About Dental Procedures

Dental Procedures Editor - Use the Dental Procedures editor to manage the list of orthodontic and dental procedures you perform for your patients. Each procedure includes a full description and abbreviation, clinical category, any associated insurance codes, display options for the patient tooth chart, and any additional notes. See "Dental Procedures Editor" for details.

Insurance Code Editor - Use the Insurance Code editor to create the list of CDT/ADA codes, ICD-9 codes and ICD-10 codes you use for identifying the diagnostics and services you perform for your patients. These codes can be linked to your dental procedures to provide efficient and consistent insurance processing. See "Insurance Code Editor" for details.

Fee Schedule Editor - (Edge Specialist users only.) Use the Fee Schedule editor to assign default fees to your procedures. Generally, an office will set up a "Usual, Customary, and Reasonable" (UCR) fee schedule, then use that schedule as the basis for creating other schedules with specific differences as needed, often for insurance company purposes. When you add a dental procedure to a patient's Treatment Hub or appointment, the default fee to charge is calculated according to the fee schedule(s) assigned to the billing line. See "Fee Schedule Editor" for details.

Insurance Plan Coverage Editor - (Edge Specialist users only.) Use the Insurance Plan Coverage editor to set up the benefit details for your insurance companies. An insurance plan coverage group specifies the co-pay, percentage, maximum benefit amount and restrictions to apply to the dental procedures covered in the insurance plan. You can create as many coverage groups as needed to accommodate varying benefits for different types of procedures. Then, when you apply dental procedures to your patients, Edge Specialist uses the assigned coverage group to calculate the appropriate allocation of the fee. (When you post a charge for a dental procedure that is not in a coverage group, the entire fee is allocated to the billing party.) See "Insurance Plan Coverage Editor" for details.

Dental Charge Types Editor - Use the Dental Charge Types editor to create your categories of dental procedure charges (i.e. Dental Procedure, Emergency Dental, Periodic Prophy). When you post a charge with a description from this editor, it will be flagged as a dental charge, rather than an orthodontic miscellaneous charge. See "Dental Charge Types Editor" for details.

Dental Procedure Groups Editor - Use the Dental Procedure Group editor to manage sets of dental procedures that are most commonly scheduled together. This helps keep your appointment scheduling protocol efficient and consistent. See "Dental Procedure Group Editor" for details.

Assign Dental Procedures to Appointment Appointment Type / Procedure - Use the Default Treatment section of your Appointment Type / Procedure editor to assign default dental procedures to your appointment appointment type / procedures.See "Appointment Type / Procedure Editor" for details.

Show / Hide Favorites Panel in Tooth Chart - (Edge Specialist users only.) Use the Show Dental Favorite Icons option in your Treatment Hub user options to show / hide a panel of favorites icons beside the patient's pediatric dentistry tooth chart. Even if this panel is disabled, your favorite conditions, procedures and procedure groups appear in the Favorites section at the top of the Conditions and Procedures list. See "Treatment Hub User Options" for details.

Show / Hide Dental Procedure Notes in Treatment Chart - Use the Treatment Chart section of your Treatment Hub user options to choose whether to show or hide dental procedure notes and dental procedure group notes within your Treatment Chart records. If displaying notes is disabled, the  Notes icon will still appear in the Treatment Chart record when the procedure or group contains notes. See "Treatment Hub User Options" for details.

Go to the responsible party page to apply one or more insurance companies to that party's record. You can then include insurance as a billing party in both orthodontics orthodontic contracts and miscellaneous charges, and pediatric dentistry billing lines. See "Responsible Party Records" for details.

The billing lines section of the pediatric dentistry finance page details how dental charges should be allocated among the patient's responsible parties and insurance companies. The patient must have a billing line before you can apply dental procedures to the patient folder. (You do not use billing lines with orthodontics fees: Orthodontic treatment fees are out according to the terms of the patient's orthodontic contract, and miscellaneous charges you post to individual responsible parties and/or insurance companies.) See "Patient Finance Page" for details.

Dental procedures are commonly applied to a patient either via their toothchart, and later linked to an appointment as it is scheduled, or when an appointment with default linked procedures is scheduled. Procedures can also be assigned to treatment sequence items.

After applying planned dental procedures to a patient's tooth chart, you will, at some point, want to link them to appointments. You can do this in several ways: 1) As you schedule an appointment for the patient, 2) Editing the appointment in your Scheduler, or 3) Moving a procedure to or from an appointment procedure group in the patient's Treatment Hub.

When at least one dental procedure is linked to an appointment, the number of linked procedures appears on the appointment in your Scheduler. You can hover over the appointment to view the list of included procedures, or right-click and edit the appointment to see procedure details. In addition, linked procedures appear as a group, with the appointment date and time as the group header, in the patient's Treatment Hub.

Edit Dental Procedure Details

Run a Proposed Treatment Plan form to generate a list of the planned dental procedures entered into a patient's treatment chart. You can run the form for an individual dental procedure, all orthodontics dental procedures, all Edge Specialist pediatric dentistry procedures, or all procedures for all specialties. The form includes the date the procedure was applied to the patient folder, and the appointment date set for the procedure (if any), as well as procedure details and Edge Specialist fees. You can include custom text on the form to further identify the plan or provide instructions. The bottom of the form includes a signature and date line to be completed by the responsible party when the proposed dental procedures are accepted. Once printed, emailed, or captured, the form is added to the patient's correspondence history. See "Proposed Treatment Plan Form" for details.

After a patient's appointment is finished, go to their Treatment Hub page to process linked procedures. You can double-click an individual procedure in the patient's treatment chart to edit it and change the status, or right-click to choose how to process it. You can also double-click or right-click a procedure group heading to process all of the procedures simultaneously, for example, if all of the procedures were successfully completed during the appointment.

Before saving, you can review and edit the procedure details and add any notes relevant to this patient. Once completed, be sure to post any corresponding fees, choosing the appropriate dental charges description from your Dental Charge Types editor. This flags the transaction as a dental charge, rather than an orthodontic miscellaneous charge.

Use the Miscellaneous Charge insurance form to file claims (either electronically or on paper) for dental procedures fees that are over and above the patient's orthodontic contract. Both charges posted as miscellaneous charges and dental procedure charges are listed on this type of form.

Choose the Dental Procedures type of Appointment Day Sheet to include the scheduled appointment details, along with any planned dental procedures that are linked to the appointments, on the report. See "Appointment Day Sheet" for details.

Run a Dental Procedures report to obtain a list of procedures that were planned, completed, referred, rejected, deleted, and added as existing, for any range of dates. Choose from a detail report that shows all the patient names, a detail report grouped by procedure, or a summary report that lists the number of each procedure involved. You may select the procedures to include, or include all procedures on the report. In addition, you may filter the report by office, doctor, and/or assistant. See "Dental Procedures Report" for details.

Run Dental Statement forms to provide your patients and billing parties with clear information about their financial obligation. If you have Edge Specialist, this includes the portion of pediatric dentistry dental procedure fees charged to the insurance company and the portion charged to the patient. All orthodontics contract and miscellaneous charges appear as owed by the billing party. You may print, export, or email the form, or capture it directly to the patient's correspondence history. See "Dental Statement Forms" for details.

Run the Production and Collection report to obtain the number, amount, adjusted amount, and net result of each type of production and collection transaction for any Transaction report or range of Transaction reports. Each section of the report includes the totals for that section. You can expand sections as needed to view detailed information about the patients and transactions that are included. See "Production and Collection Report" for details.