A treatment plan can contain work over multiple appointments and for multiple practitioners and payment plans if required.

Work on treatment plans is ordered by appointment. This makes the plan easy to follow for the patient and helps the Reception team know which work is next in the plan to book.

To start a new treatment plan, click on the '+' in the patient’s chart screen, under the main Chart.

This will open a new treatment plan and give it a unique number.

The first appointment holder for the treatments being carried out will be automatically linked to the current appointment the patient has on the calendar.

💡Top Tip, Linking appointments in Dentally is crucial for reporting, future appointment planning and is best house keeping practice. Discover more about linking appointments here.

You can now add the treatments to today’s appointment, by selecting them from the treatment list on the left of the screen.

Tooth-specific treatments can be charted by selecting the treatment and then left-clicking on the tooth or surface.

To join any tooth or surfaces together, simply right-click for any additional surfaces after your initial selection.

For non-tooth-specific treatments, you can double-click it on the treatment list to chart it onto your plan such as a standard Exam code or General Note item.

As each treatment is added, its default price and duration for the patient’s registered payment plan will be added to the treatment line.

Clicking on the treatment description will allow you to amend more of the details and write notes against this treatment.

The treatment plans can also be edited in the following ways from the cog setting icon at the bottom of the treatment plan:

- Treatment plan nickname

- Practioner

- Payment plan

- Start & End date

Tick each treatment as complete using the tick-box on the right of each treatment line. The tick box against each appointment holder marks everything in that appointment as complete in one go.

💡Please note, that when you mark the treatment as complete, it cannot be edited again until it has been unticked or resubmitted. However, notes can still be added within 24hrs of completion.To find out more about editing charged treatment take a look at our dedicated help article here.

Click the Add Appointment button. This will add an additional appointment box(s) for you to chart the future work to be carried out.

To re-order incomplete treatment, click on the re-order button, drag & drop incomplete treatment items, and click finish reordering once complete.

The additional appointment box(s) will create an unbooked appointment in the appointments tab for reception to book in with the patient.

The duration of the work you add to these appointments will tell Reception how long the appointment needs to be. You can use the pencil button to add guidance notes for Reception about this appointment.

The X button by the appointment notes marks this appointment ‘Do Not Book’. This means the appointment holder will stay on the treatment plan, but it will not show as an appointment to be booked in the patient’s record.

When the patient returns to Reception, their required appointments can now be easily seen in the Appointments tab of their record.

The staff in Reception can simply add these required appointments to the clipboard and put them into the calendar before the patient leaves the practice.

If you have charted a treatment that you have not submitted, you can click on the predetermination button in the footer of your screen.

A pop-up box will appear for you to complete.

Once you have completed all the fields, click on ‘Generate predetermination’ and it will provide a response to you from CDAnet.

The Charge treatment button creates an invoice for any completed and not yet charged work on this plan. Once work has been charged, you can not untick it as complete unless you remove the invoice containing it.

If there is more than one provider listed in the completed treatments, it will generate separate invoices per provider.

When all of the visits have been completed and all of the work is ticked, close the plan by clicking the Complete button at the bottom.

You will be asked to confirm when you would like to see the patient again, based on their recall intervals and their last completed Exam and Scale & Polish appointments. The dates will be suggested but can be overwritten here and the patient’s recall intervals changed if required.