With a growing number of cloud-based solutions available for dental practice management, selecting the right one feels like navigating a Harry Potter-like labyrinth. But it’s important to make sure that the cloud-based solutions you choose aligns with your practice’s specific requirements. This guide demonstrates why ClearDent Cloud is the best cloud-based solution for dental practices in Canada (or at least we think so), and shows you the differences between true cloud-based solutions, cloud-washed solutions, and legacy software, highlighting the top considerations when making a selection.
What’s a “cloud-washed solution” and why should I care?
We’ve covered this topic extensively here. Simply put, not all cloud-based solutions are created equal—namely, outdated legacy software that’s been re-packaged and associated with the “Cloud” buzzword for online use (cloud-washed)— and many lack the inherent advantages of true cloud platforms. While there’s nothing fundamentally wrong with this type of software deployment, practices looking to grow and scale, enforce better security, or reliably access systems from anywhere, would see a significant impact in both productivity and efficiency over time.
The different functions of a dental practice
At ClearDent, we take a holistic approach to building our products, considering the entire practice’s needs and how each part of the business works together. Whether you’re establishing a new practice or managing multiple practices, our robust set of features keep dental practices running smoothly. It’s important to take a comprehensive view of your overall operations and choose the right cloud-based solution that fits your unique situation. We’ve identified 5 areas of focus for dental practice success:
- Schedule Management
- Patient Management
- Clinical Management
- Financial & Insurance Management
- Patient Care and Business Operations Management
Schedule Management
The heart and soul of any dental practice lies in the scheduler. Having robust scheduling capabilities is table stakes for efficient, profitable operations. But it’s not just about booking appointments; it’s about ensuring the right procedures are scheduled for the right amount of time, patient intake forms are completed before appointments, and critical alerts like lab case arrivals and account balances are seamlessly integrated into your workflow. While these features should be a priority regardless of the type of software (on-premise, cloud, hybrid), cloud-based solutions offer greater flexibility, allow access to systems from any location, and include real-time system updates and maximum security and privacy.
Has this happened to you?
Consider a typical morning at your practice. Imagine starting your day with a fully optimized schedule, where every appointment is perfectly aligned, patient information is at your fingertips, and your team is prepared for the day’s challenges. Everything seems “perfect”. But without an advanced scheduler, your team will likely have to deal with last-minute patient form updates, could miss out on collection opportunities due to lack of visibility, and may not be aware of important alerts including pre-medications or lab cases arriving for their appointments. This not only affects patient satisfaction but can cause unnecessary stress on your staff.
With ClearDent Cloud’s advanced scheduler management tools, you get a solution that’s both powerful and easy to use. Here’s how we solve common scheduler pain points:
- Directly View Patient Insurance Details and Balances: Access patient insurance details and account balances directly from the schedule. This enables the admin team to be prepared for discussions with the patient before or upon arrival, ensuring timely collection of accurate amounts owed by both the patient and insurance.
- Easily View Critical Information: Get alerts for important medical issues, allergies, required pre-medications, lab case status, insurance balance, and additional patient details.
- Customize Appointment Views: Show multiple appointments, diverse family relationships, and different providers in an easily customizable view.
- Improve Patient Retention: Enhance patient retention through recall reminders and notifications including personalized greetings and notices.
With comprehensive patient information readily available, the check-in process becomes seamless. We believe these scheduler features are fundamental in helping your team simplify their workflow. We’ve compared scheduler features with those of some well-known dental software to see how they stack up:
Scheduler Management
Patient Management
Having a reliable system with the right tools is critical for running a smooth practice, and managing the unique needs of every patient can be overwhelming when you don’t. Key areas to manage include patient charts, appointment recalls, family accounts, outstanding Accounts Receivables by family or individual, lab cases, and much more.
To achieve full schedules and satisfied patients, three key processes are critical: treatment planning, billing, and lab case management. Let’s explore each of these scenarios in detail.
Billing (Billing Wizard)
Has this happened to you?
It’s a busy afternoon, and you’re juggling multiple tasks—answering phones, assisting patients, and handling billing inquiries. Just when you think you’re all caught up, a patient approaches to check out, settle their bill, and schedule their next appointment. Without an advanced billing system, this can get complicated and take more time than your patient is willing to spend while you manually check records for treatment details, billing, and appointments. This can involve navigating through multiple screens and performing several actions just to find the right information.
As you navigate through your software, the patient becomes impatient and decides to pay later. Not only do you miss the opportunity to get paid on the spot, but you might not see that the patient owes money and is overdue for a recall—leaving money and future revenue opportunities on the table.
With ClearDent’s Billing Wizard, you see all the information you need, when you need it. Here’s how we solve common patient management pain points:
- Capture Revenue Opportunities: View outstanding accounts and unscheduled hygiene and recalls, ensuring all revenue opportunities are promptly captured.
- Receive Instant Alerts: Get instant alerts for missing patient information like emails, EOB auto-updates, and privacy consent, preventing delays in the billing and scheduling process.
- Enhance Patient Satisfaction: Enjoy instant claims processing and coverage determination, providing patients with immediate and accurate information about their coverage, enhancing satisfaction and trust.
Treatment Planning
Has this happened to you?
It’s a typical weekday morning, and you’re juggling multiple tasks—identifying patients needing follow-up appointments, handling billing inquiries, and assisting patients at the front desk. Without custom reporting capabilities, you manually sift through patient records, sometimes missing those with outstanding treatment plans. One patient, needing periodontal treatments, was overlooked, leading to a worsened condition.
Beyond that, when your doctor requests a report to analyze treatment patterns, you struggle to compile the data, resulting in incomplete and delayed reports. The lack of integrated tools forces you to constantly switch between screens, increasing errors and inefficiencies.
An effective Treatment Planning tool like the one built by ClearDent helps you tap into the hidden potential of your patient base. Here’s how we solve common treatment planning pain points:
- Prioritize Follow-Ups: Use custom reports to identify patients with outstanding treatment plans and prioritize follow-ups accordingly.
- Create Customized Reports: Generate reports based on procedure codes, insurance carriers, providers, and statuses.
- Access Patient Files Directly from Reports: Save time and improve efficiency by accessing patient files directly from reports.
- Save Report Settings as Templates: Save popular report settings as templates for faster future use.
Lab Case Management
Has this happened to you?
It’s a busy afternoon, and you have a full schedule, including an urgent appointment for a patient receiving new dental crowns. As the appointment time approaches, your dental assistant discovers the crowns haven’t arrived. Without built-in lab management, you manually sift through lab scripts, trying to identify the lab responsible. The patient, who took time off work, is visibly upset about needing to reschedule. Amidst this chaos, you juggle other patients and make multiple calls to track down the lab contact. The patient leaves the clinic, uncertain about when his/her treatment will be completed.
With ClearDent’s built-in lab management, you can streamline your workflow and enhance patient satisfaction. Here’s how we solve common pain points:
- Track Lab Cases Efficiently: The appointment book shows you what hasn’t arrived and groups all outstanding cases by lab, ensuring necessary materials arrive on time.
- Improve Patient Communication: Provide patients with accurate updates and minimize disruptions by having real-time lab case information.
- Enhance Workflow Efficiency: Access lab case reports and email lab scripts directly, reducing the time spent on manual tracking and calls.
- Organize Lab Contacts and Information: Maintain an organized system for lab contacts and case information to streamline communication and coordination.
The scenarios above demonstrate how a robust system can significantly enhance your team’s productivity and patient satisfaction. Using cloud-based solutions to optimize your practice’s workflow allows you to make informed decisions and improve performance. Here’s how we compare to others:
Patient Management
Clinical Management
Good dental software should have all the basic clinical management tools including Odontogram and Perio charting. But a great dental software should help you better diagnose and make better decisions to plan treatments and increase overall patient care with speed and accuracy. There are other components involved in efficient treatment planning to consider, like making sure imaging equipment integrates well with the software and having productivity tools to quickly view and generate clear and concise clinical notes.
Has this happened to you?
You’re preparing for a complex procedure and need to review the patient’s history, current x-rays, and treatment notes. Without an integrated system, you must switch between different screens and software applications, wasting valuable time and risking miscommunication, or potentially missing key information.
ClearDent’s comprehensive Clinical Management tools simplify your workflow by integrating and making all patient and clinical information easily accessible. Here’s how ClearDent can transform your practice:
- Integrated Digital Imaging: View detailed x-rays alongside your odontogram, notes, and treatment plan. Images are auto rotated, mounted, and labeled by tooth number. Easily import x-rays and create comprehensive treatment letters with one click. Complete your clinical workflow seamlessly within a single platform.
- Complete Charting View (and more): Intuitive electronic charting displays clinical notes, treatment plan, and patient history in one view. Color-coded clinical information about existing conditions, planned, and completed treatment is visible from the odontogram. Plan and prioritize treatment plans with templates, improving accuracy, speed, and patient acceptance.
- Templated Clinical Notes: Save time with customized clinical notes, referral letters, and templated post-treatment letters. Create templates with auto-merge fields for rapid, consistent documentation.
Additionally, with ClearDent you can access patient and clinical information on the cloud, eliminating worries about server failures and allowing access from anywhere. This ensures you have all practice information at your fingertips, anytime you need it. This integration enhances your ability to diagnose, present cases, and convert treatments efficiently.
System delays can have a domino effect on productivity and patient experience, potentially delaying appointments and reducing productive time that could be used for patient care. It’s important to identify the goals of your practice and find the right solution that fits your needs—balancing cost, performance, and features. Here’s how we stack up against others:
Clinical Management
Financial & Insurance Claims Management
Managing finances and insurance information can be a beast unto itself. Updating patient ledgers, managing insurance information and claims, and handling family finances is just scratching the surface. Practices wanting to grow the business and patient base need to know the numbers inside and out or at least be able to find important information easily. Ensuring you have a bird’s-eye view of your revenue, along with tools for swiftly sending claims and updating ledgers, will ensure that your practice maintains financial health and is always up-to-date and accurate.
While legacy software and cloud-washed solutions can achieve ledger functions for basic use, finding a solution that updates ledgers reliably through a cloud infrastructure gives your practice peace of mind, eliminating system delays and lags that could cause a domino effect of information mismatches.
Has this happened to you?
You’re dealing with a mountain of insurance claims, patient record updates, and managing payment plans—all while trying to maintain the financial health of your practice. Each claim must be meticulously checked for accuracy, submitted to the correct provider, and tracked until payment is received. Without an efficient system, you spend hours manually processing these claims and entries, leading to delays, errors, missed payments, and write-offs that hurt your practice’s revenues.
ClearDent’s Claims and Ledger features eliminate common challenges by providing a seamless, automated solution for managing insurance claims. Here’s how ClearDent addresses the pain points associated with insurance and claims management:
- Automatically Adjust EOBs: Automatically update EOBs, calculate insurance deductibles, and process claims. This reduces manual errors, saving valuable time and labor costs that can be better spent on more important tasks.
- Integrated and Intuitive Ledger: Visually intuitive ledger for generating financial and management reports, managing family financials, and calculating patient and insurance sides of the ledger. This ensures comprehensive, organized record-keeping and minimizes the need for backdating and manual adjustments.
- Dashboard Analytics for Better Decision Making: Get a real-time snapshot of your practice with comprehensive performance metrics. Leverage a user-friendly dashboard that provides quick views of key metrics like production, recalls, chair utilization, accounts receivables, and more. This enhanced visibility allows the office to make informed business decisions and improve overall practice performance.
If we haven’t mentioned it yet, ClearDent is a solution made by Canadians, for Canadians—so we understand the nuances of Canadian insurance processes. To that end, we’ve built tools that empower practices to automate workflows, reduce the administrative burden, and maximize revenue. Here’s how we compare to others:
Insurance Claim Management
Financial Management
Patient Care and Business Operations Management
Running a dental practice involves a lot more than booking appointments, treating patients, and processing billing. Effective practice management requires tools that streamline both the patient side and the business side of your operations. And not all practices are alike; your needs will differ if you are a small family practice versus a large group practice. Practice management software companies like ClearDent offer additional functionality to cater to these varying needs. Identifying the specific needs of your practice is crucial to choosing a system that enhances efficiency and reduces the administrative burden on your team.
Has this happened to you?
Your practice is bustling with patients, but your administrative team is overwhelmed with managing schedules, inventory, and coordinating staff hours. The lack of an integrated system results in inefficiencies, errors, and stressed-out staff.
ClearDent’s comprehensive practice management tools are designed to address these challenges, ensuring your practice runs smoothly and efficiently. Here’s how ClearDent can transform your practice:
- Improve Productivity: With built-in task management, you can assign and manage tasks, create lab prescriptions within a patient’s chart, and track case status. Easily create waitlists and send bulk messages to keep your schedule full.
- Streamline Employee Hours: Employees can clock their hours directly through ClearDent, eliminating human error and saving thousands of dollars per year caused by clerical mistakes and overpaying.
- Enhance Team Communication: Stay connected with your team without leaving your chair. Discuss cases, request providers to operatories, announce changes, and send direct messages to ensure coordinated and excellent patient care.
We know that no two practices are the same, and each has unique business goals and approaches. ClearDent understands that practices require flexible solutions to help you reach your goals. With the ability to mix and match your tools, you can save resources for other components of your business. Here’s how we stack up to others:
Advanced Productivity Tools
Conclusion
Choosing the right dental software for your practice is paramount for you, your patients, and your staff. This article has highlighted the key factors to consider when searching for the software that best meets your needs. With the rise of cloud-based solutions, it’s important to understand the differences between true cloud, cloud-washed, and on-premise solutions and the features and functionality each provides.
Understand what your practice needs and do your research—use free demos to assist in making the right choice. The last thing you want is to select software that falls short, forcing you to switch and waste time, money, and resources down the road.
