If you have signed up to submit claims electronically then you’ll know that there are an eye-watering number of data fields to be completed.

Panara removes the drudgery from this by completing them all for you.

In response to a user request, this feature is being introduced in the next update.

It provides an additional way of alerting staff members to a note that should be read first before, for example, making an appointment for a particular patient.

When a patient with a ‘Read Me’ note comes up in a list of results from a search or in other places, they will have an ‘[i]’ before their name.

When their records are accessed or an appointment is being made for them, a flashing indicator will alert the staff member.

Double clicking on the icon displays the actual note and also allows it to be edited/deleted.

The following images should hopefully make it clear how this feature works.

One issue that can occur is where patients return regularly to see the hygienist but miss out on their normal dental exams.
A new option in the appointment book should aid in the identification of such cases.

Ticking the box highlighted above causes [e] to appear before all the names in the book for patients who are due an exam (on the date of the appointment) as shown below.

So if a patient is not due an exam at the date the appointment was made but is due one by the appointment date itself
an [e] will appear ahead of their name in the appointment book

It will show up if

• the patient has never had an exam

• the last exam was private and longer than their recall cycle has/will have expired by the date of the appointment

• the last exam was GMS and in an earlier calendar year than the date of the appointment

• the last exam was PRSI and in an earlier calendar year than the date of the appointment

This option is ‘sticky’ on a per computer basis. That is, if the option was checked the last time the appointment book was viewed on a particular computer, it will be checked there next time, and vice versa.