25 must have features of dental practice management software. Use these points as a checklist before deciding to purchase any dental practice management software.
Why Use Dental Practice Management Software?
Maintaining a successful dental practice take a lot of hard work. A dental practice does not include just handling and treating the patients. Managing patients is just a part of the dental practice. But there are also many other peripheral responsibilities that are associated with running a smooth practice.
A good dental practice management software can make it easy for you or your dental practice manager to smoothly manage the day to day activities like scheduling appointments, entering employee information, and managing billing and insurance information, while dentists and dental hygienists can enter all clinical work performed.
So, in this article, we are going to tell you the 25 must-have features of any good dental practice management software.
Note these 35 points and use the points as a checklist before you purchase any dental practice management software. Let’s start:
The 25 features of any dental practice management software can be grouped into 5 main categories:
Front Office Tools
Clinical Tools
Features – Connectivity
Supported Configurations
Help & Support
Front office Tools Features of
Dental Practice Management Software
These are the features that are essential for your daily management & record of your clinical activities. Before buying any dental practice management software, you must look for these features.
1) Appointment Scheduling: You can manage the patient schedule within the application. You can set appointments, find available time slots, reschedule patients and more.
2) Payment Entry: You can enter payment and billing information directly in the application. You can also keep reminders about the upcoming payments for the treatments.
3) Managing Claims: The software will assist with creating and managing insurance claims. Many applications will also allow you to send the claims electronically. So, it gets easy for the dentists to claim the dental insurances of the patients after the treatment.
4) Patient Reminders: The software provides options to remind patients of upcoming appointments via email, phone calls or text messages. This is a feature without which no dental practice management software can be complete.
5) Tracking the referral: You can track patient referrals within the application. You can see who the patient was referred by and if the patient was referred to another dentist or specialist.
6) Print Patient Statements: The software must have the feature to make the electronic and print statements of patients treatments and other details. These are very useful to mail the patients regarding their payments & treatment details. (to safeguard against any future monetary disputes)
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Must Have Clinical Features of
Dental Practice Management Software
We are discussing the top 35 features for any dental practice management software
Clinical Features of
Dental Practice Management Software
7) Patient Charts: Every dental practice management software must have the system to create, maintain & view patient charts which can give the basic overview of the treatment modules.
8) Periodontal Charts: There must be a complete periodontal chart for the pictorial assessment of teeth and the surrounding periodontium.
10) Treatment Planning: Module to maintain complete records of future treatment planning, strategies, medical history, drug history & other relevant details. It is very essential.
11) Prescription Writing/Drug History: A prescription writer allows you to track and record patient prescriptions. Some applications will also allow you to create and send prescriptions to be filled for patients. This is again very essential for not only records but medico-legal reasons.
12) Medical History Records: There must be a module to maintain in detail the past medical or dental histories of the patients.
14) Patient Consent Form: All dental practice management software must provide an editable patient consent form that can be modified as per the treatment. The patient consent form must be printable or be able to record the electronic signature of the patients. This is again very essential for medico-legal purposes.
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Connectivity & Backup features of
Dental Practice Management Software
We are discussing the top 35 features for any dental practice management software
Connectivity & Backup Features of Dental Practice Management Software
15) Ease of Use: Every software provides a free trial period. In that period seriously assess how easy it is to use the software? The easier it is for you to manage, the better results you will get in the long run.
16) Legal Compliance: Make sure that the software you are purchasing is compliant with the privacy laws of your region.
17) Custom Report Generator: The dental practice management software should have a custom report generator to generate software as per requirement.
18) Regular Backups: The software must have the feature to take regular backups of all your data. The data backups can be stored in your local storage or in the cloud backup services like Google Drive or Box Cloud.
19) Accessibility on Mobile Devices: 90% of online activities are taking place on mobile devices or apps. So ask the dental software management company – if they are providing a working mobile app version of their software. This will enable you to access the patient reports even when you are not in the dental office.
20) Cloud Based Dental Practice Management Software: Ask your software supplier if there is a cloud version of their software. In cloud version, you do not need to install any software on your devices. You just need a good internet connection.
Hardware Requirements for Dental Practice Management Software
21) Operating Systems
Before you purchase any dental practice management software check properly about the operating systems that are compatible with the software. 3 major computer operating systems are available currently in the market – Windows, Mac & Linux. Most of the dental practice management software work on windows. If you have Apple Mac systems in your practice then purchase the version that is compatible with Mac OS.
See Next to Know Support and health features of the
Dental Practice Management Software
We are discussing the top 35 features for any dental practice management software
Help & Support Features of
Dental Practice management Software
Purchase any dental practice management software you decide to purchase only after verifying the support features being provided by the company. The support points that you must consider before purchasing the software:
22) Email Support: You can reach a support representative via email. Check if the email support is priority basis or you will need to have a waiting period before the reply.
23) Telephonic Support: You can reach a support representative via telephone. Check if its round the clock service or 9 to 5 support. In any case, if telephonic support is provided then it is a real goof point.
24) Online Knowledge Base: Check properly if the software company is providing online resources such as articles, brochures, videos, blog posts and more are available on the company’s website. That is very helpful in understanding and solving the common errors.
25) Live Chat Support: Check if the company provides a live support chat.
26) On-site visit & software training: Check properly if the company is providing on-site visitation and training course to effectively use the software. If such facility is being provided, then it’s really a good choice.
In this post, we discussed 25 points that can be used as a checklist while deciding to purchase a dental practice management software. Dental management software can be the best companion for your dental office. It can integrate every aspect of your practice so all the information you need is available at your fingertips.
You can also read about how to choose a dental practice management software that is perfect for your dental practice in this detailed article below.
How To Choose Dental Practice Management Software For Your Practice?
The best dental practice management software for dentists to manage their dental practice. This post will give an overview on how to choose the most suitable dental practice management software for your dental practice? Dentistry as a profession is always evolving. This evolution has two aspects to it.
