Release Notes: 27th March 2019

The product update released March 27^th 2019, includes both new and enhanced features. New with this release comes a Pinboard for the Calendar to make it easier to reschedule appointments, and the ability to scan images directly to a patient’s Document Manager. Billing and Walkout statements can now be automatically copied to the patient’s Document Manager when they are printed.

Scheduling

Rescheduling Pinboard

The Pinboard is a temporary location where you can store an appointment while you search for an open time in the Calendar. Once found, you simply move the appointment from the Pinboard to the new time.

 

 A new pin icon on the appointment allows you to send that appointment to the Pinboard.

 

 You can also send an open appointment to the Pinboard by selecting Pinned in the Appointment tab and saving the appointment. Because iPad users cannot hover over appointments, this is the only way they can pin an appointment.

 

 To move a pinned appointment out from the Pinboard, click to select the appointment (the cursor changes shape and the appointment changes color), and then click in the open spot in the Calendar. Or, you can click and drag the appointment from the Pinboard into the slot.

 

If a household icon appears on the pinned appointment, it means there are other members of the household scheduled for the same day. Click the icon to also pin the other members of the household if they all need to be rescheduled.

 

 Other things to know about the Pinboard

• An appointment that you move to the Pinboard remains scheduled in its original time slot until you move it from the Pinboard to a new time slot. This prevents another appointment from being scheduled in its place, while you search for an open time.
• Double-click on a pinned appointment to open its Appointment Panel.
• The Pinboard can display about 100 pinned appointments. The most recent pin is at the top.
• The appointment new-patient “New!” icon was moved in the body of the appointment block to make way for the pin icon.

Billing

This release includes several enhancements to the functionality of billing statements and walkout statements.

 Menu Changes

Menu items formerly named “Print statement” have been renamed to “Billing Statement” to allow for future capabilities in addition to printing.

 

 Synchronized Walkout Statement and Individual Billing Statement Messages

For guarantor-specific statements accessed either through the Patient Billing Statement menu or the Walkout Statement dialog box, when you edit the statement message in either one of these, the changes are copied to the other location and remembered. The message is not copied to any other guarantors.

 Hardcoded Reminder Message Removed

The message reminder that formerly appeared on all billing statements has been removed. It has been preserved as the default message, but you are now able to modify it or omit it completely. This is done in the Statement message text area of the Generate Billing Statements dialog box.

 

  Save Statement to Document Manager

We added an option to save a copy of a generated statement to the patient’s Document Manager. To do this, make sure the Add to Patient Connection option is switched to Yes when you print the statement. Each document will have the default name of “Billing Statement” or “Walkout Statement” plus the date it was printed. The statements are automatically tagged so you can easily find them by filtering for the Billing Statement or Walkout Statement tags.

 

 To help specify that statements be saved to the Patient Connection (and by extension, Document Manager), in the Location Information page Billing Statement tab the defaults have been broken out into categories.

 

 User Rights Updated

Within the User Roles access rights, in the Ledger category, the privilege that controls access to individual statements has been renamed from “Print Statements” to “Generate individual statement”.

Usability

Primary Recare Types Highlighted

One of the Recare Setup options is to designate a recare type as a Primary Recare Type. The effect of this designation is to allow automated text and email messages to be sent to patients, to allow appointments of this type to be booked online, and to make sure users get prompted to reschedule the patient’s next appointment (exit workflow compliance).

 To make primary recare types easier to see in the interface, the name is now highlighted in bold text in all the places it appears, for example the Recare Setup page, the Recare widget, the Appointment widget, and so forth.

  

Patient Information

Scan Images Directly to the Document Manager

Dentrix Ascend now includes the ability to save scanned images directly to the Document Manager.

 

 Click the Scan button to either open the native interface of a scanner connected to your device or to open a list of available devices. Operate the scanner software as you normally would. When the scan is complete, you have the option to rename the file and add tags to it.

 

Note: To use this scan functionality, your device must have the Acquisition Agent software required for the Imaging module. If you don’t have it, an Acquisition Activation window will pop up which contains a link from which you can download and install the application yourself. But if you feel you need assistance with installing this software, you may contact Support.

Other things to know about this feature

• Scanning directly to the Document Manager is only available for Windows devices, and only from TWAIN-compliant scanners.
• Like image acquisition, your tab is disabled while a scan is running so you cannot navigate away from the page.
• All images get saved as .jpg files.
• Appropriate error messages will appear if your device has problems communicating with your scanner.
• Scanning rights are included with Document Manager upload file, delete file, and edit document detail rights.
• Changes to uploaded files are tracked in the Audit Log.

Reporting

Including unapplied credits in the Provider A/R Totals report is now optional. And when you check Include Unapplied Credits to see those numbers, they have been moved to the bottom of the report just below the Provider Totals so that their effect on the Total is easier to see.

 

  

Imaging

This software update includes numerous minor bug fixes.

 A new View Recaptured button has been added to the Image Navigator. When you have replaced or recaptured an image, this gives you the option to go back to the original, or any of several recaptures of the same image, and select which you would like to make the “current” or visible image in the exam.