If you need to set up a telephone triage diary to manage patients with a rota of staff, you can do this easily in Dentally. We would advise that the telephone assessment appointments that are to be booked with patients are placed in either the relevant practitioner's diary, or if they are to be carried out by another member of staff, you might consider creating a new diary specifically for this purpose that can be archived when no longer needed.
We would advise 3 simple actions.
1 Set up a New Appointment Reason - Telephone Triage
2 Create a new Practitioner from an existing user (typically a reception user)
3 Ensure you have an appropriate treatment in your services list to record the outcome of the triage call
You need to have Level 4 (administrator) permissions to perform these actions.
To Set up a New Appointment Reason:
Go to Settings > Practice Settings > Calendar tab > Appointment Reasons > Expand
Select New Appointment Reason
From the New Appointment Reason box
Give your reason a name - Telephone Assessment, for example
Give it a colour
Give it a position in the list - we suggest 1 at this time so it is easily accessible at the top of your list of reasons, but you can alter it at any time. There may be other Appointment Reasons also set to 1. Leave them as they are.
Leave Exam, Hidden and Hygiene set to No
Save
To add a new Practitioner from an existing user:
To create an additional diary in your calendar, you need to create a new practitioner. Practitioners are linked to users who log into Dentally, so you can achieve this by choosing one of your reception teams to create a new diary for.
This will help to keep these telephone appointments separate from the other appointment diaries.
These are the steps to add a new practitioner/diary to your calendar:
Go to Settings > Users > Practitioners
Select Add a New Practitioner
Choose the user to add the practitioner to
Select the calendar Position (position 1 will display to the left of your screen - if not already in use)
Select Save
You do not need the NHS Number or PIN because you will not be submitting claims.
To see the Appointment Diary go to the Calendar.
Refresh Dentally
If you cannot see the appointment book, ensure that the Show/Hide calendar is set to show the calendar.
To add a New Treatment to your Treatment List
Go to Settings > Treatments and Plans > New
Set up the Treatment as "Telephone Assessment" for example.
You need to complete the fields
Nomenclature > Telephone Assessment, for example
Patient Friendly name > Telephone Assessment, for example
Treatment Code > Needs to be under 15 characters - this is how you can find the new treatment code quickly in your list of services
Region > Patient
Category > Diagnostic (or similar)
Scroll up and Save.
In Description, you can enter a preset notes template with questions you often ask so that you can simply type in the answers.
You can also add custom fields to make answers easier to record while you are on the phone.
The tab to enter Custom fields will only appear after you have saved the new Treatment.
Edit Treatment
The Fields tab
New Custom Field
Enter the field name
The Description is what you see on the screen
The field type defines what you can do with the field.
Field type Text allows you to type in the answers the patient gives
Field type Dropdown enables you to choose from a list of pre-typed options. You will find this type useful if you find you are typing in the same answers over and over again. If you use a Dropdown list, you might find it useful to add an option "Other" just to cover all eventualities.
Save
Your new Treatment is now ready to use. You will need to refresh your browser before it is available to use on a treatment plan.
Using the custom fields:
You might find it helpful to add this treatment to your list of favourite treatments.
Favourite Treatments
To make a Treatment into a favourite
Select the Treatment from the Treatment List
Click on the Star to the left of the Treatment
This will now appear on your Favourites
