Taking Useful Dental Patient Appointment Notes

To keep your dental practice running smoothly, we recommend that each patient leaves your office having already scheduled a follow-up appointment. You can streamline this process further by maintaining detailed and useful appointment notes.

Below are a few reasons why dental appointment notes are so important and some tips on taking good notes:

• Make sure your notes are specific – If your dental practice has multiple dentists who share the patient population, it’s key to keep your notes as specific as possible. These notes shouldn’t be used as a substitute for clinical notes, but they can serve as a quick rundown of important details. 
• Notes are essential when reactivating patients – Train your staff members to book a patient’s next appointment at the time of their current visit. Sometimes this isn’t possible, as some patients will need to coordinate with babysitters or work schedules before committing to an appointment. Make sure a follow-up reminder is added in the notes, so it’s apparent that these patients need to be called. Otherwise, you risk them falling through the cracks. 
• No such thing as too much information – Stress the importance of your staff members taking notes when scheduling an appointment for a patient. The notes should include additional relevant information such as the procedure or treatment being recommended, whether an evaluation needs to happen, etc. 

Just because you’re a skilled and compassionate dentist doesn’t mean you’re a pro at running the business side of your dental practice. Here at Dental Bookkeeping, we’re here to help you simplify and streamline your bookkeeping!

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