Open Dental Forum

I'm having some issues with how procedures are being assigned to providers. It doesn't seem to follow who the provider on the schedule is - instead the "Is Hygiene" and default providers in the Family module seem to override the provider schedules. I know there are certain procedures that can be marked "Is Hygiene" - but in some situations the DDS does a "Is Hygiene" procedure and the RDH does procedures that are not marked Is Hygiene by default. Shouldn't the providers assigned to that operatory on the schedule override these settings? Here are a few examples:

In Minnesota we have collaborative practice which allows hygienists to see patients for cleanings, x-rays, etc. without the dentist present. So in these situations I only have a hygienist assigned to an operatory on the schedule and no DDS. Since we provide mobile services, we also charge a house call fee for coming to see the patient in the nursing home. Normally, if we had a dentist and hygienist both seeing the patient on the same day the house call fee would go to the dentist - therefore I don't have the "Is Hygiene" box checked for that procedure. But on days where just the hygienist sees the patient, the house call fee production should go to the RDH - but instead it's going to the DDS, even though they were not there and are not assigned to that operatory on the schedule. Manually changing them requires that I change both the provider on the procedure and on the insurance estimate - and it's easy to miss this.

Another situation is where the DDS ends up doing a procedure that is marked "Is Hygiene" (i.e. x-rays, cleaning). Even though the RDH is not assigned to that chair and it's not marked as a hygiene chair, it's giving the production to the default secondary provider that's setup in the family module. Shouldn't it recognize that the DDS is the only provider for that scheduled appt and give them the production?

I don't know if this is a problem when you assign providers to operatories in the Setup->Operatories section. We set our providers to operatories in the Setup->Schedules section, because it is always different.

Well for part of the issue when you are in the mobile unit you can change the procedure under Lists>Procedure codes to "is hygiene" when a hygienist is working all day and then when a doctor is working all day you can go in and disable that so at least you would not have to worry about the procedures the entire day they would be the correct provider.

Are you sure that your ops are not assigned aside from the Setup>Schedules? it could be setup under Setup>Operatories that the op is a Hygiene room. It would be best if you are a customer of ours you can give us a call and I can take a look at your setup to make sure it is setup correctly.

If not just let me know and we can try to figure it out through the forum. What version are you running?

We have multiple clinics and multiple providers working every day, so changing the "Is Hygiene" procedures globally will not work.
The only thing setup in Operatories is the clinic.
Running version 6.6.7 - but this is not a new problem, just finally getting around to bringing it up.

I (Open Dental Staff) had another customer call in about this and point me here. You may just need to make the hygienist the 'dentist' for any appointments where you want all of the procedures to go to the hygienist, so to default the behavior that way on the schedule (others should use the operatory settings and make the hygienist the dentist for those operatories) >Schedule the hygienist (Setup>Schedule>Add, indicate an opertory to override)in an operatory that is not a hygieniest operatory (one not marked with a hygienist in setup operatory). This is not terribly clear, so you should call in for support and escalate if needed until we understand and we can help you put in a feature request if needed.