How to export your schedule from Dentrix

Start by identifying your Dentrix

"Dentrix" covers several products from Henry Schein One. Most independent offices run either the desktop Dentrix G-series (versions such as G6 and G7) or the cloud-based Dentrix Ascend. Larger groups may use Dentrix Enterprise. The core ideas are the same across all of them: an Appointment Book, lists of appointments that need attention, and a reports area. But button names, menus and export options vary.

So before following any instructions, including ours, check which product and version you are on. In desktop software this is usually under a Help or About menu. Then use Dentrix's help resources for that version. We describe what to look for rather than a single menu path, because a wrong path wastes more time than a general one.

The three lists that matter for a dental office

Dental schedules leak in three predictable ways, and Dentrix tracks each of them.

1. Scheduled appointments. The core schedule export: every appointment in a date range with time, provider, operatory, status and length. This is what shows open chair time.
2. Broken and unscheduled appointments. When a patient breaks an appointment in Dentrix, the office can move it to a list of appointments waiting to be rescheduled, often called the unscheduled list. Every entry is a patient who still needs the visit.
3. Continuing care. Dentrix calls recall continuing care. Patients who are past due for hygiene or periodic exams, with nothing scheduled, are the largest pool of recoverable visits in most offices.

What a good Dentrix appointment file looks like

Dentrix's documentation for Dentrix Enterprise describes an appointment list, opened from the Appointment Book, that shows the time, status, patient name, provider, operatory, reason, length and patient phone number for each appointment. That is close to an ideal column set for revenue recovery, and it is a useful benchmark when you look at the reports in your own version.

Whatever report you use, check that the file includes:

• Date and time on every row, not only as a heading.
• Provider and operatory, so a hygiene opening is matched to a hygiene patient.
• Status, including broken appointments.
• Length, which tells you whether a gap fits a prophy or a crown seat.
• Patient ID and phone, ideally the mobile number.
• Scheduled production, if your report offers it, so each opening can be priced.

Getting it out as data

Many Dentrix lists and reports are designed for screen or print. Before you send anything, look at the output options of the report you are using:

• If there is an export option to Excel or CSV, use it. That is the best format.
• If the only options are print or PDF, check Dentrix's help resources for a report in your version that exports, or ask Dentrix support which appointment report supports export.
• Some offices have a data or reporting add-on that exports appointments. If your office already uses one under a Business Associate Agreement, its appointment export can be used too.
• Do not retype a printed schedule into a spreadsheet. It's slow, and typos in phone numbers send messages to the wrong people.

Illustrative math for a two-hygienist office

These numbers are illustrative. Say a general dental office runs two hygiene columns, five days a week. Its appointment file for the next two weeks shows 16 open hygiene hours. Its unscheduled list holds 24 broken appointments from the last two months. Its continuing care list shows 300 patients more than three months past due.

If a hygiene visit is worth $190, filling half of those 16 hours with one-hour visits is about $1,520. Rebooking half the unscheduled list is another $2,280. And if just 10% of the past-due continuing care patients return, that is 30 visits, about $5,700, plus any restorative work found at those visits. The opportunity in the lists is often larger than the opportunity in the schedule itself.

A routine for the front desk

1. Each morning, export the scheduled appointments for the past week and the next three weeks.
2. Each week, export or review the unscheduled list and the continuing care list.
3. Spot-check five rows against the Appointment Book.
4. Upload only to a vendor under a Business Associate Agreement, through its secure method, and delete the local file.