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Authored on: December 3rd, 2012
Title: Windows 8
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Before making any changes, be sure to check with your software vendors about compatibility.

Whenever Microsoft releases a new operating system we get questions about whether or not someone should update.  Like most major businesses we advise taking caution.  In the past, major new Windows releases have new drivers for printers and sensors and have often required updates from third party software vendors such as Dexis, XDR, and Schick.  Before making any changes, be sure to check with your software vendors about compatibility.  You cannot upgrade to Windows 8 from Windows XP or Vista without reinstalling all other software. There are also hardware requirements to be considered and your favorite IT firm should be able to provide some advice about this.

  For our part, pcLink is our "Window into Windows" and we have been playing with the pre-release versions of Windows 8 to see how it works.  While there are some minor display issues, pcLink appears to perform as expected. We are working on a major update to pcLink for Windows to take advantage of the improved graphics environment found on Windows 7 and 8 and expect this to be available in the coming weeks.

Authored on: December 3rd, 2012
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"There are no federal mandates or deadlines for dentists who do not submit claims to Medicare, or who do not see large numbers of Medicaid patients."

While talking to people at our booth at the ADA meeting in San Francisco this year, we heard several mentions of a 2014 deadline for going paperless.  We have also heard from a few of our clients who have expressed anxiety over this looming "Charting Cliff". Since we had heard nothing about this deadline and hate to be the last to know, we did a little research on the subject. According to the ADA regarding the use of an EHR, "There are no federal mandates or deadlines for dentists who do not submit claims to Medicare, or who do not see large numbers of Medicaid patients." When talking about going paperless, what we are really talking about is called an EHR or Electronic Health Record.  If you are a Kaiser patient, you are familiar with this.  All of your records are stored electronically and are available at any Kaiser location. (I am occasionally asked why Datacon doesn't do that and I am quick to point out that this cost Kaiser something like 4 billion dollars to implement.)   The goal of the federal government (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) is to have all healthcare providers transition to these systems.  The intent is to provide better patient care and reduce healthcare costs.  The sharing of patient health history, prescriptions, etc. between providers would be less prone to error, simplify the demands placed on patients and enable better preventative care.  

Like photos of Sasquatch and the Loch Ness Monster, the picture of the timeline for required use of an EHR is rather fuzzy. Currently, the only federal mandate is for providers billing for Medicare and Medicaid.  Beginning in 2015, if you have not adopted a certified EHR system, your Medicare reimbursements will be reduced by 1%. The deduction rate increases to 2% in 2016, 3%, in 2017, etc.  The ADA in conjunction with the ANSI (American National Standards Institute) are busy developing their recommendations for just what features and capabilities should be included in an EHR system for a dental practice. We are in communication with the ADA and have received a copy of the draft of this report.  We will continue to monitor the progress of this important project. If you are interested in more information visit the ADA website.  See http://www.ada.org/5348.aspx as a starting point.

So what is Datacon doing about this? The first and most important step was to transition our software from the old Alphamicro platform to something that would support the sorts of secure communication and storage that is required for systems of this type. At this time, most of our clients have transitioned to using a Mac server. Many of you are now using patient folders to store digital copies of paper charts, consent forms, images, and patient communication.  We have quite a few offices entering chart notes thru our software and we are continuing to improve on this functionality. Your switch to paperless doesn't need to happen all at once and we are encouraging our users to gradually start taking advantage of the features we currently offer as we continue to improve the software based on your needs and feedback.

Authored on: April 1st, 2013
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Last year around this time we wrote about an add-on report for tracking new patients. This year we have made this report a standard part of the software. 

If you take a peek into the Treatment Plans menu you will find a new item at the bottom titled "New Patients Seen". When a new patient is seen the first time, the software can post a new patient transaction at the top of the patient ledger. The New Patients Seen selection shows a list of patients who have had this procedure posted. This list defaults to showing the patient notes but this area can be easily customized to show other information. If you have patient flags defined for things like a Welcome Package or Thank You Sent they can be displayed here to make it simple to see what follow-up needs to occur.  There is also a new built-in report that can be printed from the New Patients Seen list.  

The New Patient Tracking Report is similar to the optional custom report we have offered in the past. This report shows new patients for a range of dates. For each patient we show their age, first treatment date, amount diagnosed, amount scheduled, and next appointment date. Like the New Patients Seen list, the notes area on the report can be customized to show flags or other  information. At the bottom of the report there is a summary showing total treatment diagnosed, scheduled and not scheduled along with the acceptance rate.  There are also averages for new patient age, treatment diagnosed, and accepted.

Authored on: May 1st, 2013
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Your Datacon software includes the option to leave notes for other users but our optional Time Clock software includes a much more extensive communication capability. This feature can facilitate communication between individual employees and also be used to make general announcements about meetings, schedule changes, parties, or anything else. It can be particularly useful to practices that have multiple locations. When any employee punches in using Time Clock, the software will show the Main Menu if there is any unread mail.  

Office Mail is similar to regular eMail but it is strictly for use within the office or by users connected remotely using pcLink. There are no attachments, spam, viruses, or junk mail with Office Mail because it is designed specifically for sending messages to employees. A message can be sent to a single employee, to a selected group, or to all employees. Groups can be selected by department or individual employees can be chosen to receive a message. The sender of a message can review the list of recipients at any time to see who has read the message. As long as the message is in the sender's "Sent" list, the note can be edited by any recipient. The original message and any additions are locked and signed by the person doing the editing so there is always accountability. When a message is updated by a recipient, the message is marked as unread in everyone's inbox. 

When the sender deletes the sent message, it can no longer be edited but can be reviewed in the sender's trash and continues to be visible to all recipients.  When all recipients have deleted the message, it will be deleted from everyone's trash and completely removed from the system. After 90 days, if a message remains on file, the sender can delete the message from the trash and it will be removed from all recipients regardless of it's status.

Employees can review the list of employee records and see an overview of each person's office mail status including how many emails are  in the inbox, sent list, or trash. A regular employee can select someone from the list to send them a message. Administrative employees can select someone from the list and send a message using the Office Mail selection at the bottom of the employee menu.

Any employee can select Office Mail on the Main Menu or in their own Employee Record to review their inbox, sent mail, drafts, and trash. If management does not want all employees sending mail, there is an employee privilege that controls each person's ability to send mail.

The current release of Time Clock is Version 2.4 - 5/1/2013. If you are using Time Clock be sure to give us a call so we can schedule a simple update.

If you are not using Time Clock this is an optional separate software package which costs $395.00. Call for a free demo of this time saving (pun intended) software package.

Authored on: February 1st, 2013
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Many of our clients are specialty practices and one of the reasons for this is the strength of our referral tracking and reporting.

We have the ability to have multiple referral sources for a patient, keep track of referrals to other practices, and identify various third parties that may wish to receive correspondence or notifications about the patient. Some of our specialty practices have unique reporting needs and we have made some improvements to support this.  The issue we have addressed relates to referrals between specialists vs referrals from the general dentist. The goal is to identify the general dentist as the primary referral source and still track referrals from other specialists without having the software think there is a new source. To this end, we have added an option on new referrals titled "Referral Source and Specialist". This referral will not change the patient's referral source for the purposes of running reports or creating documents but it does identify the event and track fees separately in addition to those already accumulated for the primary referral source.

Authored on: June 1st, 2013
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Since 2000, Datacon's software has included the option to "print" to email. This capability is most often used for sending email appointment confirmations to patients. In recent years many of you have also begun using the option to send text messages to patient's phones. 

We have had frequent requests for the option to send more than just plain text in confirmation emails and we are pleased to announce that this is now possible with the June 2013 update to the Dental software and the Mac server software. This free update provides several new capabilities and simplifies the steps we must take to setup mail on your server. 

HTML email - With this update it is now possible to format your email using HTML. Most commercial email is formatted using HTML (HyperText Markup Language). This is the same language that is used to create web pages and there are all sorts of tools available for creating content. Our software allows Datacon merge fields to be mixed in with HTML commands that control layout, fonts, color, and images.

Attachments - Email sent by your Datacon server can now include attachments. They can be things like reports or images that the recipient might wish to save or they can be hidden attachments such as a logo or other image to be inserted into an HTML email.

Multiple "From" addresses - Before this update, we usually only used a single "From" address for the entire practice. Now we can configure the server and our documents to automatically send email from several individual as well.

Attachment Creation - Any of Datacon's print merge fields can be used to create JPEG email attachments.  Our support staff has years of experience using these commands to create recall cards, route slips, and other documents and this drawing capability can be used to create images that can be included in email. An example of this is our calendar which marks a patient appointment date. This can easily be converted to an image and included in an HTML email.

Text Message

PDF Reports - Does your accountant need a report? No problem. When you print the report, choose email as your printer choice and the report will automatically be converted into a PDF document and sent in an email. You are presented with a form where you can enter the subject and recipient's email address along with a short note.

We have repeatedly said that the upgrade to a Mac server will allow our clients to benefit from our ability to leverage the sophisticated capabilities offered by a modern system.  We are excited to offer this email update as another example of what can be done.

Authored on: June 14th, 2013
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As more and more of you are transitioning from keeping chart notes on paper to utilizing electronic charting, we have been getting great feedback about what we are doing and suggestions for improvement. We are releasing some of those improvements with the June 2013 software update. The Exam Data Outline edit screen used to enter Additional Exam Data on perio exams and other clinical records has been updated to highlight the areas where text can be entered. We have also added some new capabilities to the editor used to edit chart notes using outline templates. 

Chart Note Overview - Most chart notes entered into the Datacon system are created using outline templates. An outline template includes optional blocks of text that can be included by checking a box. A block of text may in turn contain smaller blocks of text that can be optionally included. There may also be areas reserved in a template where you can type in specific details. Templates may also include merge fields that will insert existing patient information into the note. Examples include using a merge field to insert the patient's first name into a chart note or adding a date & time stamp with the user initials at the end of a note.

There are a number of ways outline templates can be defined and accessed. Each chart note procedure can have it's own template. There are a number of diagnosis templates that can be assigned to procedures that should have diagnosis notes entered when treatment plans are entered. There are also a number of treatment  templates that can be assigned to procedures that require detailed treatment notes. Visit notes describe the overall patient visit and usually include information that is not specific to procedures on individual teeth or areas. Visit notes might contain information such as patient demeanor, oral hygiene, anesthetics used, post-op instructions, etc. For each procedure, times can be assigned to each task to allow the scheduler to automatically calculate the time requirement for a visit. Outline templates can also be assigned to each Clinical Task. At the end of the visit, the software automatically creates an outline template with just the parts needed to document the patient visit based on the treatments performed. If the templates are carefully designed, little or no editing will be required to document the visit thoroughly.

Chart Note Update - When editing notes using templates in earlier software releases, you could only type into spaces that were reserved for text. If there was a possibility that multiple lines of text might be typed into the template, the template required space to be reserved for each additional line of text. The new software makes it possible to expand the text area while it is being filled in. You can insert or remove lines in a text area and when you are typing the software will automatically wrap and expand the text box when the cursor reaches the end of the field. This change simplifies the design of the outline template and reduces the amount of space that must be reserved on the screen for text boxes. 

Outline templates frequently are designed to provide an assortment of choices of adjectives that describe some condition or treatment. In the past, these might have been shown as a series of checkboxes titled with options like "Early, Moderate, Severe" or "Light, Moderate, Heavy". With this new software these can be set up in a way that shows these choices in a pop-down menu instead of next to check-boxes. These two changes allow more of your choices and text to be visible at the same time and simplify data entry.

After an outline template has been filled in the software automatically builds a paragraph using your various choices.  Our users have indicated that there are many times when it would be useful to save a partially completed outline to be finished later or by someone else. The software now includes an option to save a partially completed template. 

Chart Notes

When this is enabled, a pair of buttons is displayed at the bottom of the template offering the choices "Done" or "Save for Later".  An attempt to exit from the template without making a choice will lead to questions about your intent. A template may be edited as many times as needed but once you are done and it is converted to a note there is no going back.

Authored on: October 24th, 2013
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Datacon's charting system is getting a makeover.

Datacon's software has included periodontal tooth charting with anatomical tooth images for many years. Due to their simplicity and realism, these images have proven to be a very effective patient education tool for many offices.
We are pleased to announce that we will be releasing an update to your software in the coming weeks that improves these images, adds support for mixed dentition, and brings this capability to our general charting screens. The software has been "educated" about tooth development and will now automatically display a mix of primary and permanent teeth based on the patient's age. An oral exam screen provides a way to make individual adjustments to the development of each tooth. The oral exam also provides a way to record any pre-existing dentistry when seeing a new patient for the first time. For those of you who have years of history posted to patient ledgers, these new charting screens will show all crowns, extractions, root canal treatments, restorations, etc. based on what has already been posted.

We have included a couple screen shots to give you an idea of what to expect. We will be posting some demo videos online soon and of course, you will be notified when this software is ready for release.  

Development Tab

This is the oral exam screen showing the Development menu where exceptions to normal development can be noted. This example is showing the patient at age 5. Tooth "O"/24 has been adjusted to reflect the early shedding of the primary tooth. Tooth "S"/28 is highlighted for the purpose of adjusting it's development. The arch to the right shows "S" highlighted and "O" missing. Multiple teeth can be selected for adjustment. Choosing one or more teeth and clicking "Primary Retained" prevents the shedding of the selected teeth as the patient ages and causes the software to always draw the primary tooth in that position.  

Dentistry Tab

This is the oral exam screen showing the Dentistry menu where existing dentistry and removed or missing teeth can be noted. The three unit bridge was entered by clicking the Bridge button and dragging the mouse across #29-31. The buttons are currently ready to add a MODL composite to the next tooth selected. 

The Overview screen will provide a simple way to view the status of the teeth at any point in the patient's lifetime and includes simple buttons for showing the status when the patient was first seen vs. the patient status today. It is also possible to smoothly move backward and forward thru time to show changes over any arbitrary period.

We hope you will be as enthused as we are about this upcoming release. We will continue to provide updated information about our progress.

Authored on: December 2nd, 2013
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Datacon's charting system is getting a makeover. (Con't)

Last month we wrote about the upcoming update to our charting software and included some preliminary sample screens to provide some insight into our plans. We are continuing to work hard on this and hope to begin the new year with a whole new set of capabilities.

The tooth images that we have used for periodontal tooth charting for many years have been updated to show more detail and now include images for all primary and permanent teeth. Based on many years of feedback from clients utilizing our periodontal charting, we believe that these images can be an important patient education tool. To that end, we are making them as realistic as possible. Rather than just display an array of stock tooth images as some systems do, we are dynamically drawing and positioning each tooth based on the clinical data we have on file. is information includes everything you have already posted to your existing patients plus additional information we collect on the Oral Exam screen. is screen allows you to gather initial status for new patients and record ongoing changes. We are certain that our pedo practices will love the ability to easily record developmental progress at each visit. In addition to developmental status, this screen allows you to record existing dentistry and make adjustments to tooth spacing. Having the ability to adjust the chart for a diastema, post extraction mesial drift, and tipping will contribute to the patient's ability to relate to their oral heath care when viewing a treatment plan or periodontal exam.

We have included some screen shots of the the revised periodontal exam screens.

Perio Exam

The periodontal charting system has been completely integrated with the rest of the chart and both now support mixed dentition. The tabs across the top of the charting screen allow you to move quickly between the oral exam, treatment planning, and the periodontal exam. As before, you can create a script for each user to customize the sequence of readings entered during the exam but with this update, you will easily be able to interrupt the script by clicking on any tooth or reading to make changes. The Enter key takes you right back to the current script step. We have added arrows on both views of the teeth to show the direction the readings are to be taken.

Review

The Review button brings up a buccal view of the teeth. Any tooth can be selected and shown in detail. A second click on the tooth reverses the image to show the lingual view. This screen also provides access to an exam overview screen showing all readings, the comparison to previous readings, a full screen display, and the printed exam report.

Mixed Dentition

This example perio exam screen shows a patient aged 8 years and 9 months with a mix of primary and permanent teeth.

Teeth that are "Under Construction" are visible above the gum line. The software uses the patient's age to automatically determine the positions of the teeth using standard ages for initial calcification, crown completion, eruption, and root completion. These positions can be adjusted to reflect the actual development of the patient at hand. Eruption can be advanced by up to a year and delayed by up to 4 years using controls on the Development tab on the Oral Exam page.  The arch displayed to the right adjusts to accommodate whichever teeth are present and of course it shows the anatomy of both primary and permanent teeth as well as open spaces for missing teeth. 

Authored on: June 22nd, 2014
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After months of development and anticipation we are pleased to announce that the initial release of our new charting system has been released.

The charting system is organized into ten pages that can be accessed using a row of buttons at the top of the screen. They are presented in the order that we would expect them to be used and may be picked in any order. All ten pages use the same basic layout with the page choices at the top above facial and occlusal views of the teeth, and data and menus at the bottom. Some pages have buttons on the left to provide additional options.  

Overview

The Overview page is the first thing you see when accessing the patient chart.  This page shows the current dentition with both a facial view and occlusal view. The teeth displayed can include a mix of primary and permanent teeth based on the patient's age.  Crowns, other restorations, prosthetics, root canals, etc. are displayed based on the transactions that have been posted to the patient's ledger. Different colors of shading are used for different materials. Perio pocket depths and recession are clearly shown. All of the transactions you have posted over the years are interpreted to compose a clear representation of the current status of the patient.

  • The Overview page also displays some basic information about the patient such as birthdate, age, first and last treatment date and last dates for oral exams, perio exams, x-rays, and prophys.  There is an area on this page that can be customized to display any other information you would like to see such as insurance information, balances, referral source, notes, etc. You can click on any tooth to see a list of exams or transactions that have been posted that affect that tooth.
  • The History button on the overview screen provides a way to view the dentition at any point in time. There are buttons for displaying tooth status at the first visit and today for comparison. Treatments in the patient ledger are shown and clicking on any transaction causes the tooth display to change to the status at that time. The Development button leads to a menu of options for displaying the dentition at any time or even creating an animation of the development and status of the teeth for any range of time. There is a button that overlays the "normal" developmental position of the teeth for comparison to this patient's progress. We expect these to be valuable patient education tools.
  • Additional items available from the Overview page includes a list of exam records and access to patient notes. The Show button shows a larger view of the teeth that can be drawn on and printed.

Medical History

The medical history page displays medical history transactions and attached notes. New notes or medical alerts may be added here.

Oral Exam

Oral Exam records provide a way to record the initial status of the patient when first seen or to update the status of the patient as they come in. This area is designed to allow very quick and easy entry as the patient is being seen. You may review older exams or create a new one from here. Teeth that have information recorded in the exam being displayed are outlined in red. Buttons on the left titled Status, Conditions, and Dentistry provide access to the three categories of information that may be entered here. 

  • The Status button presents a menu of options related to development including the identification of missing or impacted teeth or retained primary teeth. Adjustments may be made for tipping, mesial drift and tooth spacing. For children, the development of inpidual teeth can be recorded.
  • The Conditions button presents a menu of options for specifying the condition of inpidual teeth. Choices include fractures, light,  moderate or advanced decay, and failed restorations.
  • The Dentistry button presents a menu of options for recording preexisting dentistry including crowns, restorations, prosthetics, root canal treatment, extractions and others.  

Perio Exam

The Perio Exam page allows you to create and enter a new perio exam or to review prior exam data. Buttons for Earlier or Later can be held down to move backward and forward through time to view the changes. Buttons on the left titled Exam Data and Review provide access to the selected perio exam.

  • The Exam Data button allows you to review or enter the exam data. If the exam is over 6 days old, a password is required to make changes. Each user can have a separate script to automatically prompt for exam data for any range of teeth and any of the available data items. During the exam you can go "off script" by clicking on any tooth and any data item. The enter key takes you right back to where you were in the script.  
  • The Review button presents a menu of options for viewing the exam data. When the Review menu is active, you may click on any tooth to show an enlarged display. The first click on a tooth shows the buccal view, the second shows the lingual. Details show the last exam date for the tooth, pocket and recession readings, attachment loss, mobility, morphology, prognosis, and a coded comment. The Overview Data option shows all of the readings. Pocket depths and recession readings that are defaulted from a prior exam have a gray background. You can select any tooth to make changes. You may also page backward or forward through multiple exams. The Compare to Previous Readings option shows pocket depths from multiple exams. Again, items that are defaulted from previous exams have a gray background. Improved readings have a green background and worsened readings have a red background.

Treatment

The Treatment page is where we enter new treatment plan, watch items, work completed elsewhere and where we indicate which items in the treatment plan have been completed. 

  • The Review button shows the list of transactions. Tabs over the transaction list control what is shown or added. When a tab is selected, treatments selected by that tab are shown in red. Existing/Outside lists treatments that were done elsewhere. Usually these would be items that were referred to a specialist but could include preexisting work that was posted to allow more detailed notes than would be found on the oral exam screen. Watch items are treatment plan but only show in this area. The Diagnose tab shows treatment plan diagnosed at this visit. The Treat tab lists treatment plan attached to today's appointment. The Planned tab shows all treatment plan and the All tab shows all treatments, prescriptions, and chart notes. When reviewing treatments, you may click on one or more teeth to limit the display to transactions for those teeth. Diagnosis notes and treatment notes may be entered by selecting a transaction. 
  • The Additions button presents a menu of options for adding to the treatment plan. Treatments may be selected from 15 user defined buttons for frequently used procedures or they may be picked from a list of all procedures which can be filtered by category. In either case, only procedures that are appropriate for the selected range of teeth or selected tooth and surfaces will be posted.

Planning

The Planning page provides two ways to organize treatment plan. The Plans button allows you to place transactions on plan A, B, C, or D or multiple plans. The Visits button allows you to create up to three appointments and attach treatment plan transactions to them. Instead of specifying a date, you may use terms like 1 week, 2 weeks, etc. These appointments can be scheduled from here or they can be used to communicate to other staff members who will do the scheduling. Notes can be easily added to these appointments.

Referral 

The Referral page shows the current outstanding treatment plan for the patient. If the patient is to be referred to a specialist for an item in the treatment plan, you can select the item and specify which outside provider will be doing the treatment. There is a list of outside providers in the referral menu which lists the treatment to be referred. When the treatment has been completed, you must enter a completion date to remove the transaction from treatment plan and place it in the patient history as work done elsewhere.

RX

The RX page lists the patients prescriptions. New prescriptions may be entered and printed from here.

Lab

The Lab page provides access to all lab cases for the patient. New items may be added here or the status of an existing lab case can be updated.

Chart Notes

The Chart Notes page shows all completed treatments, treatment plan, prescriptions, and chart notes in the patient ledger. Notes on transactions are expanded so everything can be read by just scrolling up and down through the list. You can select a single tooth or a group of teeth to only show part of the notes in the patient chart.

Visit the Documentation area on our Support page for details about using the Charting System.