November 13, 2019

Patient alerts can notify you of circumstances where a lack of information could lead to awkward or unpleasant situations. Think of patients who have left bad reviews on your website, patients who have written you bad checks, patients who only want to see a certain provider, or who are perpetually late. Use Dentrix Ascend to set up alerts that prepare you for the next time they come into your practice. And just so you are aware, the key to effectively using patient alerts is to set them up to appear only where they are relevant.

How to:

1. After you have searched for and selected a patient, open their Notes tab. An easy way to get there is to click the Patient Notes widget on the patient Overview page.

2. Click Add Note and enter the information in the Add Notes window.

3. Next, assign the pages where this note will appear. Expand the pages list in the Notification Pages section of the Add Notes window and select the locations. Click Save.

Two things happen when you assign a note to one or more pages. First, an icon in the Notes tab tells you that this note is an alert.

Second, the alert will now pop up when you have the patient selected and navigate to any of the notification pages. The alert appears in the lower right corner of your browser. If the note is too long for the preview area, hover your mouse over the alert text to read the full message.

Additional Information

• If you intend to show your screen to a patient, you can temporarily hide the alert. Click the minimize button on the alert before you share your screen. When you’re ready to see the note again, click the maximize button.
• Each individual note is limited to 5,000 characters (hundreds of words, or several pages).
• DO NOT enter medical alerts as a patient note. Use the Medical Alerts tab for that type of notification.
• To learn more, read Adding patient notes.
• To see a demo of the patient alerts feature, watch Enhanced Patient Notes.