How to export your schedule from Denticon

Permissions come first

Denticon controls reports with security rights assigned to user groups. According to the Planet DDS Help Center, the appointment reports need Reports-Appointment Reports Screen-Full Control, and the recall reports need Reports-Recall Reports Screen Full Control. If a report menu is missing for you, that is usually why.

Users generally can't grant rights to themselves, so ask whoever administers Denticon for your practice to add the rights to the group of the person who will run exports. Keep the list short: one person and one backup is enough. Every extra person with report access is another place a patient list can end up.

Report 1: Appointment Detail, the full picture

Planet DDS points to the Appointment Detail report when an office wants to see every appointment scheduled in a date range. Unlike summary reports that only count patients seen, it considers missed appointments and can be run to include cancelled ones. It also shows the patient's insurance carrier and the procedure codes attached to each appointment. The documented steps:

1. Go to Reports > Appointment Reports.
2. Select the Appointment Detail report.
3. Set the date range.
4. Select the option to include cancelled appointments.
5. Click Print/Preview. The report opens in a separate window as a document, and Planet DDS describes an Export to Excel button at the top of that view. Use it to save the report as a spreadsheet.

Report 2: the Appointment List and its Call List format

The Appointment List report (Reports > Appointment Reports > Appointment List) has a Report Format To Print field, and the format you pick changes the logic, not just the layout. Planet DDS documents these formats:

• Canceled List: a history of patients who cancelled. A patient stays on it even after booking a new appointment.
• Missed Appointment List: a history of appointments marked Missed. Also ignores whether the patient has rebooked.
• Call List: patients with missed or cancelled appointments who do not have a replacement appointment, using the default parameters. Planet DDS calls this the report for patients who still need to be contacted.
• Confirmation Call List: upcoming appointments to confirm, filtered by provider, balance and confirmation information.

Why the Call List is the one that matters

The difference between the Missed Appointment List and the Call List is the difference between a history lesson and a to-do list. Say a hygienist's column had 12 no-shows last month and 7 of those patients already rebooked. The Missed Appointment List shows all 12. The Call List shows the 5 who still need a call. Exporting the wrong one means the front desk phones patients who are already on the schedule, which wastes time and annoys people.

Denticon also has a Call List screen under the Scheduler menu. There, staff can search a date range, check Off List for patients who should no longer be followed up, and click Off Call List to remove them; a Show Off Call List checkbox brings removed entries back into view. Planet DDS notes that taking someone off the Call List does not erase them from the Missed Appointment List or the cancellation report, which stay as a record of attendance.

It helps to know how Denticon decides an appointment was missed. Per the Help Center, an appointment counts as missed when its status was manually changed to Missed, when no completed procedures were posted to the ledger for that date of service, or when it was missed and moved to another day. A procedure must be set up as a visit code to count as completed, so a wrong code setup can make kept appointments look missed.

Report 3: Recall Due, filtered to not scheduled

Overdue hygiene patients are usually the biggest recoverable list in a dental office. Planet DDS documents the Recall Due Not Scheduled report this way:

1. Go to Reports > Recall Reports > Recall Due.
2. Set the date range. A past range shows overdue patients; a range running a month ahead shows who comes due next.
3. Set patient age and provider, and choose any Patient Types to exclude.
4. Use Select to pick procedure codes. Planet DDS suggests choosing only anchor codes such as D1110 or D1120 for a focused list.
5. Choose not scheduled, then click Print/Preview.

Keeping the recall list accurate

The Recall Due report has one well-documented trap. It only knows a patient is scheduled for recall if the recallable procedure code is embedded in the future appointment. Book a hygiene visit without the code and the patient still shows as due. Planet DDS also warns about patients who graduate from one recall code to another, such as D1120 to D1110, or D1110 to D4910. If the old due date isn't cleared from the Recalls section of the Patient Overview, the patient can appear overdue for a code they no longer need.

Before trusting the first export, spot-check ten names on the list against the Scheduler. If several are already booked, fix the habit at the front desk before building outreach around the report.

For unscheduled treatment, Planet DDS documents a fourth report: Reports > Treatment Plan Reports > Treatment Plan Status - Detail, with Scheduled and Completed checked in the Exclude Treatment Plans box. That leaves treatment that was planned but never booked.

What not to use for a daily export

Denticon also offers a data download, a full copy of the account's treatment, appointment and patient history data. It is requested one day and collected the next, needs its own Utilities permission and a text-message verification code, and can only be retrieved by the user who requested it. It is built for keeping a complete copy of your data, not for a daily list of open time and missed visits, and a full copy of the database is far more patient data than revenue work needs. The reports above are the right tool for that.

Whichever report you export, check that every row has a date, a provider and a phone number, delete columns the job doesn't need, upload only through a vendor's secure method under a Business Associate Agreement, and remove the copy from your downloads folder.