Open Dental Forum

We are in the early phases of learning how to use the Open Dental software before installing it at our clinic. One of the dentists questioned if there is a way to document a single procedure for multiple seperate surfaces. After working with the software and reviewing the documentation and forums I still can't find a way to do this.

This is the scenario: The patient needs two fillings for tooth 18, an MO and a B (the fillings aren't connected). Due to our payer's restrictions we cannot code this as two seperate procedures, instead it must be coded as a 3-surface procedure otherwise we won't get paid. Additionally it would be nice if the tooth chart would show it as disconnected as well so the dentist could easily see what needs to be done from the treatment plan.

Any help would be greatly appreciated,
Peter

In this example, you would code it as an MOB. Despite the fact that the filling is disconnected, the American dental billing system recognizes it as a single filling with three surfaces. Three surfaces of the tooth were restored, so the specific design of the filling is really not relevant. Consider yourself fortunate that the US chose this simple system rather than other possibilities. In Great Brittain, they have many more codes, with each code covering a specific surface combination. So it could certainly be worse.

To document the geometry of the filling, just make good notes in your procedure notes. Some day, we will enable you to do this graphically, but there are other priorities at the moment.