Dental Office Daily Reports Prevent Disaster Later

Dental office daily reports are preventive.  And work much like the daily flossing we recommend to our dental patients!  These daily reports help to prevent big problems down the road.  And just like that dental floss that sits in our patient’s medicine cabinet,  the dental practice has software that is available to use!  The dental practice software provides protection and information to guide us.

Not all the reports require daily attention.  Just like our dental patients don’t need an exam every day.  There are reports we can monitor less frequently.  But let’s take a look at the 6 reports I review each day.  And some of these reports you will review by provider.  So, you may need to print more than one report of each type.  But this depends on the report.

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It’s critical to know what you are looking at.  There is really no point in the report unless it means something to you.  And it’s equally important to take the time to digest the information.  To print a report and put it in a folder does nothing but make piles.  And then again, not all reports must be physically printed.  You may get what you need just from a print preview of the report.

All of this is explained by report.  We will talk about what the report is.  Why we need to look at this report.  And then if we need to keep this report on paper.  Or if perhaps we can generate a print preview and then discard once we are done.  It’s critical that the dentist, practice manager, and front office see some of these reports.  And then others only the dental front office team needs.  This is also explained.

 Dental Office Daily Reports

The Day Sheet

The day sheet provides us with many options.  Regardless of what you use for software, I bet you have filters here.  Filters and settings to get the exact report you want.  Each day, you want to use this report to check charges posted.  This is the best way to double-check that everything was posted to each patient’s account correctly.

Print the day sheet per provider.  This will allow you to pay closer attention to detail.  And it will also give you the opportunity to see what each provider is actually producing  You can compare dentists and hygienists total office production.

A chronological day sheet may be easiest to follow.  Because it will follow the same flow as your patient schedule.  This may be another filter that you can select.  If you choose alphabetical, it could be easy to miss something or someone.

Procedure date is better than entry date.  Especially if you look at this report for the previous day.  And many people will do this.  Corrections may have been made.  A charge could have been posted or corrected today for a patient that was seen yesterday.

   Adjustment Reports

An adjustment report is just what it sounds like.  It will show all the adjustments made for the time period that is chosen.  And in some software systems, you can print this as part of the day sheet.  My preference is to print it at the same time.  It prints as a separate report anyway.

This report is especially important!  As it will show write-offs and special courtesy adjustments too.  And if your dental practice participates in PPO plans, it can be hard to follow.  It can be even harder to know just how accurate it is.  But it’s critical. I don’t find it necessary to run this by each provider number.

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Carefully check this particular report. Double check and triple check this one.  And if you are dentist or practice manager, be sure to ask questions.  Anyone can make a mistake.  However, it could cost the practice hundreds of dollars.  If something seems off, it probably is.

Systems of checks and balances can help.  For example, the practice manager can keep all of the individual daily adjustment journals that are correct.  Then, at the end of the month, run a full report.  The totals from the individual daily reports should equal the full month’s report.  If not, find out why.

Deposit Slip

Deposit slips reflect money applied to patient accounts.  I would only run this report by provider if there is more than one dentist.  Because you want to see if one dentist has a higher collection rate than another.  And if so, why?  But typically, the office with a single general dentist and hygienists just need one deposit slip printed daily.

 

 

Double-check this report against money deposited.  This has to be 100% accurate!  As do all of the reports.  But you definitely don’t want money to go to your bank that is a different total than what you say you had that day.  So, before you go to the bank, check this.  It’s easy to miss something or apply something wrong.

Payment types can be incorrect.  Even if the totals are right.  It’s easy enough to enter a credit card payment rather than a check payment.  So this must be double checked for accuracy too.  Cash, credit cards, insurance checks, personal checks, and electronic payments must all be 100% accurate.

Dental Office Daily Reports

Procedures Not Attached To Insurance

Dental insurance claims must be sent daily.  And I think most dental practices do send these claims electronically.  But I know some must still be printed now and then.  Regardless of how these claims go, it’s easy enough to miss one or two in a day.

Print this report every day to avoid a missed claim.  In fact, I send claims several times throughout the day.  And if I can, I will print this report twice a day.   It just makes my day a little easier to break tasks down into smaller pieces.  I do a better job and can be more attentive to the details.

 

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Claims Created

Claims created reports may have different names with various software.  So to clarify, the report we want includes claims that were batched but not sent.  How does that happen?  Believe me it does!   And to the software system, it looks like the claim is done.  It’s gone.  Adios amigos!

So this is the safety net.  It’s easy enough to a batched claim to be accidentally removed from the batch.  And then it just sits in the data base, hiding out.  Find out what this report is for you, and be sure to run this every single day!  This report is easy to forget.  And you will kick yourself later if you do forget it!

Dental Office Daily Reports

New Patients

New patient reports are so easy to manage on a daily basis.  And like I said earlier, it’s so much easier to manage.   If you think you don’t have time to do this daily, trust me!  You will have more time when you begin to break things down like this.

This report gives you another opportunity to make sure you have all your ducks in a row.  Update any missing information now.   And be sure the referral information is in place.  It helps to know where your patients came from.

Improve your patient’s experience at this moment.  Have some personal cards available and give this daily report to your doc.  They can write a little note to let your new patient know how nice it is to have them in your practice!  Send these out daily and you just might see more new referrals coming your way!

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