Dental practice efficiency starts at your front desk

I’ve been working as office director for 16 years and have seen many changes in the dental administrative process from paper appointment books and photocopy billing to digital everything!

My employer, Dr. Edward Chipps, runs a very busy general and restorative practice, and we all strive to make the best use of our time.

Part of the digital conversion for us has included moving to digital x-ray, specifically to DEXIS. While I hear the clinical staff rave about DEXIS, the software’s benefits don’t stop when our team crosses the threshold to the front office. As I go through my work day of administrative tasks, there are lots of areas that have been improved by DEXIS.

Right where they should be

Let’s face it, we’re all human, and we make mistakes. In the “days of film,” occasionally, these film x-rays were misfiled. Then, when a patient arrived for an appointment, and his or her x-rays were not in the chart, panic would ensue as all team members would scramble looking through the appointment lists for days surrounding the patient’s last visit, digging into charts of folks seen during that time or with similar names-all in an effort to find these “lost” x-rays.

After what seemed like hours, the radiographs might not even surface at all, and the team would need to retake them. With digital radiography, since there’s no hard copies to deal with, all the x-rays (and other images) are right where they should be, ready for us to use them.

Duplication vs. DEXIS

When we had film, our assistant would need to find time during the busy day to duplicate x-rays. Often, it might take a day or two before I or the assistants would get to it. We would start by taking all the film x-rays out of their mounts since you can’t get a really good copy if you don’t. Then you have to lay them out on the duplicator and expose the dupe film. We would have to process the film and remount the individual films.

There are definitely costs associated with this entire duplicating process, including labor. And we all know that these copies do not have the best quality no matter how detailed you are. With DEXIS, the image does not degrade. It’s the same as when it was taken, crisp and clear.

EFFICIENCY AT WORK: With digital radiography, x-rays are right where they should be. Additionally, they can be easily shared and stored.

Communication with other offices

Having a digital imaging system certainly helps us with sharing images with other offices. Before we had DEXIS, we snail-mailed copies of film x-rays. I wonder just how much time we spent getting these ready to send out, and just how much we are currently saving on postage. Now we can simply email x-rays through a secure server.

Our referring specialists can send us images via email, too, and we can have reports from them before our patients ever leave their offices.

Attachment for insurance claims
We use Easy Dental^® practice management that integrates very nicely with DEXIS. I spend a lot of time within our practice management software and really appreciate this integration. When it comes time to send an insurance claim, we can attach images right to the claim that comes out of Easy Dental.

If I need to attach an x-ray, I can spot what I need quickly on the Overview screen. And best yet, there’s no waiting for duplication. Claims can go out immediately after treatment through our secure service.

It’s not just the software

Since I occasionally take radiographs, there’s something that I and the rest of the clinical team agree on: One of the absolute best things about our digital x-ray system is the comfort of the sensor. For years we had patient complaints about the sharp edges of the film we used. We tried several different film brands and holders, but still had issues with patient discomfort. The comfort of the sensor and the absolute speed of acquiring images using DEXIS are far and away so much better than traditional film. 

Final comments

We all really appreciate just having our DEXIS images at our fingertips….and I would never go back to film!