NHS Wales 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 - April 1st 2026 - FAQs

When you open a treatment plan and chart any NHS item for a patient who has not had a (non-urgent) claim in the last 3 years at this practice, you'll see a banner asking whether this is a New Urgent Referral. Toggling this banner to 'Yes' will update the Care Packages to show the Urgent Care Package and set the claim up to submit correctly.

In rare cases, eg. if this person has been a patient at this practice previously, but has still been referred, the banner will not show. In this case, you can proceed to the 'Submit Claim' screen and select the referral source from there. Returning to the chart will now show the Urgent Care Package and corresponding patient charge.

Simply chart any work that you would have performed (eg. an exam), and mark the patient as a New Urgent Referral. Without marking the charted treatments as complete, you will be able to proceed to the 'Submit Claim' screen and the correct package will be claimed.

In the unlikely event that the patient is not identified as a new patient, and the banner offering to mark the plan as a New Urgent Referral does not show, please temporarily mark any charted item as completed to unlock the 'Submit Claim' button. Once viewing the claim details, you will be able to set the referral source to New Urgent Referral, and return to the chart where the banner will now show. Simply unmark the treatment as completed, and proceed to submit the claim as normal.

With the corresponding item expanded on the patient's chart, use the 'Labs' tab to record the price of lab items. Labs can be marked as either NHS or Private. Eligible exemptions will apply to NHS labs, but the patient will always be invoiced for private ones regardless of their exemption status.

Labs for items marked as being performed under warranty will automatically have their charge type set to Private as these items are not covered by the NHS. For warranty work, if you do not wish to charge the item through to the patient, please do not enter the lab price at all.

NHS Wales will cover up to their tariff amount. Should the cost of the lab exceed this, you are only eligible to claim for the tariff amount, so must enter the lower amount of the tariff or actual charge.

The NHS will only cover "standard" lab options, with the patient expected to pay for the uplift to a more expensive option should they choose one. In order for this to be charged and claimed correctly, you must record the price of the NHS-approved lab with a charge type of 'NHS', and then record a second lab for the uplift amount. The second lab must have a charge type set to 'Private' for it to be invoiced directly to the patient.

See our dedicated guide for a breakdown of how you will be paid for treatment plans depending on when they are started and completed.

Due to the amount of time provided by NHS Wales to implement these changes, we have prioritised updates which enable stability and patient safety. We will continue to work in this area over the coming months and hope to provide reporting specifically to help track towards the new ACV targets - but for now this won't be possible within Dentally.

NHS Wales has introduced distinct Care Packages for New Patient Assessment, Recall Exam, and 18-24 Month Recall Exam. We have automatically added treatments for these items, but you're welcome to adjust them in your settings should you wish to rename them. Charting any one of these new examination types will automatically add the correct Care Package to the claim.

Dentally will calculate this automatically for you based on the patient's age on the date of acceptance of the treatment plan - there is no need for you to chart different treatments or calculate the charge yourself.

This Care Package has no expected practice fee as it is covered by the capitation percentage on the new contracts. The NHS has advised that it should be claimed for when a recall examination is performed on a patient who previously had a recall interval selected of between 18 and 24 months, regardless of the amount of time since the last recall exam had been performed.

While Regulation 11 has been removed for General Dental claims, there is no replacement in Wales at this point. Please chart the work as normal, and the correct Care Packages will be claimable:

The NHS will pay for the work, including the lab fees for exempt patients.

While stabilisation may consist of multiple individual treatments, in order to add the Stabilisation Care Package to the claim, you must specifically chart the 'Stabilisation' treatment so Dentally knows that you wish to claim for it. We have added this to your treatment list for this purpose.

When charting, you'll see a new dropdown under the expanded treatment item, called 'Under Warranty'. If the work is being performed free of charge under warranty, use this drop-down box to select which warranty package to claim. Once selected, you will also need to select the 'Warranty Period' that applies; either 12 or 24 months depending on when the original work was performed.
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Please only enter lab fees for warranty work if the lab is being charged to the patient. Labs associated with work are ineligible to be part of the claim.

If a course of treatment is not completed, you can still receive full payment for all Care Packages that have been started. Dentally will automatically identify whether all treatment items in a Care Package are complete or not, and mark the claim as including incomplete work if applicable. For most Care Packages, if no item in the package has been completed, then the package cannot be claimed.

This is not true in cases where prep work has been completed but the patient doesn't return to have the item fitted. To help with this, we have introduced new NHS Treatment Categories:

Completing a treatment that is linked to one of these categories will automatically make the corresponding Care Package eligible for charging and claiming. We suggest that you update any Impression & Prep Treatments you have in Dentally to use these new categories, so you don't have to chart a new Treatment every time. The Care Packages will then automatically become eligible to be claimed as soon as the prep work is completed.
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Please note that an incomplete Extensive Restorative package cannot be claimed unless work has been completed on more than 4 teeth. A Simple Restorative Care Package will show on the claim screen instead.

There are circumstances where you may wish to not claim for a Care Package even if the work has been started (or completed). In these cases, you are able to deselect Care Packages from the claim screen. Neither the Care Package nor the Clinical Data Set items that fall into it will be transmitted to the NHS.

In order to exclude the Care Package from being charged through to the patient, please make sure to charge for the other work prior to completing the items that form the Care Package you do not wish the patient to be charged for.

Submitting a claim containing over £1000 of lab fees will typically be rejected by the NHS. In order to successfully submit the claim, the 'Commissioner Approved' checkbox must be ticked on the claim.

Each Crown and Bridge Care Package covers up to two "units", where one unit is a crown, inlay, onlay, veneer or bridge retainer. Dentally will automatically calculate the correct number of packages to claim - however, in order to count the number of bridge retainers correctly, you must ensure that your charted treatments are correctly differentiating between retainers and pontics. To facilitate this, we have added a new NHS Treatment Category of 'Bridge(s) Fitted (Retainer)' which should be selected against items that increase the number of retainers present. In other words, you will need to chart a different item for a bridge and retainer.