In the design of Panara it was assumed that courses of treatment on patients would typically occur once or twice a year, certainly not every week.

The workflow envisaged in the design was that when a patient attended for the first time a ‘course of treatment’ would be commenced. A charting would be made and treatments subsequently performed over one or more visits. When all prescribed treatments had been carried out or the patient failed to attend, the ‘course of treatment’ would be closed and, in the case of GMS patients, this would trigger a claim.

The claim form would be printed off and sent away for payment.

Depending on the settings in the program, opening and closing courses of treatment also resets patients’ recall dates.

The next time a patient attended the process would be repeated. Treatments undone from the previous course would not be carried forward (although all past chartings can be viewed). The logic behind this was that events in the meantime might alter the treatments required. An occlusal might now be an extraction etc. So it assumed that a new charting would be performed.

But what if you have a GMS patient who attends for some treatment but fails to return to complete the course?

This is not an uncommon experience.

You have a claim form that isn’t signed and the PCRS won’t pay you for the work you’ve carried out without it.

One solution is to close the course of treatment at the end of every appointment, generating a claim form for the treatment carried out, which the patient then signs before leaving the practice.

The next time this patient attends a new ‘course of treatment’ is opened.

Although this will solve the problem of unsigned claim forms it causes 2 new ones.

1: it keeps pushing the patient’s recall date forwards and 2: it means the treatment required has to be charted again.

The solution to this is pretty simple. From the next update Panara will no longer require that a GMS ‘course of treatment’ be completed in order to generate a claim.

A claim can be made at any time during a course for GMS treatment that has been completed and not already claimed.

In the next update to Panara there is an enhancement to the Appointment book. Colour coding of the background of the column displaying appointment durations now indicates the purpose of the appointment. The video below explains this in more detail

In the update (2.3.4) to be released shortly Panara will provide a lot of help with the management of dental laboratory items.
Panara will prompt for the creation of laboratory items after the charting of treatments that require them.
This is fully configureable so whole categories of treatment can classified as requiring/not requiring laboratory work and individual treatments can also be opted in or out..
Once an item is created Panara will track it until it is completed , discontinued or deleted.
Items are added to the ‘outbox’ in-surgery.
Reception will then check items out of the outbox as they are collected.

Reception will also have a list of all items currently away at the labs to enable them to check items back in as they arrive

Colour coded alerts in the appointment books and daylists warn users if lab work is overdue or not likely to be back before an appointment.
Users will be prompted to record any laboratory related actions at subsequent appointments for patients whose lab work is back etc.