Do you have patients who have insurance coverage through a non-patient guarantor, patients who have separate accounts but share insurance coverage? How about divorced patients who do not want to share any information with the other party? Dentrix Ascend can handle all those cases. This post will explore one complex family example.

In this scenario, both Mom and Dad are patients in your practice.  They each get their own appointment reminders and billing statements. Dad has insurance for himself and provides primary insurance for the kids. Mom has primary insurance for herself and provides secondary insurance for the kids.  Mom receives both the billing statements and the appointment reminders for the kids. Dad receives his own billing statements and appointment reminders.

How to:

1. Bobby Trainer is the Dad. On his Related Patients tab (on the Patient Information page), set Bobby as his own primary contact and primary guarantor. He will get his own reminders and billing statements.

2. Open Bobby’s Insurance Information page. Click the Add Dependents button to open the Add Dependents dialog box.

3. Use the Patient Search field to search for and add the children (Jack and Parker Trainer) to the plan. Select Child as the Relationship, and select the Add check box for each dependent.

4. For Jack and Parker, open each of their Patient Information pages, and edit the Related Patients information. Set Mom (Tina Trainer) as the primary contact and as the primary guarantor.

5. Just as you did with Dad, open Mom’s Insurance Information page, and again click Add Dependents to add the children to Tina. Because Dentrix Ascend knows that the children already have primary insurance, this will become their secondary insurance.

6. Double check that Mom’s Related Patients page is correctly configured, with her as both the primary contact and the primary guarantor for herself and her children.

7. Double check that the children’s insurance is correctly configured. Visit the Insurance Information page for each child to verify that they have both primary and secondary insurance.

Optionally, you can set Dad as the secondary guarantor on the children’s accounts so that he will appear in the Related Patients dropdown menu.

Additional Information

• For help making configuration changes, see Updating patient information in Dentrix Ascend Help.
• You may find it useful to add patient notes so that key team members are aware of the family’s circumstances. To learn more, watch Enhanced Patient Notes in the Resource Center.