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Does Your Dental Practice Management Software Check All Your Boxes?

by | Feb 22, 2022 | Dental Practice Management, Technology

If you’re researching dental practice management software (PMS), you already know that there are an overwhelming number of systems to choose from. And because many additional add-on features are table stakes nowadays, it can be even harder to know what type of PMS to integrate into your practice.

Whether you are just opening your first practice or simply considering a switch to a different system, we’ve assembled a checklist of notable things you should consider during your hunt for the perfect dental software.

 

✅ Evaluate The Current Environment of Your Practice Before Choosing a Dental Practice Management Software

Since no two dental practices are alike, you will want to carefully decide on a PMS that will align with the goals and needs of your office. So, before you start Googling “what is the best dental practice management software?”, first ask yourself these questions;

  • Will we have (or do we have) an Office Manager with previous experience using a particular PMS?
  • What type of IT needs do we need to consider?
  • What kind of learning environment best suits our staff, or what kind of a learning environment are we looking to create?

Answering these three questions will help you identify the right flow or direction you should navigate towards, when looking for a PMS. Consider this scenario:

The office manager you just hired has years of experience using Open Dental as their desired practice management software. After doing your research and reading online reviews, you decide that Open Dental is a good fit for your practice. Since Open Dental is server-based, you find an IT company specializing in server installation and support. When it comes time to train the rest of the team, you evaluate your learning environment. Your team is very “hands-on.” So, instead of reading manuals, your team turns to Facebook Groups, Dental Forums, and YouTube, to learn all they can about your new practice management software. Within a few short months, everyone on your team is confident with this new system. 

In this example, an entire process was able to come together simply by analyzing the office’s current environment and answering a few essential questions.

 

Acknowledge That a PMS System Can Only Do So Much

Dental practice management software was built with one thing in mind – helping you to manage your patients and office! While this type of software is capable of a lot, it isn’t perfect. (Sorry to burst your bubble!)

After installation and onboarding, you are still going to be faced with some nuances and challenges along the way. Perhaps as you become more established you’ll quickly realize you’d like to offer online bookings, or maybe the built-in intra-office communication features of your new PMS weren’t savvy enough to meet your expectations – so you turn to add-on software to fill in your gaps. Not a bad idea!

Is “Add-on” Software Necessary?

How do I know if I need it?

Knowing when and how to incorporate additional automation into your practice is not the most straightforward task. Download a digital copy of our most popular eBook, The Ultimate Dental Automation Guide, so you can grab some industry pointers on where to start! We’ll walk you through each step of the process and help you discover some of the common mistakes you might be currently making with the PMS system you have in place and how an add-on solution might help you along the way. 

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Be Sure Your PMS Syncs With the Other Solutions

There’s nothing more frustrating than investing in additional add-on software, only to later find that it’s created more issues in the practice, rather than solving the ones you had intended to fix.

A lot of those frustrations are caused when the add-on software does not sync in real-time to the office’s dental practice management software. These problems can be easily avoided by making sure that your add-on software has the ability to sync seamlessly to your PMS.

As an example, PMS such as Dentrix, Open Dental, and Eaglesoft sync in real-time with YAPI. If a patient signs a consent form or updates their medical history electronically, the practice can have that data synced in real-time to the patient’s chart in their PMS.

✅ Keep an “Adaptable” Mindset and Read Reviews

Technology is constantly evolving. During the onset of COVID-19, the medical industry faced a quick need to adapt to curbside check-ins, contactless forms, and telehealth appointments. Software systems that could adapt and accommodate these changes were quickly favored while the systems that couldn’t were canceled.

While we can’t predict future outcomes, we can learn from our recent past. Ask your dental friends about the new technologies that they have had to adapt to, and read recent dental software reviews from Software Advice and Captera for further insights on reliable and trusted PMS systems.