Assigning provider aliases

In certain situations, you may want to add one provider into Dentrix several times with different Provider IDs. While office staff automatically recognize that DOC1 and DOC2 are the same person, Dentrix does not. For the most part, this will not affect your normal office operations; however, it can cause scheduling problems.

For example, to distinguish patients with a certain insurance coverage from other patients in the practice, you can enter Dr. John Smith into Dentrix as DOC1 and DOC2. The majority of your patients will be assigned to DOC1, but patients with the insurance coverage that you want to track are assigned to DOC2.

Assigning patients in this way is not a problem when you are entering patient information or posting charges and payments, and actually makes it easier to run certain reports. However, before scheduling appointments for DOC1, Dentrix searches to see if DOC1 has another appointment scheduled at the same time. Since Dentrix assumes that different provider IDs mean different providers, the system does not search to see if DOC2 has a conflicting appointment. If DOC2 has an appointment scheduled at that time, you have accidentally double-booked the provider.

To avoid this situation, you can assign each provider an alias. By assigning a provider alias, you require Dentrix to verify that DOC2 is not scheduled during a time that you are trying to schedule DOC1 or vice versa.

To assign a provider alias

1.   In the Appointment Book, click Setup, and then click Provider Setup.

The Provider Setup dialog box appears.

2.   Select the provider that you want to assign an alias to.

3.   Click Setup.

The Provider Setup dialog box appears.

4.   In the Provider Alias list, select the alias names you want to assign to the provider.

5.   When you are finished, click OK, and then click Close.