Open Dental Forum

I am looking for input from Open Dental Users on how they have successfully used Open Dental in multiple locations. We have two locations. 2 doctors in one location using Open Dental for 8years merged ownership of another office with 1 doctor that had been using Open Dental for less than 6 months. The locations are approximately 30 minutes apart. We anticipate it being common for patients to bounce back and forth between the two offices for various reasons. Patients are being seen in both offices 4 days a week (Mon-Thurs)

Our concerns are being able to access our data (x-rays, tx notes, account information) between the two practices. We are also concerned about how to handle accounting issues (patient billing, insurance). Currently, each office bills for work in their own location and payment is made to that location.

It seems that having a common database would be ideal but not sure how practical that is. I am concerned about speed of accessing data, dependency on internet (rural area). I also tried to understand the idea of replication from the Open Dental Manual but I am not a IT person so it was a bit hard to follow. After looking over the information about replication, it would seem that good IT support would be mandatory for this strategy to be successful.

We are currently viewing data in the other office via remote access (remote desktop, teamviewer, etc) but that doesn't seem to be a long term solution if patients will be often seen in both offices. Looking for any advice or input from those who have experience with these type of issues.

It is a bit complicated by I setup a VPN connection between the two offices. This allowed us to keep only one Open Dental Database, which is stored on the Server at the main location. Our internet speed are 50Mbps and the transfer of data and images is almost instant. Initially I used Hamachi software VPN but then switched to Untangle firewall which has an app for Open VPN. Once setup it is rock solid. The other reason for switching to Untangle was that the firewall and logging components helps us maintain Hipaa compliance

its a touch and go situation - we also moved from one location to two, I tried the Remote Desktop idea but there was lag (slower internet speeds) - I have finally implemented Daisy Chain Replication setup and have enjoyed this service - but would not recommend this to the faint hearted, I must accept that it has not been without the accidental hiccups (2 or 3 times in the past 2 years) I have had the need to troubleshoot (generally i just need to restart) the replication server - but apart from those minor incidents I enjoy the present system.

The instructions on the OD site are sufficient, but it needs a bit of planning on your end - if i were to do it again I would stick to this process 100%.