Dentally works more efficiently when a patient's treatment plan is linked to their booked appointments in the Calendar.
By ensuring your treatments and appointments are linked, you can guarantee more efficient reporting and easier patient management.
There are multiple ways to link appointments from various areas within Dentally - so wherever you are working from, you can quickly and easily link appointments together.
After treatment plans have been built in surgery, they can then be linked to a past or upcoming appointment on the calendar. There are three ways you can do this:
Directly from the chart - ideal for dentists that need to link the current and/or past appointments.
Using the clipboard - great for reception users who are happy to jump back and forth between the patient and the calendar.
Using the book appt screen - the quickest way for receptionists to link appointments directly from the calendar screen when booking a new appt.
1. Directly from the Chart
Linking appointments directly form the patient's chart screen is super handy for the clinician's workflow. It ensures that past appointments which may have been missed can be effortlessly linked, without having to navigate across multiple screens within Dentally.
Simply use the 'Link Appointment' button (which looks like a chain 🔗), and choose the desired appointment from a list of the patient's past and upcoming appointments.
You can unlink the appt from here as well by clicking the 'Link Appointment' button again - a box will appear asking you to confirm you wish to unlink the appointment, so just click 'Unlink'.
2. Using the clipboard
To automatically link appointments upon booking them in the calendar, you can use the 'Appointments' tab and the 'Clipboard' on the patient's record.
This method minimises the risk of appointments being left unlinked or unbooked, as you can book any follow-up/future appointments directly based on what the clinician has charted from surgery, and it will link automatically.
During the departure workflow, navigate to the patient's 'Appointments' screen to identify any charted and unbooked appointments set up by the clinician.
Simply click the 'Add to Clipboard' button against the relevant appointment and navigate back to the chart.
Locate a day and time suitable for the appointment before opening the 'Clipboard' on the chart (top right), then drag and drop your appointment into place.
As you can see, this method does involve moving between various screens within Dentally, so some users may prefer methods 1 or 3 to link appointments, depending on your workplace set-up - but for users comfortable with switching between screens, this method is quick and easy, and so may work best for you.
3. Using the book appointment screen
When booking an appointment for a patient during the departure workflow, you can also use the 'New appointment' drop down on the 'Book appointment' screen directly on your Dentally calendar to select one of the patient's unbooked appointments.
This method is super convenient for those that may already know exactly what the patient's next appointment is and how long it needs in the diary.
These three options allow you to fit this step easily into your existing workflow. Whichever method you us, they will all achieve the same result: a linked appointment, for efficient reporting and streamlined patient management.
What does this look like on my treatment plan in the patient's chart?
An unbooked continuing treatment will look like this and it will say 'Not yet booked'.
Once you link the continuing treatment with the booked appointment, it will show as the below image, with the appointment details against the course of treatment on the chart screen.
When appointments are booked in through the patient's 'Appointments' tab & clipboard or using the new appointment drop down, the treatment plan appointments will automatically link.
Unlinked/Conversion appointments
On occasion, and normally after converting from your previous software, you may come across a number of these unbooked appointments that need to be 'manually' linked to those on the chart.
Hovering over a patient's name against an appointment on the calendar screen will show you, at a glance, if they have any unbooked appointments as part of a treatment plan.
💡 Top Tip - you can use this feature when a patient comes out of surgery, to see if anything is required from your perspective to follow up with the patient, eg. checking upcoming appointments which require booking, and taking any payments owed against the patient from charged treatment.
How do I unlink an appointment from the chart?
Once on the Chart, make sure the 'Service Appointment' and 'Treatment Plan' are open and not completed, and then click the 'Unlink' button in the bottom right of the course of treatment, to unlink the appointments.
