Treatment Plan Module

In the Treatment Plan Module, staff can manage and prioritize treatment plans for a patient.

See our video playlist: Treatment Plan Webinars.

Treatment Plan Toolbar

These buttons appear in the top toolbar:

Treatment Plans

The Treatment Plans grid in the upper-left corner lists all active, inactive, and saved treatment plans for this patient. See Edit Treatment Plan for additional information on creating and editing treatment plans.

Date: Displays the date for Saved treatment plans.

Buttons

The following buttons are available to manage treatment:

Show Tab

Options selected on the Show tab affect what is displayed in the Procedures grid and printed/emailed treatment plans.

Sort By Tab

Procedures are always sorted first by priority, then by date. It can further be sorted by tooth number or order of entry. The default is determined by the Sort procedures by preference,.

Sort order does not sort by procedure code. If two codes have the same priority, treatment area, and date then the order is random. It may be in the order charted but it may not. The order could even change.

Note: If using Replication with Random Primary Keys enabled, the Sort By option is hidden.

Preauthorizations

The box at the upper-right shows all Preauthorizations for this patient. Double-click a preauthorization to edit.

Procedures Grid

When clicking on a treatment plan, the associated procedures are shown in the Procedures grid. What displays in the grid displays on a printed Treatment Plan.

In an active or inactive treatment plan, double-click a procedure to open the Procedure Info window. In a saved treatment plan, double-click a procedure to open the Edit Treatment Planned Procedure window (see Edit Treatment Plan).

The columns displayed in the Procedures Grid can be customized in Display Fields, TreatmentPlanModule. Options include:

The Pri Ins and Sec Ins estimates can be misleading if, in the Family Module, the patient has a dental plan listed first and a medical plan listed second. In this particular situation, the Pri Ins column will show the dental plan estimates, and the Sec Ins column will show the medical plan estimates. We recommend listing the medical plan first in the Family Module.

If the patient has more than two insurance plans, double-click the procedure to open Edit Procedure and view any additional estimates that are not considered in the treatment plan.

If a procedure is attached to a Pre Authorization, only the information from the insurance estimate Claim Procedures ( claimprocs ) is considered. PreAuth claim procedures are not considered.

Set Priority & Estimates as of

The set priority list is used to assign priorities to the procedures on the treatment plan. Select the procedure(s), then click on a priority level. The sort order of the procedures will change accordingly. Priorities can also be set while entering treatment in the Chart module, and on the Procedure Info window.

Priority options can be customized in Definitions: Treat' Plan Priorities. You can use numbers, letters, or words up to 7 characters. You can change the sort order of procedures according to priority, change text colors, and hide priorities from view. Examples of other possible priority levels are Sched, Wait, Next, ?, Decline, Last, Low, High, NewYear, Urgent, WaitIns, Altern, Plan A, Plan B, RecPlan, and AltPlan.

Estimates as of: Only displays when Enable Insurance Frequency Checking is checked in Preferences. Defaults to the current date. Use the dropdown to select a future date to see Treatment Plan estimates as of the selected date.

Insurance Grids

When the patient has an insurance plan, the area at the lower-right shows remaining family and individual insurance benefits at a glance. For details about how amounts are determined, see Insurance Remaining Calculations. This area displays the Discount Plan Grid (see below) instead for patients assigned a Discount Plan.

Discount Plan Grid

The lower-right area displays Discount Plan benefits at a glance when a patient is assigned to a Discount Plan Subscriber Edit. If a patient is not assigned a Discount Plan, the Insurance Grid (see above) is displayed in this area.

Note: The Discount Plan fields are blank if the current date is outside the plans' effective dates.

Note

The text field at the bottom of the window is the treatment plan note. If the Note Output Text Field is added to the default Treatment Plan Layout, this text is displayed when saving, printing, or sending treatment plans..

Uses the Default Note set in Preferences, unless the Note has been edited. Any changes made to the note here are saved for the selected treatment plan. This text box supports Right-Click Options.

Good Faith Estimates / No Surprises Act

Open Dental does not have a feature to automatically print a Good Faith Estimate (GFE) with all of the required fields. We believe that most patients are going to be fine with a copy of their Treatment Plan.

The missing fields are not very helpful and are, for each procedure, Provider Name, NPI Number, Taxpayer ID, ICD code, service code type, and service code number. The burden of adding the features needed would compete with other features and Open Dental customers have not shown the demand (see Feature Request 15447).

The rare patient that demands these extra fields along with the many required disclaimers can be given the filled out form from the CMS link below, as you have three days to provide it. https://www.cms.gov/nosurprises/consumers/understanding-costs-in-advance.

Open Dental and the ADA both indicate (https://adanews.ada.org/ada-news/2022/march/ada-addresses-no-surprises-act-questions/) that other parts of the act do not apply to dentists in most cases, only to Good Faith Estimates for cash patients. We do not believe that statements would need to be modified, Treatment Plans would need a new version for GFE requests.