Prosthetist edition for dental4windows

With new record keeping standards across Australia for both denture clinics and prosthetists alike, dental4windows, Australia's #1 practice management software system, has launched a Prosthetist Edition specifically for denture clinics.

"Keeping accurate records has always been an important aspect of health care but now there is a pressing need to ensure those records also comply with government requirements dictated by Medicare and other agencies," said Doug Malcolm, marketing manager at Centaur Software, the developers of dental4windows.

"Many prosthetists already know about dental4windows based on interactions with their referring dentists and know that it offers an appointment book and comprehensive facilities to manage patient records. However, many don't realize that dental4windows also answers all the reporting needs that prosthetists have for primary care patients, which has become very topical in recent times with Medicare now auditing the records of many providers.

"Further, dental4windows also integrates directly to HICAPS, making Medicare Primary Care Patient payment claims completely automated as well as claims to all other participating health funds."

Mr Malcolm said that Duncan Campbell, the Executive Officer of the NSW division of the ADPA, is keen to see members take up some sort of practice management system to help them with record keeping and other compliance issues. Although Mr Campbell did not wish to promote one particular practice management system over another, he recognized that dental4windows can deliver on the needs of most of the Association's members.

One dental prosthetist who has been using dental4windows to manage his clinic prior to the Prosthetist Edition becoming available is Robert Mateljan from Cosmetic and Functional Denture Solutions.

"I see a practice management system as a key element to running a successful dental prosthetist practice," Mr Mateljan said. "Over the last ten years, we've had three different practice management systems and although each one was an asset to the business, I felt I could be more efficient with a better system.

"I heard about dental4windows from a few dentist colleagues so I got hold of a demo version and loaded it onto my laptop. One night at home, I sat down in front of the TV and within 30 minutes of playing with it, felt quite at home in the program and realised I'd found the perfect system.

"If I can pick-up how to use the system within a reasonably short space of time, then that's a good start and from there, if the system seems to cover most of the work processes I have within my practice, then it'll likely be all I can ask for."

After using dental4windows for two years, Mr Mateljan's decision has proven to be the right one.

"Dental4windows... I love it! It does everything I need and expect of a system and it's just really easy to use. I find the Appointment Book within dental4windows to be a great time management system with it giving me more time to focus on any courses I may want to do like the 'Golf Course' I am trying to learn at the moment."

Dental4windows also includes a comprehensive financial reporting system for managing the business side of the practice. It offers comprehensive reports to easily track every cent that passes through the practice. The system looks after the administrative compliance side of Medicare as well.

"As you probably know, there are now reports needed for Medicare Primary Care Patients so I have set up templates within the system to take care of these," Mr Mateljan said. "With the latest version of HICAPS and direct integration with dental4windows into my HICAPS terminal, the payments and claims are all automated (Figure 2).

"All the steps we used to do manually are now completely electronic, doing away with the filing side so my practice is certainly heading towards being completely paperless. When the HICAPS transactions take place, this also all becomes part of the patient's record and account history so in regard to compliance with the new record keeping standards, I know I am well and truly covered."

Mr Malcolm said that he has noted that many orders for dental4windows are now coming in from prosthetists around Australia and says that the Centaur Software training department is developing specialised training for these clinics. He expects to see the system taken up by many more prosthetists, particularly as many are now seeing the growing need for better record keeping not only because of the current Medicare Primary Care Patient reporting and record keeping requirements, but all the newer national record keeping and compliance standards expected across Australia.

"Now that dental4windows has a specific Prosthetist Edition designed to meet the needs of Denture Clinics and is priced accordingly, I would hope all dental prosthetists looking for an easy and practical way to comply with the new national records keeping standards will give us a call," Mr Malcolm said. "Installing dental4windows will also ensure you are meeting the standards of best practice the industry has grown to expect."