Adding new households

A household in Dentrix Ascend is a group of patients with the same primary contact person. You can create patient records, at one time, for a patient and other members of the same household. When you create a household, all members of that household are assigned the same specified primary contact person by default (you can change the primary contact for a patient at a later time as needed). You can add a new household while looking up a patient record or scheduling an appointment.

To add a new household

Do one of the following to verify whether patient records for members of a household do or do not already exist in your practice database:
- Use the main Patient Search box to search for a patient record.
  Do the following:
  1. Click (or tap) in the Patient Search box.
    Tip: Alternatively, to start searching, you can press F2 (Windows) or Ctrl+U (Macintosh).
  2. Start typing the patient's first name, last name, chart number, phone number (at least the first four digits; parentheses and dashes may be omitted), or birth date (using a mm/dd/yyyy or mmddyyyy format; slashes may be omitted, but all eight digits are required). Continue typing as needed to narrow the search results list.
    
    Notes:
    - You can include inactive patients in the search results by setting the Include inactive patients switch to On.
    - For more information about searching for a patient, refer to the topic about accessing patient records.
- While scheduling an appointment, use the Search for a patient record box on the Appointment Information panel to search for a patient record.
  Do the following:
  1. Do one of the following:
    - Click (or tap) the Schedule menu.
    - On the Schedule menu, select Calendar.
    The Calendar page opens.
  2. Navigate to a day or week.
  3. Do one of the following:
    - Click (or tap) an open time slot.
    - On the Actions menu, select Create Appointment.
    The Appointment Information panel opens.
  4. Click (or tap) in the Search for a patient record box.
  5. Start typing the patient's first name, last name, chart number, phone number (at least the first four digits; parentheses and dashes may be omitted), or birth date (using a mm/dd/yyyy or mmddyyyy format; slashes may be omitted, but all eight digits are required). Continue typing as needed to narrow the search results list.
    
    Notes:
    - You can include inactive patients in the search results by setting the Include inactive patients switch to On.
    - For more information about the available options for searching for a patient, refer to the topic about accessing patient records.
Do one of the following:
- If none of the household members have patient records, you can create a household. If some but not all of the household members have patient records, you can re-create the household, adding the additional household members and making sure that all household members have the same address, primary contact, and primary guarantor. To create or re-create the household, click (or tap) the Create New Household option on the results list, and then complete the remaining steps in this topic.
  
  The option on the results list for the main Patient Search box:
  
  The option on the results list for the Search for a patient record box on the Appointment Information panel:
  
  Note: This option is available only when what you have typed in the search box narrows the results list enough.
- If some but not all of the household members have patient records, but you do not want to re-create the household, you can create patient records individually for the household members who do not have patient records. To create individual patient records, ignore the remaining steps in this topic, and complete the steps in the topic about adding patient records for any household members without patient records.
The Create new household dialog box appears.
Enter the first household member's name (first, last, and middle initial), gender, birth date, and preferred name (if applicable).
For each additional household member that you want to add, click (or tap) Add Patient, and then enter that household member's name (first, last, and middle initial), gender, birth date, and preferred name (if applicable).
The first adult you enter for the household is assigned as the primary contact and primary guarantor by default. However, you can specify a different household member to be the primary contact and primary guarantor or specify one household member to be the primary contact and another to be the primary guarantor. To change the primary contact person, click (or tap) a Primary Contact icon to assign the corresponding patient as the primary contact. To change the primary guarantor, click (or tap) a Primary Guarantor icon to assign the corresponding patient as the primary guarantor. The corresponding icons change from gray scale to color to indicate which patient or patients are selected as the primary contact and primary guarantor . Minors cannot be primary contacts or guarantors.

Note: If any of the household members listed already have patient records, when you save the household, the primary contact person, primary guarantor, address, and primary phone number in those patients' records will be updated accordingly. If a patient listed should have a different primary contact person, primary guarantor, address, and/or primary phone number than the other household members, remove that person from the list by clicking (or tapping) the corresponding Remove icon .
Under Household Contact, enter the address and a phone number for the specified primary contact person for the household.
Click (or tap) Save.

Note: Patient records with minimal information are created for the patients. If you were attempting to schedule an appointment when you decided to add the new household, you can now schedule the appointment, as you would for an existing patient, for one of the patients in the new household.