Open Dental Forum

Hello everyone

We are a pretty new practice and still learning new things about open dental everyday. We use the reports feature to run our daily reports as well as monthly to track our production versus collection. However, we are a little confused as to what is the most accurate method of tracking these.

Meaning, should we use the "Insurance Paid Date" or the "Procedure Date" to base these reports on? We've been using the procedure date as it appears to give a more accurate representation on what we did that day. But we can see where it might not be as accurate as using the insurance paid date for our monthly reports.

Can you help us determine the best one for our needs? Thanks again for all the help!

The P&I reports are a matter of perception, and preference. When set to procedure date, production is reported on the day that it was done, not the day that it was paid for by the insurance company. With the Insurance Paid Date, the income is reported on the day it was received, not the day it was generated by the procedure. It's up to you and your accountant how you want to be presented with these totals.

Thanks Dwayne

We'll be using the procedure date for our daily reports and insurance paid date for our monthly reports.

Is it normal for the previous montly numbers to change if I am looking at reports using Procedure date? I just printed a copy of the first 9 months, and when I look back at prev. months numbers, they are off slightly. I alway print Proc. Date when I do my monthly comparisons. The reason it is important is I am trying to have goals for staff based on previous months numbers. But, now that 3 quarters have gone by, the numbers I print today are different than what I posted for them this summer. So, it looks like I made a mistake. But the nubmers I took are from the end of those months at that time (for example: at the end of every month I run reprst and post numbers, but when I look back at Aug. and July, I am off by a few hundred dollars (Sometimes more or less).

Thanks

This implies that there were changes made to procedures, or adjustments were made to account balances, after you ran your monthly reports.

The way you run the reports depends on what type of accounting method you use - cash or accrual. As a non-profit we do accrual accounting and have to book the write-off on the date of service, not the date the payment is received. I think most dental offices use cash accounting though.