Release Notes: 12th September 2019

Clinical

Chairside Dashboard

Many doctors and hygienists like to review a patient’s clinical notes at the beginning of their appointment. To facilitate this workflow, the Dentrix Ascend Chart now includes a Progress Notes panel on the same page. This is optional and can be turned on or off with a new Chairside dashboard switcher on the Chart

You can sort the Progress Notes by clicking a column heading. For example, if you want to see a specific provider's notes, click the Provider column heading and then scroll to the beginning of that provider's notes.

You can expand the Progress Notes panel to be taller so it's easier to read several notes at a time. To expand the panel, hover over the top edge of the panel until your cursor changes to an expanding arrow. Click and drag the panel to the desired height. After reading the notes, you can resize the panel back to its original height so you can focus on the tooth chart.

Ascend remembers your sizing adjustments and filter choices on a per-device basis.

The Chairside dashboard includes a new View menu when active. Click the drop-down to get filter options similar to those in the Progress Notes tab.

One important new feature of the view is Today’s work with its accompanying Include related option. More than work scheduled for today, Today’s work includes both what is scheduled and what has been done. Include related adds conditions and other notes related to what has been done or scheduled.

Provider Selection Enhancement

If you work in a large or multi-site practice, the list of providers in a drop-down menu may be quite extensive. To simplify your choices and make your workflow more efficient, Ascend no longer displays providers that don’t have access to your location. You will see this improvement in the following areas:

• Add Procedure from Chart
• Add/Edit Condition from Chart
• Quick Exam
• New/Edit Perio exam
• Add Clinical Note
• Edit Clinical Note
• Signature for Case from TxPlanner
• Acquire Images
• Add Patient Prescription
• Enter/Edit procedure from Ledger
• Patient Primary Provider from Patient Information
• Edit Procedure in Progress Notes
• Letters

Billing

Review Ledger and Billing Statement from Aged Receivables Report

One of the challenges to working with the Aged Receivables report historically has been the fact that there was no way to link to the guarantor’s ledger or billing statement if you wanted to do some cross-checking; and if you left the report, you had to regenerate it each time you came back. No more!

With this update, the guarantor name is a hyperlink to the guarantor’s Ledger. A paperclip icon to the right is a hyperlink to the guarantor’s last billing statement. Clicking either of these opens a new tab so you can switch back and forth without regenerating the report. Up to this point, Ascend has not supported this behavior, but opening multiple tabs can now be part of your workflow.

 

Some things to know about having multiple tabs open:

• While theoretically there is no limit to the number of tabs you can have open at the same time, it’s best to have fewer tabs open to avoid confusion.
• Not all Ascend pages update automatically, so if you make a change in one window you may need to reload the other page for those changes to appear.
• If you are a multi-site practice and you change locations in one page, it will change the location for all pages.
• The automatic timeout clock runs on each page, and the first timer to expire will log you out of all pages. That is, if you have a second page open while working on your first page, the second page will time out as if no one were using it, even though you are using the first page. You may decide it is easier to open a secondary page, do what you need to do there, and then close that page so you can keep working on your primary page.

Override Restriction on Editing a Procedure Amount

A recent release introduced a new Patient Procedures right called Edit patient procedure amount. When that right is not checked, users cannot modify the cost of a procedure in the Ledger.

With this update, a user with this restriction can request an on-the-spot override from a user who does have the right to edit procedure amounts. The authorized user can click the new lock icon, enter their username and password, and click Unlock.

For this transaction only, the user can enter a different procedure amount. Ascend will, of course, remind the user that the configured procedure cost is different from what they enter.

Important: This ability applies only to new transactions. Procedure amounts cannot be unlocked or modified when a procedure is attached to a claim, invoice, or payment plan, or has been voided.

Third-Party Defaults Enhancement

Added an option in Insurance Defaults to use the patient’s primary provider on the claim as the Rendering Provider if the providers of procedures is not a primary provider.

Calendar

Add Clinical Notes from the Routing Panel

Users now can add and sign clinical notes from the routing panel when appointments are in the Chair, Checkout, or Complete status.

When you click the Add Clinical Note link, Ascend opens the patient’s chart and then pops up the Add Clinical Note window. The patient’s primary provider is selected by default.

Reporting

Location Isolation

With this update, when users with rights to see financial reports run any of the following reports, the data returned represents only those locations to which the user has access, according to their user account assignments.  

• Day Sheet
• Payment Analysis
• Aged Receivables Report
• Provider A/R Totals
• Recare Management
• Workflow Compliance
• Audit Log

The Include Organization Summary option in the reports presents grouped totals, but only for the allowed locations, not the entire organization.

Imaging

Print to Share includes Tooth Numbers

When you click Share exam in the image history menu and then choose Print as the share option, the PDF file automatically includes the tooth number(s) on each page if you print as individual images, or as a new additional page when you share the entire exam in one image.

Display Preference Remembered

When viewing images, the Preference button allows you to select the display size; sometimes a smaller image looks sharper than a larger version. The enhancement is that both the Image Peek and Acquisition modes remember your display preference, as set by this button.

Delete Individual Images

In addition to the Delete option in the image history menu, which allows you to delete an entire exam, now when you view a selected image there is a new More button, which opens a flyout menu. At this time, the only menu item is Delete Image. This allows you to delete just this one image from the exam.