Release Notes: 25th September 2019

The product update released September 2019, includes the release of electronic patient forms, the ability to set your own charting graphics for existing and new procedures, imaging favorites and ability to set which users can change working hours.

Patient Forms

Practices in the UK have used paper forms to gather patient information, requiring reception to manually scan the forms into Ascend, and then check each form manually, make manual updates (such as changes to demographics like address & phone) and create Medical Alerts as required.

Now with the Patient Forms feature release, this allows practices to send the following forms electronically to patients to fill out prior to their appointment - saving both time and effort for both the patient & the practice staff. This includes the following forms:

• Terms of use
• Demographics Form
• Oral Health Survey
• Medical History Form
• Custom TX Plan Consent Messages

Patient Forms can be enabled from the Patient Forms menu (Under Settings). Each Form can then also be toggled between Active & Inactive as required.

There are three main area's where you will be able to view and request patient forms:

1. The Patient Overview Screen
   
   
   
   
2. The Patient Forms tab under the Patient Information menu
   
   
   
   
3. Forms can also be requested from the patients' charting screen
   
   

Once the patient completes the form and the changes have been saved, the form will automatically appear within Patient Forms (under Patient Information Settings) as well as in the Document Manager window

Patient Demographics Form Write Back

When enabled, any updates a patient makes to the Demographics form will automatically be reflected within Ascend, with no manual updates of patient information required to be completed by the practice staff. This functionality can be enabled directly from the Demographics form settings (Located under Settings > Patient Forms)

Clinical

Configurable Charting Symbols for Procedure Codes

When looking at a patient's graphic chart, the paint colours and marking styles can easily help identify work that is existing, completed, or treatment planned. With this update, we have added some flexibility to the paint scheme. You can make selected changes in the Procedure Codes & Conditions page under Settings.

Search for and select a procedure code to open an Edit Procedure Code window. A new Charting symbol section shows the current selection.

Click the arrow to open a menu of options. Click the variation you prefer to make it the new style.

You cannot change the paint colours; they remain red for treatment-planned procedures, light blue for existing conditions, and dark blue for completed procedures. Note also that your configuration choices will vary depending on the specific procedure you select.

Other things to know about charting symbol configuration

• Symbol changes are retroactive; existing charts will You must refresh your screen before you see the changes take effect.
• Charting symbol changes are organization-wide; any change by one person changes the application for all. The existing Edit procedure/condition codes right controls access to this ability.
• The Audit log does not track symbol changes at this

Images Added to the Chairside Dashboard

This update adds links to images when you are in the dashboard view within the chart. The links are identical to those in the stand-alone versions of the Chart and the Progress Notes tabs. Click a tooth number in the Chart or a tooth icon in the notes section to open an Image Peek window.

Billing

Fee Schedule Start and End Dates

Many practices choose a temporal marker—for example the beginning of the new year—keep their fees up-to-date and to exert a little pressure on patients with unscheduled treatment and remaining benefits to get treated before the current pricing expires.

New with this update is the ability in Dentrix Ascend to create multiple versions of a specific fee schedule with specific start and end dates. To do this, in the Fee Schedules page (under the Settings menu) select any existing fee schedule to open its configuration panel. Before you adjust the current fee schedule, click Set End Date.

This opens a window called Set End Date for This Version of the Fee Schedule, which informs you that setting an end date does two things: create a copy of this schedule, and set a start date for the new version. The new start day is always the day after this one ends. So if you wanted to give yourself some time to adjust the fees, this is where you do that. Click the End date field and choose a date from the calendar picker, and then click Set & Save.

You now have two versions of this fee schedule (and more in the future). A new Fee schedule version drop down appears with a list, and you select any version to view and edit it, and see the dates when that version was or will be in effect.

As before, you have various ways to edit your future fee schedule: adjust all by a flat amount or by a percentage, or make manual changes to specific procedures. New with this update is a rounding option. When you mark the Round up results values to the nearest pound field, it does just that when you apply a global change to the fee schedule. For example, if an increase would have resulted in an amount like £37.74, it rounds instead to £38.00.

Other things to know about fee schedules with start and end dates

• The Audit log tracks fee schedule
• For treatment-planned procedures, the procedure amount represents the plan date; for all treatment, the date of service determines which version of the fee schedule actually
• The location production numbers in the Schedule automatically reflect the correct fee schedule according to the date you are

Patient Information

Fee Schedule Start and End Dates

To make it easier when selecting a patient’s primary provider, once a patient’s preferred location has been set (Preferences tab), only those providers with access to that location will show up in the patient’s Primary Provider drop down (Basic Info tab).

Scheduling

Select Surgeries in the Routing Panel

Previously, the options for filtering the patients listed in the routing panel was limited to either one specific Surgery, or all of the surgeries. With this update, you now have the option to select any of multiple surgeries.

Usability

If your list of employees in the User Accounts page has grown to dozens or maybe even hundreds, you will be happy to know that this update adds a Search field to help you locate a specific user account. The search is not case-sensitive. Like all Dentrix Ascend search fields, results will narrow as you continue to type.

User Rights

The following changes to user rights are included in this release.

• Granular Edit Working Hours access right for editing only the provider working hours, not anything else in a user account. It make everything else in the User Account page read-only. New under the Settings category.

Imaging

Several areas of Dentrix Ascend allow you to improve your workflow efficiency by making a favorites list, for example of procedure codes or clinical note templates. With this update, you can add Imaging Procedures.

A new Favorites tab joins the existing Standard and Custom tabs, and opens by default once populated. To mark an imaging procedure as a favorite, simply click the star icon located on the Acquisition Option panel.

Note that anyone with image acquisition rights can select (or deselect) a favorite. The entire location shares the favorite selections — they are not user-specific.