This document describes a simple system for identifying and contacting these patients. It's to be run every Monday (along with the other Lighthouse systems that are designed to be run every Monday) to send a reactivation letter. It can also be run at any time to "clean up" inactive patients, by calling them and either reactivating them or inactivating them. Marking a patient's Clipboard "Inactive" is the only way to drop someone from the system.

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Lighthouse Year-End Practice Management Recommendations

As the old year is done and behind us, and we prepare to start the new year - now is the time to review and understand what happened in the prior year and make any changes to our office, policies, procedures, and staff necessary in order for the new year to be more prosperous and profitable with less stress and hasel. PracticeWorks is unique in that there are no accounting periods to "close", but that uniqueness also breeds complacency towards necessary "housekeeping" routines. This article will provide you with detailed instructions on what should be done to provide you with the management information necessary to make prudent choices that will positively impact the future for you, your staff, and your patients.

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The COMPLETE Guide to the “Dental” ScanSnap (forward the 2000% markup to….)

Okay – this document has been long in coming, and I apologize in advance to everyone who waited for it. I also applaud all of the people who simply said “damn the torpedos – full speed ahead!” – and you have been numerous!

Unlike ordinary articles, I will make this more “check box” oriented – so let’s get started!

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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.

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While it's certainly true that no office needs all of these enhancements, it's just as true that virtually every office can benefit from a lot of them. The trick is - much like in PW itself - knowing what's available and how to start using it. That's why we created the Article you're reading now: so you can browse through a list, learn what's available, and hopefully start using anything you see that would be valuable for your office.

You should browse through this whole Article, looking for things of interest to you - I'm sure you'll find something that you didn't know you could do! If you have a particular interest, you can search the Article for a particular word, like "recall" or "A/R". On the main menu at the top of Internet Explorer, click Edit _ Find (on this page), then enter the search word and click [Find next]. It will highlight the first instance of that word in the Article. Keep clicking [Find next] to find all instances of the word. (If you use an Internet browser other than Internet Explorer, use its search function, probably very similar to what I've just described.)

This list is organized by the following categories. Click on one to see the list for that category.

• Systems / Articles That EVERY OFFICE Should Be Using (or have a really good reason for NOT using!)
• Systems / Articles That EVERY OFFICE WITH COMPUTERS IN THE OPS Should Be Using
• Systems / Articles That MOST Offices Should Be Using
• Systems / Articles That MOST Offices Will Benefit From
• Systems / Articles You Might Find Useful If You Have COMPUTERS IN THE OPS
• Systems / Article That Are Specific to Becoming or Being CHARTLESS
• Everything Else - Various and Sundry Stuff You Might Want to Consider Using (including Club Member Requests)

All Lighthouse systems have been written and documented so that an end user (that's YOU!) should be able to install, configure and learn how to use it. However, we know that part of the reason you want these systems is because you're so busy and you want to save some time, so expecting that you'll be able to find the time to do it yourself might not be realistic. So for each item, you can see a time estimate for you to do it, and a time estimate for us to do it for you. (If you want us to do it, just click the "I want help with this, please!" link by the item, and we'll contact you to arrange the remote to make it happen.)

Systems / Articles That EVERY OFFICE Should Be Using (or have a really good reason for NOT using!)

Total Data Backup Solution Article

• If you aren't doing nightly, automated backups that you are truly veryifying every day... are you CRAZY??? There is NOTHING in your practice more valuable than your data. In a way, it IS your practice. (Imagine trying to sell your practice without your data...) Getting several good, totally verified backups is not only easy, it's very inexpensive (less than $300 for everything you need, except your time to set it up). (And no, your current tape backup system doesn't qualify - too unreliable, impossible to truly verify, very difficult to restore to any other computer, etc., etc.)
• Time estimate for you to do it: 10 to 20 minutes per device you backup to (probably 4 or 5 workstations and 2 or 3 portable hard drives)
• Time estimate for us to do it: Sorry, we don't do this anymore - it's too hard to do without physically being there.
• You must have or purchase 2 or 3 portable USB hard drives (about $100 each) and some $30 software.

Article: PW's Various License Issues

• How to avoid, or at least deal with, all the different components of a PracticeWorks system that have licensing limits.
• Nothing to install - just read the Article.

Article: You and Your NPI Number

• Most of what you need to know about this new HIPAA requirement.
• Nothing to install - just read the Article.

Article and Exchange Pack: Lighthouse A/R Management System

• The statement processing part of this alone, which integrates delinquent account management into the statement process, will save most offices a LOT of time.
• Time estimate for you to perform: Not recommended - you will probably want to inactivate several AutoLinks, and the Article doesn't tell you how.
• Time estimate for us to install, configure and train you: 30 - 60 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Lighthouse HIPAA Management System

• A totally automated way to ensure you get the HIPAA Acknowledgement Form signed for every patient. Beats the pants off the system that comes with PW.
• Time estimate for you to perform: 10 - 15 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install, configure and train you: 15 -20 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Lighthouse Simple Recall Reminder System

• Have a more effective recall system (translation: no more phone calling!) in 10 - 15 minutes per week. This gets installed in virtually every office that gets an on-site visit. Shouldn't you have it, too?
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 1 - 2 hours
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 60 - 75 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Lighthouse Broken Appointment Management System

• Picks up where the (very limited) PW broken appointment leaves off. Will prevent scheduling appointments for habitual offenders. Optional: automatically send a letter when an appointment is broken.
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 10 minutes
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 20 - 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Appointment-Specific Contact Experts

• Just onne of the Contact Experts in this Pack, "LH01 Hygiene Appt Info", will save most hygienists from 5 - 15 minutes EVERY DAY (by making the morning "chart audit" to find last x-ray and exam dates unnecessary).
• Estimate for you to install: 5 minutes
• Estimate for us to install and train: 10 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Make the Pending Page VALUABLE

• Of the hundreds of offices we've worked with, we have worked with ONE SINGLE OFFICE that was using the Pending Page correctly. This feature is worthless in most offices, but it should be one of your most valuable tools for filling holes on short notice.
• Estimate for you to install: 5 minutes (then you have to read the Article to learn how to use it!)
• Estimate for us to install and train: 15 - 20 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Informed Consent Documents

• Whether you use them for every invasive treatment (our recommendation!), or only for the most invasive treatment, informed consents should be part of every office's protocol. These will get you started.
• Estimate for you to install: 10 minutes
• Estimate for us to install and train: 10 - 20 minutes (You have to edit the documents regardless of who installs them)
• I want help with this, please!

Systems / Articles That EVERY OFFICE WITH COMPUTERS IN THE OPS Should Be Using

Article: Charting Configuration

• Until you've done the two main steps in this Article, you can barely use Charting.
• Time estimate for you to perform: 30-45 minutes
• Time estimate for us to do and train: 30 - 60 minutes (requires about 15 minutes of your time)
• I want help with this, please!

Article: Chart Buttons and AutoLinks Worksheet

• The AutoLinks in this Article make it possible for treatment plans to be created as quickly as writing them on paper, and in our opinion, this is the single greatest benefit of having computers in the ops!
• Time estimate for you to perform: 4 - 6 hours (requires you to fill out the Worksheet first)
• Time estimate for us to perform: 2 - 4 hours (requires you to fill out the Worksheet first)
• Time estimate for us to train 1-3 of your team: 30 - 60 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Completed Treatment Note Templates

• A large assortment of Note Templates for documenting what dentistry you perform at each visit.
• Time estimate for you to install and modify to suit you: 1 - 3 hours
• Time estimate for us to install, modify and train: 1.5 - 3 hours, or more (depends greatly on how much you want to customize them) (includes 30-45 minutes with a doctor or experienced assistant, and 30 - 45 minutes with a hygienist)
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Lighthouse Rx Farm and Updated PW Plus Pack Rx's

• Stop hunting for Rx pads! Stop digging through the chart to find out which antibiotic you prescribed last time for a patient! Over 80 Rx's to choose from, and new ones added all the time.
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 15 - 20 minutes
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 20 - 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Lighthouse Document Explorer

• What do you do with an e-mail you get from a patient? How about that rare document that you really need to scan and attach to a patient? Or an old printed photograph that shows the patient "before" your beautiful cosmetic work? All these things and a whole lot more can easily be stored for any individual patient with the LH Document Explorer.
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 20 - 30 minutes for the first workstation, 5 minutes for each subsequent workstation
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 10 - 20 minutes to install, 10 - ?? minutes to show you how to use it with your e-mail software, your scanner, etc.
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Medical / Dental History System

• A very effective and efficient system for reviewing every patient's health history at every visit, and for thoroughly updating it periodically. Absolutely required for becoming chartless (and a pretty good idea even if "chartlessness" isn't on your agenda!) NOTE: This one requires an extra 1 - 3 minutes at the beginning of every existing patient's appointment the first time you see them after implementing this system, to get their health history into PW.
• Time estimate for you to perform: 10 - 60 minutes (depending on how many changes you feel are necessary)
• Time estimate for us to install and configure: 10 - 40 minutes (ditto)
• Time estimate for us to train ALL members of your team: 20 - 45 minutes (depending on how many questions you have)
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Lab Rx Generation (and Tracking if you want it)

• Quickly generate any Lab Rx (document the details and print it), and track outstanding lab cases if you want
• Time estimate for you to perform: 20 - 45 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install, configure and train: 30 - 60 minutes (depends on how many labs you work with)
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Referred to Specialists System

• Document the details of, then print, every referral to a specialist, and (if you want) track referrals more than XX days old. Every referral document printed by this system has a map to the specialist's office.
• Time estimate for you to perform: 1 hour, PLUS 15 - 20 minutes for EACH SPECIALIST you refer to
• Time estimate for us to install and configure: 30 minutes, PLUS 10 - 12 minutes for EACH SPECIALIST you refer to
• Time estimate for us to train 1-3 members of your team: 20 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Denture Visit Note Templates (Only if you do dentures)

• A Note Template for each of the visits related to a new denture, from first impression to final adjustment
• Time estimate for you to perform: 10 - 30 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install and configure and train: 15 - 30 minutes (includes 5 - 10 minutes with a doctor or experienced assistant)
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Ortho Visit Note Templates (Only if you do ortho)

• A Note Template for each of the most common ortho visits, from consult to de-banding
• Time estimate for you to perform: 10 - 30 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install, configure and train: 15 - 30 minutes (includes 5 - 10 minutes with a doctor or experienced assistant)
• I want help with this, please!

Systems / Articles That MOST Offices SHOULD Be Using

Article (and possibly Exchange Pack): Filling Holes in the Schedule on Very Short Notice

• The "Sooner if Possible" feature of the appointment book was NOT created for your patients' benefit - it's for YOUR benefit! Read this Article (and maybe install the Exchange Pack) to make this feature work for you!
• Time estimate for you to read the Article (and install the Exchange Pack if you want it): 30 minutes
• Time estimate for us to train you how to use the Sooner if Possible feature (and install the Pack if you want it): 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Three Hygiene Analysis Experts

• Two of these provide very valuable information about your recall system's effectiveness and your hygiene deparment's production vs. capacity. (The third is just packaged with these other two.)
• Time estimate for you to install: 5 minutes
• Time estimate for us to Run and Interpret these with you: 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Lighthouse Simple Chart Purge System

• In a few minutes per week, identify and make a final attempt at reactivating patients you haven't seen in a long time.
• Time estimate for you to install and configure: 10 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install, configure and train: 20 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Inactivation Tracking

• Ever wonder why you lose patients? This (along with the Simple Chart Purge System) will let you find out! Data gathering is automatic, whenever you inactivate a patient. Run the Contact Expert whenever you like.
• Time estimate for you or us to install: 5 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Simple Appointment Confirmation System

• Want to use e-mail to confirm? Want to cut down on your confirmation phone calls by 20 - 50%? This one's for you! (You must be willing to accept an e-mail or a phone call as a "confirmation." If you're going to call 1-2 days before the appointment anyway, don't bother with this system.)
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 30 - 45 minutes
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 30 - 45 minutes (plus 30 minutes if you don't have e-mail set up in PW yet)
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Big Case Treatment Proposal Generation and Tracking

• Ever wish you could print out a more professional looking, less detailed treatment plan proposal than the one in PW? This system gives you TWO! One for large cases where cost isn't the issue and details are just a distraction, and another for large cases where cost IS an issue.
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 20 minutes
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 20 - 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Insurance Claims Management

• You're using the Oustanding Insurance Claims Contact Expert to manage your delinquent claims, right? (If not, we need to talk!) The Contact Expert in this Exchange Pack is just a better version of that, allowing sorting by claim age and dollar amount. If you don't have your outstanding claims totally under controls, you need this Expert!
• Estimate for you to install: 10 minutes
• Estimate for us to install and train you: 10 - 20 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: "Pre-D Received" Letter

• You make a treatment plan, you send off a pre-D, you get the pre-D back with the good news... and then what? You send this letter, along with a newly printed treatment plan (with the updated insurance estimate) to get the patient to schedule, that's what!
• Estimate for you to install: 10 minutes
• Estimate for us to install and train you: 10 - 20 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: "Welcome to the Neighborhood" Letter

• The only external marketing Allen's practice has done for years is sending this letter (and a refrigerator magnet) to every new homeowner in their area every few weeks. Not even a small ad in the Yellow Pages! And they have a very steady stream of new patients.
• Estimate for you or us to install: 10 minutes. Then we have to show you how to use MS Word to merge the letter with the mailing list the company will send you. (Homeowners Marketing - see the Club post for details.) That will take about 30 minutes, and requires that you have MS Word installed.
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Year-End Insurance Benefits Remaining Contact Expert and Letter

• Every fall, you start thinking about all those patients in your practice who need dentistry, have benefits remaining in their benefit plan for the year, but who don't have an appointment. If only you had a good way to locate and contact them all...
• Estimate for you to install: 15 minutes
• Estimate for us to install and train you: 15 - 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Systems / Articles That Most Offices Will Benefit From

Article: The ScanSnap in the Dental Office

• Especially if you're interested in being chartless, but even if you just want to bring order to the chaos that can be 'paper management', you want a ScanSnap scannner in your office. (Just read the Article - no help on our part should be needed.)

Exchange Pack: Production and Collection Analysis Experts

• Production by day of month for a calendar month; Deposits by day of month for a calendar month (very handy when balancing the checkbook!!); 12 months' production, collection and miscellaneous info; One month's A/R activity by day; Total production by ADA code. (Download it, install it, and run them. No configuration or training required.)
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: E-mail Prompter

• A message that displays at Check-in and Check-out if you don't have an e-mail address for a patient. Very helpful if you're serious about using e-mail for recall reminders and appointment confirmation! (Might be overkill if you're using the Medical / Dental History System, becaue that system's Patient Info Update Document asks for e-mail address.)
• Time estimate for you or us to install: 5 minutes.
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Scheduling Warnings

• Three messages that display if you make an appointment for a patient who hasn't been seen in your practice for over XX months (12 is the default, easily changed), or if you make a recall appointment for an existing patient who hasn't had FMX or a comprehensive exam (easily changed to other codes), or if you make a recall appointment that might violate the 'once every 6 months' rule for insurance.
• Time estimate for you or us to install: 5 minutes.
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Sealant Warning

• A message that displays if you propose sealants on an insured patient who is less than 6 or older than 12 (simply because many plans don't cover sealants outside that age range).
• Time estimate for you or us to install: 5 minutes.
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: "Not a Recall Appointment" Warning

• A message that displays if you make an appointment more than 90 days in the future that is NOT marked as a recall appointment. Since most doctor appointments are scheduled sooner than 90 days, it follows that most appointments more than 90 days out should be marked as recall appointments, and if they're not, it will cause problems with the recall system.
• Time estimate for you or us to install: 5 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: "Multiple Appointments on the Same Day" Warning

• Have you ever cancelled or rescheduled an appointment, and missed the fact that the patient had TWO appointments scheduled on that day? Install this Exchange Pack and you'll never do that again.
• Estimate for you or us to install: 5 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Lighthouse Simple Treatment Tracking System

• Send a series of reminders to patients who were seen recently, still have incomplete treatment, but don't have an appointment with the doctor.
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 45 - 60 minutes
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 30 - 45 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: New Patient, Financial Policy and CC on File System

• You know you should have a written financial policy, you should mail a letter to a new patient when they schedule their first appointment, and this should happen totally automatically. This system makes that happen. (And if you want to put some TEETH into your policy by collecting "Credit card on file" info, this can do that, too.)
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 45 - 60 minutes
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 30 - 60 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Financial Agreement System

• A Form for documenting the details of the financial agreement you make with a patient; a Document for the patient to review and sign; AutoLinks that make it all work.
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 15 - 20 minutes
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 15 - 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Parent Report for Minor Patient

• A Form and related Document for communicating findings to a parent when a minor patient (usually a teenager) show up for an appointment unaccompanied by a parent.
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 10 minutes
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 15 - 20 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Birthday Card System

• Take 10 minutes a week to send a NON-dental communication to your patients. This system makes it a snap.
• Estimate for you to install and configure: 20 minutes
• Estimate for us to install, configure and train: 20 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Clean Up Duplicate Companies

• Click Lists _ Insurance Companies, or Lists _ Employer/Plans: Do you see duplicates? Do you know that means your insurance estimating is probably not very accurate on them? Do you know that this Article and Exchange Pack will help you eliminate the duplicates?
• Estimate for you or us to install: 10 minutes (You have to read and follow the Article in any case.)
• Estimate for us to go through an example or two with you: 10-30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: New Patient Production

• Every wonder how valuable your new patients are? This Contact Expert will tell you.
• Estimate for you or us to install: 10 minutes
• I want help with this!

Article and Exchange Pack: New Patient Tracking System

• You work hard to get new patients and you spend a lot of time doing a thorough exam and treatment plan. Are you doing ANYTHING after they leave to keep in touch with them, in case they didn't schedule anything? This system will help.
• Estimate for you to install: 5 minutes (then you read the Article to learn how to use it)
• Estimate for us to install and train you: 15 - 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Lighthouse Schedule Hole Filler

• If you use the Pending Page and the Sooner if Possible feature like they're supposed to be used, this Contact Expert will find the BEST candidates to fill holes on short notice.
• Estimate for you to install: 5 minutes (then you read the Article to learn how to use it)
• Estimate for us to install and train you: 10 - 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Patient Fact Sheets

• 22 Documents that describe, in layman's terms, the dental procedures that we all know and love. Print them along with the treatment plan to help patients understand better, and be more receptive to treatment.
• Estimate for you or us to install: 10 minutes (Then you edit each one to make sure you agree with what they say!)
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Miscellaneous Document Merge Variables

• If you create many Documents in PW, you'll love this one! All kinds of merge variables to make Document writing a whole lot easier, like being able to put "him" or "her" / "his" or "hers" / "he" or "she" into a Document automatically (based on the gender on the Clipboard). Full names, address 1 plus address 2 on the same line, salutations for letters, etc., etc., etc.
• Estimate for you or us to install: 10 minutes. (No configuration or training)
• I want help with this, please!

Systems / Articles You Might Find Useful If You Have COMPUTERS IN THE OPS

Exchange Pack: Proposed Tx Note Templates

• A set of Notes and AutoLinks that allow you to very quickly (practically automatically) document the reason for most proposed treatment, as you're proposing it
• Time estimate for you to install: 10 minutes (then you have to customize them)
• Time estimate for us to install and train you how to customize and use them: 15 - 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Perio Surgery Note Templates

• A set of Completed Treatment Note Templates for the most common perio surgery procedures
• Time estimate for you to install: 10 minutes (then you have to customize them)
• Time estimate for us to install and train you how to customize and use them: 15 - 30 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Display Note Templates

• A set of Note Templates that take advantage of the "Display character" feature added in version 5.0, so you can have a visual indicator for such conditions as supernumary and unerupted/partially erupted teeth, diastemas, congenitally missing teeth, etc.
• Time estimate for you to install and configure: 20 - 40 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install, configure and train you: 30 - 60 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: TJM Exam Forms (Only if you treat TMJ)

• Two Forms for documenting a great deal of information from a thorough TMJ interview and examination
• Time estimate for you to install and configure: 20 - 40 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install, configure and train you: 30 - 60 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Article and Exchange Pack: Next Appointment Info Forms

• A convenient way to communicate info about what each patient's next appointment needs are, from the operatory to the administrative team. (This is a supplement to the proper creation and sequencing of tx plans - not a replacement for that!)
• Time estimate for you to install and configure: 20 - 60 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install, configure and train you: 30 - 60 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Vital Signs Recording

• A simple Form to record vital signs at the beginning of the appointment
• Time estimate for you to install: 5 - 10 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install and train you: 10 - 15 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Exchange Pack: Outside X-ray Tracking

• Easily track x-rays received from other offices, and automatically remind clinical staff when they need to be reviewed
• Time estimate for you to install: 5 - 10 minutes
• Time estimate for us to install, configure and train: 10 - 20 minutes
• I want help with this, please!

Systems / Article That Are Specific to Becoming or Being CHARTLESS

Article and Exchange Pack: Chart Retirement Protocol and Checklist

• Once you've stopped making charts for new patients, it's time to start retiring those for existing patients. This Article, and the related Exchange Pack, is everything you need to get started.
• Estimate for you or us to install and train you: 15 - 30 minutes.
• I want help with this, please!

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As the Ruby Sponsor of the AADOM (American Association of Dental Office managers - www.dentalmanagers.com), Lighthouse will pay $100 of your registration fee for the Sixth Annual Dental Managers Conference, October 22-23, 2010 in Las Vegas!

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If you don't know about the AADOM - the American Association of Dental Office Managers - you should! It's the only organization we know of that's dedicated to furthering the profession of dental office management and administration. If your practice has someone in the role of office manager, or practice administrator, or office coordinator, or any of a dozen other titles that means "the person who is mainly responsible for the administrative aspect of your practice" - you should seriously consider AADOM membership for that person.

Lighthouse is so convinced of the value of AADOM membership, and committed to the organization's goals, that we have become the first ever "Ruby Sponsor" of the AADOM for 2010. (We think we're in good company - Patterson Dental is the "Diamond Sponsor"!) That means that we'll be very actively involved with AADOM throughout the year, culminating in October at the Annual Conference (this year, it's Las Vegas in October!).

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It’s no secret that my conspicuous absence from Club Lighthouse for the last year is due to my re-assignment to full time Kudzu development. But what have I been doing all that time? When will the program be finished? Good questions! This article will at least attempt to answer those questions...

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One year ago (December 23, 2004), we announced the beginning of The Kudzu Project, our "new from scratch" dental practice management program. (Read that announcement by clicking here.) We thought it appropriate to give you a "state of the project" report today, to answer some of your questions, to satisfy your desire to get a glimpse at what's coming, and more than anything, to give you some assurance that Kudzu is going to be everything you've been hoping for, and more.

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Do you spend more than a few minutes each day making appointment confirmation phone calls? Do you have other things you could (should?) be doing, if you didn't have to spend time making those calls? Do you want your practice to be a little "greener" in 2010? Would you like to reduce the amount you spend on postcards each month?

If you answered "yes" to any of these questions, you might want to consider the newest feature from PLZ - automated appointment reminder phone calls.

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We'll be the first to admit, our current email templates are nice looking, but not what you'd call "sexy". Very functional, but not exactly "eye candy". But with the release of two brand new templates, that has changed - we think you'll love the way they look, and we're sure your patients will notice, too.

A picture is worth 1,000 words, so here's about 5,000 words worth. Below are five samples of the two new email templates that are available to you now. Click on the images below to see a full sized image of any template.

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Effective immediately, we can automatically mark appointments "confirmed" in your PMS (Dentrix, EagleSoft, PracticeWorks, etc.) when a patient clicks on an appropriate response in any appointment reminder email send from Lighthouse PLZ.

So we can now send the email reminder, the patient can confirm it, and we'll mark it confirmed in your appointment book, all without you having to lift a finger, or even thinking about it. If you haven't been very active about gathering email addresses from your patients.... can we give you any better reason than this to start?

For PracticeWorks, EagleSoft, DentalVision and Softdent, you can turn this on yourself, in about 2 minutes. (And please do, if you want it now. If we have to do it for you, it could be awhile - we have hundreds of offices using PLZ now!) . (See instructions below.)

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These calls are just like any other PLZ message - they can be used in any campaign, for any purpose. However, we think the most likely use will be appointment confirmation calls.

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Effective immediately, your Lighthouse PLZ portal has a new feature - you can confirm appointments in your practice management system (PMS) from any computer with an Internet connection!

Scenario #1: Your office policy is to make every reasonable effort to speak with a patient to confirm their appointment, even if that means making a few phone calls from home. No problem: go home, log into your PLZ portal, make a few phone calls, click the [Confirm] button a few times, and the next morning, those appointments will be confirmed in your PMS.

Scenario #2: You're a few days from the end of a great vacation, during which the office is closed. You have just one work task to complete on your vacation - confirming appointments for the first two days that you're back in the office. If you have Internet access and a cell phone, you can use the PLZ portal to make those phone calls - from the pool at the hotel, if you have a good wireless connection and a laptop!

Scenario #3: It's a no-patient day at the office, but you still have to confirm appointments for two days from now. Don't go to the office - just login from home and... well, you get the idea.

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It's still "under construction" - some pages aren't completed yet, some aren't even there yet; the banner across the top is going to change significantly; the Flash slides are going to change (and slow down); and all the pages still need a general "cleaning up" to make them look nicer.

But the "look and feel", and the overall message, is pretty much finished. If you read it, you'll notice a focus on PLZ, and on the type of software that PLZ is - something we call "practice management extension" software. If you've ever wondered, you can find out why we call it "PLZ". You can even read a long (but fascinating!) story about why we felt it was necessary to create PLZ in the first place.

If you see anything obviously wrong, or don't see something you think you should see, or have any comments about the site in general, please email jason@JustSayPLZ.com and let him know!

A few weeks ago, we announced a MAJOR enhancement to PLZ - the ability to automatically mark appointments "confirmed" in your practice management software's appointment book when a patient clicks on one of the "YesConfirmed" responses in a PLZ appointment reminder email. In the Newsletter Article that described that feature, we said that very soon, we'd be able to suppress the emails to you that tell you the patient confirmed the appointment, because now, you don't have to do anything with that email.

Now, that enhancement is finished! Not only can you suppress the "YesConfirmed" emails from your patients (well, they really come from us), but you can also suppress the "RemindMeAgain" and "ItsOnMyCalendar" emails. That leaves only the "ContactMe" emails, which of course, you need to continue to receive. (These represent about 9% of responses, so the average office will be able to reduce the number of emails from us by a whopping 91%!!!)

(Yet another new PLZ feature will help you deal with the "ContactMe" emails as efficiently as possible - see the "Refer a Friend, And More" article elsewhere in this newsletter.)

This article tells you how to suppress any or all of these types of emails for your practice.

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One of the questions we are most often asked by new clients is "If three family members all have an appointment on the same day, are they all going to get the reminder messages?". The answer has always been "Yes" - and even though it's rarely an issue, we have been asked about it often enough that we finally did something about it.

Effective immediately, we will "cluster" all messages of the same type to members of the same family, if individually, they would be sent within a short amount of time of each other. You might have to take some action in order to have these new family messages work for you, so please read the rest of this article!

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Think of it as a daily "chart audit". You remember chart audits, right? You look at your "wall o' charts" for any chart that still has the "06" sticker on it, meaning that was the last year the patient was seen. Then you look at the chart, and decide if you want to try to contact the patient to get them back on the schedule. If so, you either mail them something or call them, or both. You're supposed to do that a couple times each year, right? (And when was the last time you actually did it?)

The PLZ Reactivation System automatically performs this "chart audit" every day! When a patient hasn't been seen in your practice for any reason for XX months (where YOU decide what XX is), we start the Reactivation Campaign. It ends when the patient has scheduled an appointment, or when you have inactivated them. But you'll never again wonder how many patients you're losing each month through the simple act of inattention.

If you want to start Reactivation Letters going for your practice, please read the rest of this article! (And if you don't think you do... are you really that busy, that you don't need to get these people back in your practice? Really?)

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We're very excited to announce the latest enhancement to Lighthouse PLZ: the Reactivation System, featuring LETTERS to your patients. In a typical one-doctor practice, we believe this system will reactivate 4 to 6 patients every month, which is almost as good as getting that many brand new patients.

Think of it as a daily "chart audit". You remember chart audits, right? You look at your "wall o' charts" for any chart that still has the "06" sticker on it, meaning that was the last year the patient was seen. Then you look at the chart, and decide if you want to try to contact the patient to get them back on the schedule. If so, you either mail them something or call them, or both. You're supposed to do that a couple times each year, right? (And when was the last time you actually did it?)

The PLZ Reactivation System automatically performs this "chart audit" every day! When a patient hasn't been seen in your practice for any reason for XX months (where YOU decide what XX is), we start the Reactivation Campaign. It ends when the patient has scheduled an appointment, or when you have inactivated them. But you'll never again wonder how many patients you're losing each month through the simple act of inattention.

If you want to start Reactivation Letters going for your practice, please read the rest of this article! (And if you don't think you do... are you really that busy, that you don't need to get these people back in your practice? Really?)

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"The Internet? Is that thing still around?"
-- Homer Simpson

Homer probably still uses the Yellow Pages a lot, but more and more people all the time are using the Internet to find goods and services. Every month, the words "dentist" and "dentists" are searched for on Google over 9,000,000 times! When the search is for "dentist YourCity", are they finding you? If not, Lighthouse has a brand new feature that can help!

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Lighthouse PLZ is sending hundreds of e-mails for you every month. In a perfect world, all of them would be delivered, but sometimes, they don't make it. Maybe the patient gave you a bad address; maybe you typed it in wrong; they might not use that address anymore - there are lots of reasons for a "bounce".

When a bounce occurs, we send the entire "bounce notice" to you (it comes from your patient's e-mail server). It will always include the e-mail address that we tried to send to. You need to find that patient in your Practice Management System ("PMS" - Dentrix, EagleSoft, PracticeWorks, etc.) so you can either correct the address, or flag the patient to get a corrected address the next time you talk to them.

But you have to find them first, and you may have nothing more than their e-mail address to search on. None of the PMS's we work with have a feature to let you search for a patient by e-mail address... but PLZ does! This article will show you how to get to and use that feature. Not only can you search by e-mail, but also by all or part of any of these fields: name (first or last), address or phone number.

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If you're noticing a slowdown in your hygiene schedule lately, you're not alone. All across the country, the economy is taking its toll, and our clients are seeing more openings in hygiene than they're used to seeing - more than they're comfortable seeing. We don't have a magic wand we can wave to fill all those openings, but we do have a trick up our sleeve that can help in most practices. We call it the Recall Jumpstart, and we can put it to work for you today!

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Not anymore!

Now, all of your recall notice emails have embedded responses*, just like the PLZ appointment reminder emails always have. Each of the four standard recall emails has 2 or 3 responses for the patient to choose from, and the end result will be a lot of recall appointments scheduled without a single phone call! As an added bonus, the number of recall postcards we send will be reduced, lowering your total cost of PLZ each month.

(*If we have customized your recall email language, we have NOT enabled this for you, as that requires about 15 minutes per office to do. If you want us to make this enhancement to your recall emails, please read the paragraph at the end of this article with the heading "Customized Emails".)

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Use Your Existing Patient's Reviews to Get NEW Patients!

Automated Patient Surveys - the latest addition to the ever-expanding list of Lighthouse PLZ capabilities - are now ready for all PLZ users. Before you think "I already know my patients love me - I don't need to send surveys!" - think about this: all those favorable opinions from your existing patients can be turned into one of the most powerful tools available for attracting NEW patients! How? By having those glowing reviews posted on the Internet, where search engines like Google and Yahoo will find them, and elevate your search engine placement because of them. And like almost everything else about PLZ, this feature is 100% automatic - once it's set up, it just happens.

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Are you seeing as many new patients as you want to? In the current economic climate, most practices aren't. Are you going to just "grin and bear it", or are you going to do something about it? Of course you'd like to do something about it, but what? Why not invite all your new neighbors? 

Effective immediately, Lighthouse PLZ New Homeowners Marketing is open for business! We know when someone buys a house in your area. (Not "rents", but "buys" - we want these to be the best prospects we can find for you!) Within a few weeks of them moving in, we'll send them a "Welcome to the neighborhood" mailing from you, introducing them to you and welcoming them to your practice. Then, periodically, we'll send additional invitations on whatever schedule you like. As with most of the benefits of Lighthouse PLZ, this one is 100% automatic - you do absolutely NOTHING to make these invitations go.

You'll have exclusive access* to these new homeowners, too! We won't mail to your prospects from any other dentist. (But you must sign up by March 10 to secure your ZIP code(s) - see details later in this article.)

Coupled with another new Lighthouse feature called RealCall, you'll be able to see, in detail, the results of these mailings, to make sure they're working for you. (See the article about RealCall in this same newsletter.)

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When a patient clicks on one of the embedded responses in a Lighthouse PLZ appointment reminder email, they're directed to a webpage. Until now, that page has been a very plain page with a simple "Thank you for your response" message on it. But now, each response will be directed to a new webpage. For two of the responses, the patient will see a "form" they can fill out and send you: one is to refer a friend to your practice, the other is to tell you what their "question, concern or conflict" is regarding the appointment, so you can probably resolve the issue without ever picking up the phone.

This feature will be enabled for all offices, automatically, on March 28. So any time after that, you will start seeing some new emails from PLZ - the emails with the content of whatever the patient typed on the form. If for any reason, you do NOT want the new behavior described in this article, please contact Lighthouse PLZ Support immediately. (888-427-5454 x1, or support@lighthouseplz.com)

By the way, one of our beta test offices scheduled a new patient for an Invisalign consult visit within 24 hours after we turned on this feature for them. It works!

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Not anymore!

Now, all of your recall notice emails have embedded responses*, just like the PLZ appointment reminder emails always have. Each of the four standard recall emails has 2 or 3 responses for the patient to choose from, and the end result will be a lot of recall appointments scheduled without a single phone call! As an added bonus, the number of recall postcards we send will be reduced, lowering your total cost of PLZ each month.

(*If we have customized your recall email language, we have NOT enabled this for you, as that requires about 15 minutes per office to do. If you want us to make this enhancement to your recall emails, please read the paragraph at the end of this article with the heading "Customized Emails".)

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We created RateADentist.com for one simple reason: to help dental practices "get found on the Web". One of the things that Internet search engines take into account is patient reviews - and RateADentist is all about patient reviews. By having a lot of your patients post reviews on RateADentist, you improve your chances of getting a good ranking by the search engines.

Another thing the search engines like is "relevant" websites, and one of the ways they determine if a site is relevant is by looking at all the other websites that are linked to it, and the relevance of those sites. We have designed RateADentist so that every RateADentist user's website will point to it, and vice versa. Eventually, there will be thousands of dental websites all pointing to each other through RateADentist, which should make it appear to be very relevant to the search engines.

So when someone searches for "dentist indianapolis", for example, the RateADentist site itself may come up high in the "organic" search results. Hopefully, the prospective patient will look at it, and search for dentists near them, and of course, the RateADentist clients with the highest number of reviews will appear at the top of the search results. 

Below are some Frequently Asked Questions about RateADentist (and the answers, of course).

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In last week's Lighthouse newsletter, we told you that the new Patient Newsletter feature was about to be released. Well, now it has been, and you can start using it. We don't have any articles written for you yet (we're working on it!), but if YOU want to write your own, you can. This article will teach you how, and will do so in a very practical way - using the Insurance "Use it or lose it" message that so many offices like to send out at this time of year. If you follow the steps in both articles in this newsletter, you'll learn how to create your own newsletter content, and you'll be able to send the insurance announcement to all your patients who have e-mail!

Before you can send the message, you'll have to complete the steps in this article and the other article in this week's newsletter (Sending a Message to Everyone - with PLZ Patient Groups). It doesn't really matter which one you do first.

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At least a hundred times a year, a client says to us "I want to send something to everyone in my practice." It could be an announcement about some significant change at the office, or a special promotion like whitening, or the annual "If you don't use your insurance benefits, you'll lose them" reminder. It could also be a regularly scheduled newsletter. All of these things will be accomplished using two features of PLZ - the "Advanced Content" creator/editor, and the "Patient Groups" tool. This week's newsletter has an article about each of them, so if you want to "send something to everyone", now you can!

But first, a minor clarification. You probably don't really want to send anything to everyone - that would mean that a family of five, all of whom are your patients, would all get whatever you're sending, and that's rarely what's wanted. And it would mean sending to every inactive patient... and patients who you haven't seen in many years... and probably a few other categories of patients you don't really want to send to. No worries - Patient Groups will eliminate the duplicates and all those other "undesirables" for you.

This article will show you how to create a patient group. The other article in this newsletter (Send Your First Newsletter! (Year-End Insurance Message)) shows you how to create an announcement - specifically, the "use it or lose it" insurance benefits announcement. By following the steps in both articles, you'll be able to send this annoucement to all your active patients who have e-mail. And you'll know how to use these two tools, so the next time you want to "send something to everyone", you'll be able to!

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Last month, we gave the first webinar about PLZ. We will be doing these on a regular basis throughout 2010, approximately every other month - and more often if they prove to be popular. If you missed the first one, or if you just want to see it again, it's on our website. Go to www.JustSayPLZ.com and click on the "Podcasts and Webinars" menu item.

The Ideal Recall System
The webinar topic was "The Ideal Recall System." We chose it because there were so many enhancements to the PLZ recall system in 2009, and we wanted to make sure all of our clients knew about them all. Even new PLZ users might not be fully aware of all them. The rest of this article briefly describes all of the recall tools available to PLZ users, which were explained in detail in the webinar.

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PLZ has a simple way for you to remind your patients of the "use it or lose it" aspect of dental benefits - our "Insurance Benefits Remaining" Campaign. Send any combination of emails, postcards or letters to your insured patients, encouraging them to use their benefits before year end. It won't take more than an appointment or two, scheduled as a result of you sending these messages, to pay for the sending. Anything more than that is money in the bank for you.

We already have a Letter, an Email and a Postcard created that you can use as-is, or that we can totally customize before sending. (See the very end of this Article.)

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You spend good money on advertising and marketing. A Yellow Pages ad could be hundreds, maybe even thousands of dollars each month. Coupon pack and direct mail marketing programs are very expensive. If you're using the Lighthouse New Homeowners Marketing system (see article elsewhere in this newsletter), you'll probably be spending several hundred dollars per month on that. Wouldn't it be nice to know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that these things are paying for themselves?

Ditto for all the Recall Notices that we're sending out to your patients each month (and soon, the Reactivation Letters). While they're inexpensive, it would still be nice to know exactly how they're working - so you could decide to send more, or fewer, or alter your schedule, etc. to obtain the best results.

And on a seemingly unrelated topic, wouldn't you like to know that phone calls to your office, from patients and prospective patients, are being answered and handled in a professional manner? In a few rings, with the correct greeting, spoken cheerfully; with the right answers given to all the caller's questions; with an attempt made at scheduling an appointment any time that's appropriate; etc., etc.

Finally, how about a slick way to connect a patient or prospect to your office, by phone, directly from your website or from a PLZ email?

With the new Lighthouse RealCall feature, you can do ALL of these things for as little as $30 per month!

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Several times each hour, Lighthouse PLZ synchronizes your practice management system (PMS) appointment book to our server, so we always have an almost real-time copy of your schedule. We can serve that up to you through your Lighthouse PLZ Portal, so you can access it from any computer with Internet access. But one of the coolest features of PLZ is the ability to serve up your appointment book on your iPhone! (Or iPod Touch - they both run the mobile version of the Safari browser. This article will refer only to the iPhone for simplicity, but both work the same way.)

If you're using PLZ, and you have an iPhone, you already have this capability! This article tells you how to use it.

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Of the great mysteries in life, the random "Surprise!" of Benefit Info needs to be Reset on the Office Expert has to rank up there! This article will attempt to de-mystify what is actually happening AND provide a tool to allow you to clean up your data and keep it clean in the future.

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April 3, 2006: Twice in the past 10 days, we've been contacted by PW users who've lost data - their user-defined merge variables - because of a known bug in the program. It exists in every version of PW in use today, from 4.9.042 up to and including the latest release of 6.0. In one case, the office called us, we told them what file they needed to restore from backup, and they fixed their own problem in about 3 minutes, at no cost. In the other case, it took over an hour of their hardware techician's time and over 2 hours of Lighthouse time (all billable) to fix the problem - well over $400. The difference between these offices? One of them had an adquate backup system in place, one of them didn't.

Just last Friday, what started out as a remote to work on some recall issues for an office turned into a near-panic situation for them when they realized they had NO backup of their data (PW, Dexis or ViperSoft) since January 4. They thought they had a good backup, but because no one was verifying it every day, they were wrong.

• If your backup system consists solely of a tape drive that someone swaps a tape into every day...
• If someone isn't looking at your backed up data from within PW every day...
• If you don't have at least 3 "generations" of backup (last night, two nights ago and three nights ago)...
• If you don't have all of your practice data on some kind of hard drive in a physical location other than your office at all times...

...then you don't have an adequate data backup system, and your practice is at risk of suffering catastrophic loss!!!

Think that's an exaggeration? Your practice IS your data, in a very real sense. Imagine what would happen if you couldn't get to the data in PW - no appointments, no patient names, no ledger history, perhaps no clinical history... How would you recover from that? And at what cost?

This Article describes a backup system that will protect you from every known type of danger to your data and to the smooth operation of your practice. And if you want to be protected by this sytem, but don't want to take the time to set it up yourself, just call us, and we'll do it for you! 888-427-5454, extension 1.

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You've got a new patient's Clipboard up in PracticeWorks?, and you're all the way down into the insurance estimating screen for their Employer/Plan. In short, you have a "stack" of about a dozen windows on top of each other - and the phone rings. Of course, it's a patient you've been trying to reach for a week, and you have to talk to them. What do you do?

1. Close all of the new patient's windows, take the call, then open them all back up again.
2. Ask the patient on the phone to please hold while you finish entering all the new patient's insurance information.
3. Run to the nearest available computer and handle the phone call.
4. Something else, that's SO easy most people don't even think about it.

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Informed Consents - A "Sampling"

Whether you are entirely chartless, headed towards going chartless, or happy with paper charts - the idea of having a WRITTEN informed consent for your patients benefit and your office protection is applicable in today's litigous world. Prior to performing any procedure, the informed consent will help to insure that your patient is aware (and hopefully understands) what is about to happen, and provide an opportunity to review and discuss anything of a clinical or financial nature. The pack associated with this article contains 12 sample informed consents for procedures routinely performed in most offices and the autolink to prompt the clinical staff to print the correct IC prior to seating the patient.

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First, you need to know that an "Exchange Pack" is a file that contains some kind of enhancement for PW. To use the contents of the file, you first download and SAVE it to your computer. Then, you use the Expert Exchange - a program that comes with PW - to install the contents of the file into your PW data. How you do the second step is different for different versions of PW, which is the point of this Article - pointing you to the correct Article depending on your version of PW.

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Once we install it, you will never have to send another appointment reminder (e-mail or postcard) again. It even adds cell phone text messages to the mix of reminders. And the cost of the service is included in your Club Lighthouse monthly subscription. Please call 888-427-5454 extension 1 and ask about it.

(The original article is still intact, below, but there really isn't much point in reading it.)

The worst thing an office can experience is to start a week with an empty appointment book. The next to worst thing is a week jammed back with little to no confidence in which appointments will show up and which will not. The office with the empty schedule at least knows that patients can be accommodated on short notice. The practice with the "full" book of unconfirmed appointments cannot accept high productivity or emergency needs because they are hoping that time reserved in the past will be actually used. While there are many different philosophies as to the methods used for appointment confirmation (and if you should confirm at all!), this article and the associated download will describe the Lighthouse Simple Appointment Confirmation System that leverages the power of the software and minimizes the manual effort required.

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This article covers the use of the "Lighthouse Broken Appointment Management" system, a series of custom experts designed to tackle this problem head on!

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Given this importance, we have devised a tool to aid you minimizing this waste: The Lighthouse Schedule Hole Filler. This article covers the use of that tool.

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PracticeWorks broke the mold when it was first introduced as an Appointment Book driven practice management package. This insight into the intuitiveness necessary for a successful relationship between human and computer created a whole new approach to running a dental practice. The next and even more significant milestone was the introduction of the user ability to custom automate the package to fit an individual's needs. This shifted things from being easy to use for the human to actual intelligence in the software for how your practice operates. While a dog may be man's best friend, PracticeWorks (the program) is an office's best friend, and like the loyal dog can and SHOULD be trained to help the office for years to come. This article will describe a situation that resulted in a training of our "puppy" and hopefully will give ideas about what can be done in your office.

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There are 4 kinds of licenses that every PW user has to deal with if they're on PW version 5.0 or higher (only 2 with version 4.9): The Windows server license count, the Pervasive license count, the PracticeWorks license count, and the PWServer license count.

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Lighthouse PMG doesn't feel strongly one way or the other about sending birthday cards to patients. But if you want to do it, we want you to do it right! That is, don't use the "generic" birthday Contact Expert that ships with PracticeWorks?, because that one restricts you to printing the postcards from within the month of the birthdays, meaning the patients whose birthday is in the first week of the month will get their card late!

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The big problem with PracticeWorks' email capability however is that for a large number of users, it simply doesn't work. Even if you manage to locate the rather obscure instructions for setting it up, the Internet has changed a lot since the capability was added in 1998, and these changes have kept email generation out of reach for many PracticeWorks users. Complicating things is that in doing research for this article, we discovered that PracticeWorks doesn't even follow the "standard" email protocol exactly as it should, making it inexplicably incompatible with a large number of mail servers.

Fortunately, we have found a way to make PracticeWorks email work in most offices! This article discusses our solution.

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Once we install it, you will never have to send another recall reminder (e-mail or postcard) again. And the cost of the service is included in your Club Lighthouse monthly subscription. Please call 888-427-5454 extension 1 and ask about it.

(The original article is still intact, below, but there really isn't much point in reading it.)

Almost every practice believes that recall (or recare, or continuing care, or whatever you call it in your practice) is one of the most important parts of their practice. And yet, most practices do no more than send a batch of postcards once a month to try to schedule patients who didn't pre-appoint. We believe there's a better way, the Lighthouse Simple Recall System. This article describes it, and you can download it and start using it almost immediately!

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There's even an "automated pre-med Rx" component that will help ensure your pre-med patients always have a current pre-med Rx in their possession.

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Fortunately, there's a pretty simple solution; just reinstall the old one. This article tells you how.

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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.

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This article covers working with date fields and "the calendar". The tricks here represent some of the things that have been in the software since version 1.0 and we simply assumed everyone knew. In our seminars, we are surprised to find out how many users are unaware of these handy shortcuts.

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In response to a request on Club Lighthouse for a referral report with slightly different information than the PracticeWorks? system-defined report, we created the "LH08 Referral Report" Analysis Expert. Unlike the system-defined report which includes every referral source, this is a very "targeted" report, in that you, the user, decide which referral sources you're going to see in the report. It's intended for tracking referral sources that you're particularly interested in: the sources you're paying (your advertising and marketing sources, such as the phone book, Welcome Wagon or equivalent, etc.), or if you're a specialist, the referring doctors who you want to "cultivate."

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In today's modern dental office, the high speed handpiece has been eclipsed in importance by the computer. While there are still offices that "survive" with little to no automation, they are becoming fewer and fewer. In order to "thrive", a practice NEEDS to embrace modern information technology. Embracing technology, however, does NOT need to mean breaking your bank account.  Though it is common practice for most hardware "experts" to recommend/quote a high end computer "server" for use in a dental office, the reality is that these high end machines are mostly overkill: you end up with unused capacity, even over a time frame of several years.  Though you never use the capacity, you DO pay the higher price for it.  The result: dollars that could be spent on other technologies for the practice end up being wasted on speed or storage technology you will never see the benfit of.

All is not lost! It turns out that "mass produced, off the shelf" computers (with their corresponding "mass market" prices) are more than adequate for the typical dental practice. With a little research, planning, and understanding, any office can acquire the BEST technology for the task, at the BEST price for an overall solution that is economically priced and will support the office for years to come. This article details how I recently upgraded the server in our office and proved that it is possible to comfortably and safely run a dental practice using a computer that cost under $500.

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General Description

The Lighthouse Messaging System (LMS) is a completely automatic, practically invisible system for sending routine messages to your patients. The most common messages are for appointment reminders, treatment needed reminders (hygiene and operative) and birthday greetings, but almost any regularly recurring event can have one or more messages associated with it. Message types currently include e-mail, SMS (text messages to cell phones and pagers) and postcards, and will eventually include letters (on your letterhead) and pre-recorded voice calls to any phone number.

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Every new patient should have:

• A treatment plan.
• A "next appointment" for either recall or for treatment with the doctor. (Ideally, a new patient, or any patient for that matter, should never leave your office without another appointment.)
• A "referral source" indicated on Page 2 of the Clipboard. (This is critical for your internal marketing system as well as tracking any external marketing.)

The Lighthouse New Patient Tracking System will not only show you how your office is currently handling these matters, but it will also be used to make sure that all the appropriate steps are being taken to retain new patients.

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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.

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Allen and Bridgett were faced with this dilemma years ago, when the practice was young and they were very eager to get lots of new patients. But Allen, being the astute business manager that he is, actually wanted to make sure they got paid for all the work Bridgett did. (What a concept!) Here's what they started doing, and it has worked wonderfully for them, and we're sure it will work for you, too.

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Internal marketing is one of the most powerful forms of marketing in a dental office today. It practically gives you the rare opportunity to choose the quality of your new patients. When your favorite patients visit, you should remind them how great they are and that you wish ALL your patients were just like them. You should also remind them that your office welcomes new patients. Once they refer their friends, you should show them your appreciation which will obviously make them feel great and want to refer another friend and then another and then another.....

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1. Read the description of how the Recall System works in this article. At the top of the article, click on Campaigns, and then on Recall Campaigns. Please make sure you understand how it's going to work before you go to step 2.
2. Configure all four Recall Campaigns according to the instructions in the Configuring Campaigns section of the above article. (As soon as you do, a very few recall messages could start going, so be prepared for that!)
3. Call us at 888-427-5454 extension 1 to let us know you're ready to turn on Recall.
4. We'll run a one-time "catch up" job that will immediately schedule the appropriate Recall Campaign for every patient who needs one, so that postcards and e-mails will start to be sent.
5. We'll "turn you on" for Recall on our server, so that every night, Recall Campaigns will be scheduled for patients who need to have them scheduled that day.
6. Your phone will start ringing - people who get one of the messages and want to schedule a recall appointment.

What IS a PracticeWorks SERVER

In an ideal world, with an ideal system, no one would know or care what hardware or software existed beyond the screen they were looking at. As long as the correct data could be collected and presented at time of use, nothing else "should" matter. Unfortunately our world is not ideal, and while it is possible to establish a system that runs unnoticed behind the scenes, it does require a little bit of knowledge and work. This article will cover the necessary basics to understand what can be used "out of the box" along with some optional though recommended add-ons to optimize for PracticeWorks without unneccessary expense.

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Your NPI number... what is it? Your New Patient Intake? Your "Nice Pants!" Index? No, it's your National Provider Indentifier, and it came about as a result of HIPAA. Here's what Aetna's website says about it: "An NPI is a unique 10-digit numeric identifier assigned to health care providers and organizations defined as covered entities under HIPAA. The NPI will be a permanent identifier assigned for life."

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So you've got your DenOptic scanner, your VixWin 2000 program, and of course Practice Works, but how do they all fit together? PracticeWorks relates to VixWin with a one way integration. This means that PracticeWorks launches VixWin and supplies the patient name and ID number, but the image storage and manipulation remain in VixWin. This is great because image storage, retrieval and manipulation are what VixWin does best. Unfortunately, you can only launch VixWin from within the patient chart, at the capture tab. This means that when you want to scan some x-rays for a patient in the chair, you will have to exit the chart in the operatory, open the chart at the scanning station, scan the x-rays, close the chart at the scanning station, and then reopen it in the operatory. A bottleneck to say the least. Well, with a little bit of help from Lighthouse Practice Management Group, you'll be able to open VixWin from several areas and eliminate this and other problems before they occur. Just follow the easy step-by-step instructions in this article and the relationship between PracticeWorks and VixWin will be all moonlight and roses!

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Perhaps the most daunting challenge on the journey to chartlessness is replacing your handwritten clinical treatment notes with notes in PracticeWorks?. Of course, you can just replace pen and paper with keystroke and screen, but for anyone who didn't ace Typing 101, that's a big step backwards. The solution is the PW Note Templates feature - notes that are pre-made, and need only a few questions answered each time they're used. The result is complete, accurate and consistent notes, patient after patient. And the only "cost" is the time it takes to create the Note Templates. This article, along with a Lighthouse Exchange Pack of "starter notes," will get you well along the way to entering your treatment notes in PW quickly and easily.

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This article describes a system that deals not only with medical information, but also the patient's dental history, and information that's more dental than medical, but that certainly needs to be reviewed and updated, just like purely medical information does. Along with the article, there is an Exchange Pack that you can install, make a few minor "manual" configurations to, and start using in very short order. The first part of the article describes the system and explains how to use it. At the end of the article are the instructions for installing and configuring it.

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NOTE: This Article adresses button layout and teaches you how to make your own buttons. A related, and very important Article - Charting Buttons and AutoLinks - gives you a worksheet to help you set up the vast majority of the buttons you'll need, and just as important, the AutoLinks that give them so much functionality. These two Articles together comprise most of what you need to know to get Charting properly configured.

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While there are no doubt exceptions, the most effective and efficient recall systems we've ever encountered are those in which a high percentage of patients pre-appoint their hygiene appointments; that is, they make their next appointment while they're in the office for their current appointment. This Article tells you how to increase your pre-appointing percentage, and with it, the effectiveness and efficiency of your recall system.

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