive in the office and when they are seen. Orthodontic software has offered electronic patient check in on a Mac or PC for years. Some general dental and other specialty practices have used a sign-in sheet at the front desk. The recently-released Patient Check In App for iPad integrates with desktop practice management software MacPractice DDS to

automatically update the patient’s appointment status. By “checking

in,” the patient instantaneously announces their arrival to all doctors and staff throughout the office. No staff attention or time is required to accomplish this.

Because Clipboard interoperates with MacPractice DDS in the office, information previously provided by the patient over the phone is already displayed in the forms. This gives the patient a feeling of personal attention, saving them time and offering them an opportunity to make corrections. After selecting the proper patient and appropriate forms for the visit, no additional staff attention or time is required to accomplish this.

Clipboard – At initial dental and medical office visits throughout the world, patients are commonly provided with a clipboard upon their arrival and are requested to complete and sign the attached registration form, HIPAA release and insurance authorization, as well to provide their health and social histories and medications. Typically all the forms provided to them are blank, even though the office recorded some of their demographic information when making the appointment.

Making it possible for the dental office to use an iPad to replace the conventional clipboard, MacPractice Clipboard App enables the front desk to hand the patient an iPad upon their arrival with all necessary forms ready to be completed.

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importantly, once the patient has completed their registration and health forms, when they tap a button on the iPad their information is instantaneously entered into the practice management software along with their photo. While staff can review data entered by patients, it is the patients who have done the heavy lifting, saving the staff time, eliminating redundancy and minimizing data entry errors.

Dental offices know that accurate patient information in their paper and electronic systems is essential and requires constant maintenance. Many offices require patients to complete new paper registration forms annually, and more often than not these forms are once again… blank. Not only is this practice onerous and unimpressive to patients, it also creates for staff the burdensome daily task of manually comparing and updating patient data. MacPractice Clipboard App not only improves the process of keeping patient data current for both the patient and the office, it even

leverages patient data entry to do so.

again, after selecting the proper patient and appropriate forms for the visit, no additional staff attention or time is required to accomplish this laborious and error prone task.

Dental offices know that accurate patient

information in their paper and electronic

Electronic Dental Record (EDR) – EDR is an acronym initially introduced by MacPractice and some other dental software developers. It is the dental equivalent to EMR (Electronic Medical Records) or EHR (Electronic Health Records) used for physicians. The patient’s EDR includes medical and social histories, current conditions and medications. This information is typically provided by the patient on a paper form completed in the office prior to seeing the dentist or hygienist. The form is then reviewed with the patient by the clinician before examination or treatment.

systems is essential and requires constant

maintenance.

An office using the MacPractice Clipboard App can provide patients with their registration forms that include all the information already contained in their record. The patients merely review their own information and update it as necessary. This can easily be done prior to every patient visit if the office wishes. Once

In December 2012, MacPractice introduced MacPractice iEHR App for iPad that interoperates with MacPractice Clipboard. All of the information provided by the patient upon registration in Clipboard is

available automatically as discreet data in the patient’s record in iEHR. Once again, the patient has entered their own data into their own record. No staff effort whatsoever is required.

As the data in the patient’s health record in iEHR is discreet, the dentist or the hygienist can modify the information entered by the patient as necessary during an initial interview before locking the record. All the patient’s unedited forms were already stored in MacPractice DDS. Once the dentist has completed the visit notes, a narrative is automatically created by iEHR and sent to the practice management software where it also can be viewed.

MacPractice plans a future release of iEDR for iPad that will incorporate restorative and periodontal charting for those dentists who would prefer use the iPad for that purpose as well.

The Office of the National Coordinator has spearheaded an initiative to provide $19 billion in financial incentives to Eligible Professionals, including dentists who qualify, for the adoption and demonstration of Meaningful Use of an ONC-ATCB Certified EHR such as MacPractice DDS. In addition, the ADA is promoting the adoption of EHR by all dentists.

While there are no federal regulations requiring any doctor to adopt EHR, there

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is a 2-percent penalty on Medicare reimbursement for those doctors who do not eprescribe, and there will be a maximum 5-percent Medicare reimbursement penalty imposed gradually over several years starting in 2015. More information about these programs and how they apply to dentists may be found at MacPractice.com, ADA. org/paperless and CMS.gov.

Note: While I have used MacPractice DDS, and other MacPractice products to illustrate the use of iPads and iPad Apps to minimize the use of paper in the dental office, MacPractice is not the only software developer that is focusing its resources to develop solutions for this purpose. MacPractice, MacPractice DDS and MacPractice’s iPad Apps serve as illustrations of how Apple’s iPad and iPad mini may be used in today’s dental practice to reduce the use of paper, minimize staff labor, eliminate redundancy, reduce data entry errors and improve the patient’s experience in the dental office. ■

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