It is a fact nowadays that technology took over many fields and industries, and the health sector makes no exception to that. Our center of interest in this article is management systems in general, and dental management software in particular. 

It would only make sense to refresh our minds with a quick definition of what these are: management software refers to systems that aim to help healthcare providers collect, store, retrieve and exchange patient information more efficiently, allowing for better patient care and smoother management of clinics and health centers. Sounds tempting, doesn’t it? 

Nevertheless, not all dental management software is as well-performing as one would expect them to be, some being out-of-date, inefficient, slow, and constantly glitching. The list below will detail seven indicators to consider when changing your dental management system. You will thank us later!  

1. You still manage your dental practice using pen and paper!

Let’s start with the most obvious: if you are still managing your oral surgery clinic with pen and paper, it is time to change that – and you probably knew that when reading the introduction. Indeed, managing an entire practice on paper, whether it is patient appointments, their files, the monitoring of equipment stocks, and so on, can not only be disorganized but can also generate unnecessary additional costs in supplies (papers, pencils, files, envelopes, etc.) which you can do without. So, if you are still managing your clinic using pen and paper, this can be considered as the first indicator that it’s time to change your management system. 

2. Your patient base is growing, and so are your management issues.

If your administrative staff is having quite a hard time completing their tasks with the higher volume of patient information, you have your second indicator it is time to change your management system. Why is that? 

Well, the appropriate management system will not only render the experience of your patients smoother but also make the working days of your staff more pleasant by sparing them dull tasks like the classification of new files (in alphabetical order or by number) and the consultation of the archives. Dental management software has also been created for this and will help you adjust to the needs of a larger practice while keeping your staff happy and not stressed – by streamlining patient registration and administrative tasks with a patient portal that is not only time saving but also allows for COVID-19 preventive measures by eliminating the need for files that are passed on from one hand to another. 

Expert tip: Creating a knowledge base on your website for your patients as well as your staff can save significant amounts of time and improve efficiencies. This can be done on your website in the form of a dental patient education portal, or a third-party knowledge base like Notion. 

3. Calculating insurance deductibles and processing claims are your worst nightmares.

If the above statement resonates with you, it is a sign that you should switch to dental management software that is performant enough to take this load off your shoulders – by calculating insurance deductibles, sending invoices, and processing claims to keep patients billed on time. This will save you precious time spent manually doing endless and tedious calculations, and since time is money, your dental management software will be saving you both. 

4. Your digital imaging, charting, and progress notes are not linked to the rest of your patient files.

If each time you see a patient and need to consult his dental history, you have to go to look for the X-rays, the charting, and progress notes in different files or on different programs, know that there is software which will bring together all these complementary exams in one place, allowing you to consult more fluidly and quickly, and avoiding the loss of precious time. 

5. You own clinics in different locations and have a hard time ensuring their connectivity.

If you own or manage several clinics and if you have ever got lost scheduling appointments, know that the right management software should provide you with access to all your clinics’ data in the same place, wherever you are, making cross-location scheduling easier than ever. Tempting, isn’t it? 

6. You sometimes run out of materials unexpectedly.

If you ever ran out of a product you needed for an appointment and had to reschedule it, you need to manage your equipment inventory differently. And you have probably already guessed it, the right management software will not allow this to happen, by meticulously managing your dental inventory with a barcode scanner or even through manual entry. Your dental management system will send you notifications when quantities of material are running low, avoiding the inconvenience. 

7. You have experienced data loss or technical glitches with your current dental management system.

And last but not least, if your dental management system does not have a built-in cloud data back-up, and you have hence already lost data with your current one, take that decision, change that software, and say goodbye to these unpleasant inconveniences. 

To sum up, it is high time to switch to a new dental management software if you relate to any of the above indicators – and by doing so, to shed your current inefficiencies and increase your profitability. Additionally, in an era where social media feedback and reviews are a gold standard and a growth inducer, you might as well want to opt for software that would send automated post-appointment surveys to your patients so they can make you glow online by positively reviewing the high quality of your services. To go even further, knowing that artificial intelligence has made remarkable advances in the last few years in the field of medicine in general, it would be interesting to see how this AI could be integrated into this dental management software, making it possible to make prognoses or differential diagnoses based on the data collected of the patient, making the patient experience even more fluid and your work as a dentist more efficient and fast.