Integrity matters…especially data integrity.
If you want to text with your patients, you have to know their cell phone number.
If you want to email with your patients, you have to know their email address.
If you want to welcome patients into your practice in a way that makes them feel comfortable, you have to know their preferred name and pronoun.
If you want to submit a claim for the services rendered, you have to know the patient’s insurer, member ID, and group number.
If you want to send your patients a bill, you have to know their home address.
And so on…
So much of what we do in our dental practice is premised on having the right information on record. Name. Phone number. Email address. Member ID. Preferred physician. Preferred method of communication. Premedication requirements. Artificial joints. Missing teeth. All of this is data. And ensuring the integrity of that data is incredibly powerful in enabling all the other cool things that a modern dental practice can do without having to increase administrative overhead. Be it automated billing, automated recare, targeted communication, more effective clinical conversations. All of these things are enhanced by rigorously maintaining your data on record.
For example, our staff used to come into the office once a month to send out recare reminders to patients who were past due on their cleanings. They would manually fill out postcards with patient names, addresses, and scheduled cleaning due dates. When we transitioned to our new practice management software, Dentrix Ascend, that process was automated! But it could only be automated if we had the right recare schedule in place (e.g. 6 month prophy or 4 month perio maintenance), the right cell phone and/or email in place, and the right communication preference in place. Jamie and I went through every patient record to ensure all of that was correct in order to enable the powerful communication engine in Dentrix Ascend. The same could be said for the patient billing process and the insurance eligibility process.
If you don’t have the right data, none of the tools that make a modern dental practice hum will work. And you’re going to waste time and money when you don’t have to. So be fastidious in your record keeping all you providers out there. It will help at the exact time you need it.