Practice-Web hygienists—this one’s for you. The heart of any practice is hygiene and more than 60% of patients who visit in any given year will have some degree of periodontal disease per Dental Economics research. No doubt, much of your day is spent educating and caring for patients with the condition. Even still, you may not be aware of how your practice management software is designed to help you in these areas. Below, we’ll give a quick overview of Practice-Web perio tools hygienists love, so you can get the most from your software, continue delivering top-notch care, and work more efficiently too.
Note: Access to some of the settings for the perio tools outlined below are dependent on your office security settings. If you’re working through this page and adjusting the software to suit your needs better and don’t see a particular setting, it’s likely your office administrator has not given you access to that particular setting yet. Check with them to get access and refer to the Security Overview section of our User Guide for more info.
7. Pop-Ups on Completed Procedures
Consistent messaging and seamless coordination between back office and front can make a world of difference when it comes to patient education and compliance, but the reality is hygienists can’t always be there for the handoff to the business office. Popups in Practice-Web are one of the best perio tools in this respect because they can help remind the person checking out the patient what additional steps are necessary. For example, you may want to remind the front office to schedule the next recall appointment each time a D4910 is complete or you want to make sure a D4910 goes on the books after a D4341 is complete.
To create a popup that displays in Practice-Web when a procedure is complete, go to “Setup” in the main menu, then select “Automation.” From there, you can click the “Add” button to create your custom popup. Visit our Guide to see more information and additional automations you can create.
6. Customizable Recall Settings
Dental practices often have different approaches to perio care, including how often patients should visit and which procedures are performed when they do. As a Practice-Web client, you can set up your system to support and enforce your care philosophies to make scheduling and tracking perio recalls easier.
For example, let’s say patients usually have three-month recalls in your office but the default is set to four months. You’ll simply click “Setup” in the main menu, then select “Appointments,” and then choose “Recall Types.” From there, you can double-click your existing perio recall and edit the interval. This will set the default perio recall schedule to your preferred timeframe for tracking and notification purposes, but you can always change the interval for individual patients if their needs are different.
Customizations are helpful when your practice always completes additional procedures alongside perio maintenance too. For example, let’s say your practice always irrigates with perio maintenance and bills D4921 (irrigation per quadrant) alongside D4910 each time. Using the same process outlined above, you can add D4921 to the list of procedures being completed during that Recall Type. Visit the Practice-Web User Guide for more info on customizing Recall Types.
5. Auto Reminders
Many practices still send recall reminders the old school way—via postcards. While Practice-Web still supports this method using Recall Lists, patients can also receive an automatic notice they’re coming due for recall or of their upcoming appointments via email and text. It’s also possible to use Appointment Lists the same way to search for patients who are overdue for perio maintenance. It’s best practice for your office to work through the overdue recall list a little bit each day, but you can use the lists to send out a text or email blasts when you have last-minute cancellations or need to fill holes in the schedule too. Because research shows 95% of texts are answered within three minutes, SMS is by far the best way to go when you need your chair filled fast. If your practice isn’t already set up for texting and pwConnect, visit our Automated Reminders page for details.
4. Auto Notes
It’s not uncommon for hygienists to spend several minutes penning chart notes after a visit. There’s a lot to be said—especially when the patient is struggling with periodontal disease or has been non-compliant. The problem is, you may either create incomplete notes or have errors if you rush through, use shorthand, or bring an assistant in to help.
Hygienists love the Auto Notes feature in Practice-Web because it turns your note creation into a fill-in-the-blank template that you can click through quickly. Your “blanks” are shown as Prompts, which are defined in advance by you. You can set a Prompt to allow you to select one option from a list of options of your creation (OneResponse Prompt), multiple options from a list of options of your choosing (MultiResponse), or free-form text (Text Prompt).
Best of all, you can create your own Auto Notes that fit your personal style and set up multiple Auto notes for different case types or visits. For a detailed walkthrough, visit the Auto Notes section of our Guide.
It’s worth noting that the core software includes a Quick Notes feature that automatically inserts text based on keywords you provide. While neither of these are dedicated perio tools, they work together to make providing periodontal care easier.
3. Detailed (and Fast) Perio Charting
Thorough perio charting can be time-consuming and tedious under ordinary circumstances but the Perio Chart in Practice-Web makes it fast and simple, plus handles many of the calculations for you to speed things up even more.
While it tracks the things you would expect, such as probing, mobility, furcation, gingival margin, mucogingival junction, bleeding, suppuration, calculus, and plaque, the real beauty in the system is that it adapts to your needs and presents the information clearly.
- Tablet Use: If your practice uses Windows Tablet PCs to run Practice-Web (iPads and other tablet styles are not compatible), you can use the on-screen keypad to type your measurements in rather than a keyboard.
- Auto Advance: With the Auto Advance feature, Practice-Web naturally follows your natural flow moving right to left starting with tooth #1 on the buccal side, then wrapping around to the lingual on tooth #16 and moving right to left. If your personal preference is different, you can adjust the Auto Advance to move in the opposite direction.
- Auto Skip: Based on data entered in the main Chart Module (usually added by an assistant during the patient’s first visit and updated as treatment occurs), the Perio Chart tool will automatically skip missing teeth. You can also mark down teeth to skip during charting too.
- Copy Previous: The “Copy Previous” button allows you to create a new exam using data from the prior exam. This is helpful if you don’t anticipate many changes and simply want to edit the record to show what’s new.
- Triplets: To save time even more, you can check the “Triplets” box. This automatically records the same marking for the next three spaces. When checked, it deletes three recordings at a time too.
- Calculations: By default, clinical attachment loss is automatically recorded on your chart using Probing + Gingival Margin. With the click of a button, you can also automatically calculate percentages for plaque, bleeding, calculus, and suppuration or count the number of teeth with issues related to other areas, like probing. It’s worth noting that these recordings will be marked in red in your tooth chart and thresholds can be edited per your clinical preferences. For example, if teeth are currently being marked red and counted when a pocket depth of “4” is recorded, but you want to start catching recordings of “3,” you’ll simply use the arrow keys to adjust.
The information you gather can serve as talking points with patients and can help you demonstrate when the patient is on the right track or why additional care is needed.
2. The Graphical Tooth Chart
Whereas the traditional Perio Chart in Practice-Web makes recording and evaluating the data easy for dental professionals, images speak volumes to patients. Hygienists love that a Graphical Perio Chart can be created in a single click to aid in patient education and increase case acceptance. The Graphical Perio Chart shows essential data recorded during your exam, which can then be shown on screen to patients, saved to your images folder, or printed as a take-home for patients. Because it’s digital, you can send a copy to patients with ease as well. Visit the Guide for more info on the Perio Chart.
1. Voice Perio Charting
In a perfect world, hygienists are paired with assistants during exams to record perio charting information. In the real world, you don’t always have an assistant available or you may not want to delay charting while you wait. Voice Perio Charting in Practice-Web allows hygienists to record information when you’re working solo without any special equipment. That’s why hygienists consistently rate it one of their favorite perio tools in the software!
The system understands specific voice commands and will automatically record data for you, repeating the information back as it goes. You’ll find that, although the system recognizes dozens of voice commands, they all follow the same pattern. For example, you can say “Bleeding distal,” and it will mark bleeding on the distal side of the selected tooth. Plaque, furcation, suppuration, etc. all work the same way. If you’re new to the Voice Perio Charting feature and want to have the commands handy while you get them down, you can pull up our Voice Perio Command Cheat Guide PDF in your browser or print it out. All commands and information are covered in the User Guide as well.
Pro Tip: If you still prefer to have a dental assistant chart, you don’t need to go hunt one down! Use the onboard Messaging system to notify the team you would like assistance. Like virtually everything in Practice-Web, Messaging is customizable too, so you can create a message that indicates you need an assistant or target a specific assistant who usually helps you. Learn more about how Messaging works in the Guide.
Try These Perio Tools or Get Help
If you’re not presently using Practice-Web but think these perio tools will help your office, talk to your dentist or office manager about setting up a live demo for your team. We’ll even give you a free trial version of Practice-Web to test after, so you can explore it on your own. Get started here.
If you already use Practice-Web and your office has an active Support agreement, our Support team can help you customize your perio tools, find hidden gems, and troubleshoot. Contact us.
Your office can also visit our Pricing page to sign up for pwConnect (mass texting) or renew Support if yours is expired.