April 7, 2005 to August 14, 2005

Hello!

It's been a while (again), so we thought we'd update you on all the cool things happening on Club Lighthouse! This newsletter represents a summary of the best of what's going on at the web site.

For those of you that have already installed version 6 of PracticeWorks, you will be happy to know that Lighthouse now has the ability to generate our entire inventory of over 100 feature rich enhancements to work with your version. All future generated packs will be provided in all 3 formats: v4, v5, and v6. Creating a v6 converter was done with the help of Clint Walker - former PracticeWorks project manager, and now the creator of ClaimX (a "new and improved" way to manage electronic claims - see: www.extradent.com for details). Lighthouse add-ons in version 6 format is part of our committment to enable your office to accomplish the goals you set for it, regardless of which version of PracticeWorks you are using.

If you have not made your Labor Day plans yet (or even if you have, you may want to consider changing them) - Lighthouse will be presenting our Turbocharging Your Practice seminar at Myrtle Beach, South Carolina on Sept 2nd & 3rd. There is still room in the seminar for anyone that wants a very good understanding of how we can make PracticeWorks do all of the things it is capable of doing.

To properly use this newsletter, you should first log into the Club web site directly from this newsletter. Once you are logged in, you can click on any of the links in this newsletter to jump directly to the article or download of interest. To start your web browser now and log into Club Lighthouse, click here! That will open up a browser window on your computer. You can then Alt-Tab back to this e-mail and select any link in this email. Clicking on the link in this email will cause that article or forum post to appear in the browser window (you will have to Alt-Tab BACK to that browser window to see it).

If you forgot your user name and/or password, send an email to joel@lighthouse-pmg.com



In This Issue
New Articles
New or updated downloads
Interesting posts
Seminar schedule


New Articles
Using the Version 6 Expert Exchange and Update Program

With the new release of PracticeWorks version 6 - they have FINALLY re-enabled several features that were considered revolutionary when they first appeared, finally copied by almost all of the major competitors, and then disabled during all of the "changing of hands". Now back and actually built into the menu structure of PW are both the PW Expert Exchange (PWEE) and the PracticeWorks Update Program (PUP). For any office using version 6 in production mode, you need to be aware of where they are located, how they should be used and who can use them.

 

New Patient, Financial Policy and CC on File System
"You only get one chance to make a first impression." How often have we heard that? But cliches endure for a reason - they're often true! Here's something else that's true: you only get one ideal chance to introduce your policies and procedures to patients, and that's when they are a brand new patient. As soon as a new patient becomes an existing patient, it's more difficult to get them to adapt to a policy "change" than if you had conveyed it to them from the first visit.

While we're on the subject of truisms, we believe that the most effective and efficient way of ensuring you get paid for any dentistry not covered by an insured patient's insurance is to have credit card information on file, with authorization to use it if necessary. This is effective because, unless the charge to the card is declined, you will get paid. It's efficient because it allows you to be a lot more relaxed about the estimate at the time of service (saving you a huge amount of time), knowing that you'll be able to easily deal with the differences after the claim has been paid (or denied).

Combine everything so far, and the new patient visit is the ideal time to introduce your financial policy (which incorporates "CC on file") to your new patients, which is the main point of this article, and the associated Exchange Pack.

Notice I didn't say "errors" two paragraphs up, but rather "differences." This is consistent with something else we firmly believe: the harder you try to tell patients exactly how much their insurance will pay, the more they'll expect it, and the more disappointed they'll be when insurance doesn't pay that much. Besides, it takes a LOT of work to do that, and no matter how hard you try, you're still going to be wrong sometimes. So why put forth all that effort?

Something else about this "CC on file" policy: don't worry about your existing patients. They have already established themselves as someone who pays their bills or not, and if not, it's probably too late to start getting credit card information from them. And if they're a good payer, you don't need the "CC on file." So our advice is to implement this policy only for new patients. That's all built into this Exchange Pack and article.

The system described below takes into account all three of the above truths, fully automating a new patient letter and financial policy, then the gathering and periodic updating of "CC on file" information. You can use all of it or only part of it (but please consider using it all - the results can be dramatic!). Also, it will easily accommodate your exceptions - existing patients for whom you decide to get "CC on file" info, and new patients who you decide to exempt from the policy.

 

LH Late for Appointment System
Patients will be late for appointments - nothing you can do about it, right? Wrong! You can at the very least keep track of those patients who do it repeatedly, and at least try some corrective action. This Lighthouse system will automate the recording of patients who are late, and simultaneously remind you that they're SO late you better get the approval of the appropriate clinical team member before you tell them they can be seen today. It will also remind you, the next time you make an appointment for a "late" patient, to say something to help them remember to be on time next time.

 

"PROFESSIONAL" Data Center Techniques

> For what it is worth, the following just appeared on the IDF forum.    It
> sounds like a post that could have appeared on the Dentrix forum if you
> just substitute Schein for Kodak, Dentrix for Practiceworks, and Image for
> Trophy.
>
> The grass is frequently the same color on both sides of the fence.
>
> Skip
>

Unfortunately with the current condition of the market - that analogy needs
to be changed to "the mud is the same color on both sides of the
fence".....and then you zoom out to find yourself as one of the thousands in
a hog ranch or cattle ranch....

 

Workflow of a Patient Visit
When we designed PracticeWorks, we wanted to make the program follow closely the natural flow of work in a dental office. We spent a lot of time on the administrative part of it - the whole flow of the patient relative to the front desk: check-in, go to the operatory, come back from the operatory, enter charges and payments, process insurance, make the next appointment, then do the whole thing over again the next visit. I think we got that part right, and the normal use of the program enables - even enforces, to a certain degree - that natural flow. Almost all of that was in version 1.0 of the program.

When Charting was added, in version 2.03, it was kind of a rush job. (Ask Joel - he'll tell you it was the most stressful couple of months of his professional life!) We didn't have the time to spend on the design of Charting that we did with Office, couldn't really study and understand how work flowed in the operatory. Consequently, there isn't really a natural flow to using Charting. Instead, there are a bunch of tools - the hard tissue chart, the treatment plan, buttons, notes, etc. - and it's really up to each user to figure out how to use them all together. Coupled with the fact that PW, Inc. never developed a training agenda for Charting that went beyond how to use each of the tools, it's not surprising that so many people use Charting in less than an ideal fashion, with no clear idea of how it really should be used.

Out there in the real world, Allen and Bridgett (and a whole bunch of other people) had no choice but to figure out a way to use it that worked, that made sense, that could be easily taught (and therefore performed consistently), and that didn't have too many holes, too many opportunities for things to be overlooked or messed up. The PW trainers also learned things from their working with users - things that helped overcome some of the design deficiencies and even a few bugs in the program. Over the past few years, Lighthouse has taken everything that Allen and Bridgett and the trainers and a whole bunch of other people have learned, and assembled it into a set of instructions for using Charting that works. This article details those instructions - follow them, and you'll use Charting a whole lot better than you're probably using it now, with far fewer "speedbumps" in the flow of work through your office.

 

Installing From an Exchange Pack
A unique feature of PracticeWorks is the support of custom defined Experts: Contact Experts, Analysis Experts, and all the components of the Automation Expert (Notes, Forms, Documents, Messages and the AutoLinks that make them work). A mechanism exists for these user-defined Experts to be packaged into files and sent to other users, where they can easily be installed and put to use immediately. Club Lighthouse has created many of these Exchange Packs, and will continue to create more all the time. This article provides step-by-step instructions for installing these Exchange Packs after you download them from The Club.

 

New or updated downloads
The following is a list of recent additions to the Club Lighthouse download area. It is important to remember that most downloads have a corresponding article or forum post associated with them. If they do, please read the article or post first before downloading the file. Also, for complete instructions on how download and install the files listed here, be sure to read the article on Installing from an Exchange Pack

The Cell Farm
Version: 08-08-2005
An Analysis Expert that's just a bunch of cell definitions, for you to copy into your own Analysis Experts and use (with the [Copy from other spreadsheet] function of the Analysis Expert). This allows you to create Analysis Experts without knowing how to write PracticeScript. A special forum in the Forums section has been set up for details on using the Cell Farm. Instructions about using the Cell Farm are posted there. You can also make requests for new cells to be added by posting a topic. Click here to go to the Cell Farm Forum now.

LH Simple Recall System
Version: 9-16-2004
A Contact Expert, documents and "smart" AutoLinks that make it simple to send a series of recall reminder cards, and to do it once a week. See the Article "A Simple Recall System" for all the details. There are two versions of the Contact Expert - one to use if you don't do any calling of patients for recall, and another if you do want to call patients (in addition to sending the e-mails, postcards and letters). There are also some other "specific-use" Recall Contact Experts, including one just for kids, to be used when you're coming up on a school break. 6-1-2004: Minor update - changed the two "coming due" documents to use which takes a forced recall date into account, unlike the system-defined . 7-22-2004: Major update - added 4 letters to send to perio patients (anyone who's ever had a scaling/root planing or a perio maintenance visit) instead of the e-mails and postcards. The tone of them is much more serious, dealing with "periodontal disease" and keeping treatment costs under control, etc.

Appointment-specific Contact Experts
Version: 12-17-2004
Several Contact Experts related to appointments:

-Appt reminders for 1 week (to send postcards to)

-Two CE's, each for confirming 1/2 the alphabet, so two people can confirm simultaneously.

-A CE showing all hygiene appointments for one day, showing last BWX, last pan/FMX, last prophy, last periodic exam, last comprehensive exam. To help prepare for the day. UPDATED 2/23/2004: Now also looks at the "Outside x-rays received" Form to get the absolute latest x-rays we have. UPDATED 10-11-2004: Now you are prompted to select a single hygienist, or get all appointments for all hygienists (which is the behavior up until now).

-A CE listing all appointments for one day, w/ home and work #'s, and next Dr. and Hygiene appointments. To print and take home, to confirm at night, or to do follow-up calls from, or to see if appointments are being made for everyone. Can show all appointments, or only doctor, or only hygiene, appointments.

-A CE of any appointments in a date range that are outside normal working hours (pre-defined as 8:00 to 5:00, but you can edit to reflect YOUR hours).

LH Mass Mailing System
Version: 07-29-2005
A Contact Expert that lets you find all your active patients, and even your most valuable patients, during a period of time. Used primarily to generate some kind of mass mailing to them all. (Updated 7/29/2005 to exclude inactive RP's.) 5 different "Mass mail" documents: letterhead, plain paper, postcard, mailing label and field export. For detailed instructions on installing and using this sytem, see the article Mailing Something to Everyone.

Insurance Benefits Remaining
Version: 7-1-2005
A Message that says "Patient's estimated remaining insurance benefits are less than 50% of the scheduled production on this appointment." Three AutoLinks that display the Message when appropriate: -Schedule (finish) appointment -Confirm appointment -Check in appointment You install the message, then decide which of the AutoLinks you want to install, and it could be one, two or all three of them. Click here to read the Topic that spawned this Exchange Pack. Also, a Contact Expert of any future appointments on which the estimated production is greater than the estimated insurance benefits remaining for the patient. (Read the topic that initiated this Contact Expert.)

Medical / dental history
Version: 04-13-2005
All the components needed to gather, store, update and review patients' medical and dental history. This is the download companion to the Going Chartless article on collecting Medical/Dental History.

UPDATED 01-20-04 to add a version of the Patient Info Update document that will print correctly from the patient Clipboard. Also added a few more of the fields from the Medical / Personal History Form to the Patient Info Update document, so patients have even less to hand write on an update. FIXED 1-23-04: One of the document merge variables couldn't be edited by users. Fixed. UPDATED 2-3-2004: Added a checkbox "Review this Form when writing Rx's" to the Medical/Personal History Form. Allows you to "integrate" with the Rx System (pop up this Form every time you look at a patient's Rx History, from the [Rx History] button in Charting). UPDATED: 2-23-2004: The "Last " merge variables at the bottom of the Patient Info Update documents now look at the "Outside x-rays received" Form, in addition to the ledger, to get the most accurate information.

Two Hygiene Analysis Experts
Version: 04-20-2005
Two Analysis Experts pertaining to hygiene. LH03 Recall Analysis Expert - calculates a theoretical figure for the monthly hygiene potential and compares your actual to it; calculates the percentage of hygiene patients who are pre-appointed (scheduled for their next hygiene appointment at the end of each hygiene appt). Click here to read the associated Article. LH03 Hygiene Production Analysis - calculates a more realistic figure for annual hygiene potential (number of appointments); shows actual hygiene production for any period of time, broken down a lot of different ways, including by hour and by day; shows a count of various hygiene/perio procededures.

PW Plus Pack Updated Rxs
Version: 05-04-2005
All the Rx's in the PW Plus Pack that ships w/ PW, updated as follows: -Added "Phoned in" question -Added "Pharmacy name and number" question -Reorganized them so they're simple to install. -Made AutoLink that prints the document not print if the "Phoned in" checkbox is checked NOTE: These AutoLinks to DO NOT overwrite the existing AutoLinks, so if you're re-installing any of these Rx's, you'll end up with TWO AutoLinks. To delete the one you don't want: 1. Edit the Rx Form (Experts _ Automation Expert _ Responses _ Forms). 2. Click the [AutoLinks] button. 3. If there are two, remove the first one. If there is only one, do nothing. 4. Do this for each Rx that you install from this Exchange Pack. If you don't, the Rx document will print even if you check the "Phoned in" checkbox. 05-04-2005 UPDATE: Added ability to indicate if a generic is OK, or "Dispense as written" to all Rx's for brand-name drugs. NOTE: If you have already installed any Rx from this Pack, installing the updated version will overwrite any changes you have made to the Form (such as other dosages or sig choices) and the Document (such as the practice name in the header), so update with caution!

Production and Collection Analysis Experts
Version: 05-11-2004
Three Analysis Experts related to Production and Collection: Production by Day of Month;Collection by Day of Month, and 12 Month's Monitors. These have previously been packaged in the "Various Analysis Experts" Exchange Pack.

Tom Cockerell requests
Version: 05-17-2005
Patients for one AR Admin: A Contact Expert of all patients whose Responsible Party has a particular A/R Admin (prompted for at run-time). LH99 Unscheduled IV Sedation: A Contact Expert unique to Tom Cockerell's practice.

Explore Patient Documents
Version: 09-24-04
An Exchange Pack that adds a "Patient Document Explorer" option to the ACTIONS button on the Clipboard (and any other place you would like to put it). This allows you to keep track of external files (PDFs, Word documents, etc.) that are associated with individual patients. This is the system described in this post and this Article. Also, this system requires the services of the "Lighthouse Program Launcher" (downloaded here).

Maine Medicaid discontinuation
Version: 04-13-2005
Created for Shaun Janvier: a Contact Expert that finds all patients with a single insco who have an appointment scheduled or have been seen since a prompted date, and a template for a letter to send to these patients telling them we're not participating in their insurance anymore, and asking them to confirm or cancel any appointments they have scheduled.

NP, Financial Policy and CC on File
Version: 04-21-2005
New patient letters, a financial policy that fully embraces "CC on file" and all the "CC on file" components, plus the AutoLinks to make this all work. You MUST read the associated article, or this system won't work - all of the AutoLinks are installed as "inactive" and won't do anything until you activate them. The article tells you how.

LH Appointment Note Status
Version: 1.0
A contact expert that will allow you to enter a date and a "note indicator" character. The expert will then return every appointment on the day specified that does NOT start with the note indicator character provided.

Maintenance List Spreadsheets
Version: 1.0
3 spreadsheets used to detail various office tasks by day / month / quarter to be performed by office staff.

Cordova Dental Monthly Analysis Expert
Version: 06-02-2005
An Analysis Expert for one month, created for Cordova Dental. (It doesn't do anything unique for them, so it could be useful to anyone.)

LH Vital Sign
Version: .9
Form to collect and document patient vital signs at the beginning of the appointment to make a permanent entry in the clinical record and possibly refer the patient to physician prior to treatment.

Late for Appointment System
Version: 6-5-2005
A system for tracking patients who are habitually late for appointments, and also for simply reminding the front desk team members to get approval from the clinical team members before 'accepting' a patient who is more than 15 minutes late for an appointment. Click here to read the article that describes how to install and use the system.

Adult Health History - Page 1
Version: 1.0
Very early in our practice, using Publisher - we built our New Patient intake form. This is offerred as an "example" only and is not meant to be definitive - as it is on our list of items to "revamp". Feel free to download and look at - but also review the forms available from the ADA and from your insurance company.

Adult Health History - Page 2
Version: 1.0
Second page - see Adult Health History - Page 1 for a complete description

Child Health History - Page 1
Version: 1.0
Child Health History - See the decription for Adult Health History for more information.

Child Health History - Page 2
Version: 1.0
Child health history page 2 - see the Adult Health History for a complete description

Financial Policies
Version: 1.0
Financial Policy provided to all new patients prior to performing services to make sure there is no mis-understanding about who we work for (them - not the insurance company) and securing a promise of payment in order to accept insurance assignment.

Patient search by e-mail address
Version: 08-05-2005
A Contact Expert of all patients, sorted by e-mail address. (Excludes patients with no e-mail address and with # as the first character of their e-mail address field.)

Prompts to include or exclude inactive patients.

Very useful when you get an e-mail from a patient and you can't easily identify who the patient is.

Lighthouse Server Aug 2005
Version: 1.0
Sample of an "off the shelf" machine available from Dell that can be placed immediately into service.



Interesting posts

The following list represents topics on the Club site that either have had a lot of posts made, or have been read by a large number of Club members.

PracticeWorks

General discussion (PracticeWorks)

Expert Creation Requests

Automation and PracticeScript

Analysis Expert Cell Farm

The Business side of things (not PracticeWorks related)

General discussion (Office Admin)

Hot Deals!

Computers and Technology

The Clinical side of things (not PracticeWorks related)

General discussion (Clinical)

Clinical technologies

Going chartless

Club Lighthouse

General discussion (Lighthouse)

The Suggestion Box

The Kudzu Project

General Discussion (Kudzu)



Seminar schedule


Join your Lighthouse Team over Labor Day Weekend for Turbocharging Your Practice - Sept. 2 & 3

Paperless Charting

At Club Lighthouse, we are all about maximizing the efficiency of your computer system. There is no better way to do that than to rid your office of the most significant time drag most of you still have: your paper charts.

Learn to rid your office of paper charts once and for all. Click here for more information, as well as dates and locations.

On-line seminar registration now available


Turbo charging your practice with PracticeWorks

Back by popular demand, this two day seminar is sure to improve your understanding of PracticeWorks, as well as give you a better understanding of what we are trying to accomplish here on Club Lighthouse. Don't forget: Club members get a 10% discount off of the registration fee!

To see dates and locations, or to register on-line, click here.


We hope you found this newsletter informative and helpful. Remember, its our job to make your job easier! If you have ANY question, be sure to either post a question on the Club, or if you are uncomfortable posting your question in public, please feel free to contact one of us directly using email.

Thanks again, and see you on the Club!

Allen Jorgensen: allen@lighthouse-pmg.com
Brian Smith: brian@lighthouse-pmg.com
Joel Kozikowski: joel@lighthouse-pmg.com

© 2003, 2004, 2005 Lighthouse Practice Management Group
"PracticeWorks" is a registered trademark of PracticeWorks, Inc.
Lighthouse Practice Management Group and its principals are not affiliated with PracticeWorks, Inc. in any way