How to Use Restorative Charting
This article covers the basics of how to utilize Restorative Charting.
For information on how to set up Restorative Charting, click Here.
The Charting Documentation contains these sections.
Basics of Charting
This section deals with the bare bones functionality of Restorative Charting.
Incident Sidebar
First, let's address the Incident Sidebar, which contains sections for the Patient Chart, Treatment Plans, Perio Chart, and then within Incidents (the blue folders) there are sections for Completed Procedures and Treatment Plan. We will be focusing on the Patient Chart, and within the Incident Folder we will focus on Completed Procedures and the Treatment Plan.
The Patient Chart allows us to chart pre-existing work that may have not been administered by your office. Procedures added to this chart will not be charged in the Ledger. By default, these procedures are outlined in Blue by default on the chart.
Completed Procedures are work that has been completed by your office. These procedures will be added to a patient's ledger, and are outlined in Green by default on the chart. It is important to stress that any procedures added to Completed Procedures will count towards the patient's balance.
A Treatment Plan indicates planned work that has not been completed yet and is planned for the future. These procedures are added to a patient's Treatment Plan which can be moved to Completed at any time. These procedures are outlined in Red by default on the chart.
To the right is an example of a procedure charted on the Patient Chart, Completed Procedures, and a Treatment Plan, in that order from left to right. The outline color differentiates what kind of procedure it is.
Note: If you have Hide Material Colors checked in Highlighting Options (the Gear icon in the upper right of the Restorative Charting window), the 'material color' (the green in the above screenshot) will be replaced with the outline color. This may be more useful for you. See How to Set Up Restorative Charting - Hide Material Colors for more detail.
Charting Procedures
To chart a procedure on a tooth, first select either the Patient Chart, Completed Procedures, or Treatment plan, then simply right click the tooth in question. This will bring up the Charting Menu. From there, you can choose the type of procedure you wish to chart. Click OK when you are satisfied with your choice, and the procedure will be added to the chart.
Alternatively, if you have a Charting Shortcut you'd like to use, simply click on the tooth you wish to apply a procedure to, and then click on the appropriate Charting Shortcut. For more information on how to set up Charting Shortcuts, please refer to How to Set Up Restorative Charting - Charting Shortcuts.
If you wish to chart an item without a tooth selected for the purposes of exams and other procedure codes that aren't tied to a specific tooth, you can click on the "Chart Without Tooth" option. This will pull up the Charting Menu.
Charting Menu Selections
You can find a list of all of the Charting Menu Selections in this article here. Each category can have procedure codes tied to the category by accessing the Charting Code Map on the MacPractice Server computer.
Chart History
The Chart History control allows you to cycle through each visit/procedure date to review the progression of a patient's chart over time.
The Dental Timeline is assembled by each treatment's procedure date present on the Chart. You can use the "Chart History" drop down to choose a date you wish to review, or you can cycle through the dates by using the arrow buttons.
It is important to note that newly charted procedures will default to a procedure date of the New Patient Date field, located in the Patient Tab.
Clinical Notes Table
The Clinical Note Table is where you can find a textual view for each procedure charted on a selected tooth. Consider the Clinical Notes Table a complement to the graphical view of the Restorative Chart view.
If no tooth is selected, the Clinical Notes Table will include every procedure on a patient's chart, as long as the filters above the Clinical Notes Table are enabled. If a tooth is selected, the Clinical Notes Table will only display the procedures listed on that particular tooth.
You can also use the colored tabs to filter out particular procedures. By default, all filters are active, so all procedures will be included in the table. If you wanted to filter out a set of procedures (for example, all Pre-Existing procedures), you would simply click the tab in question that you wish to filter out.
Adding Clinical Notes
To add a Clinical Note to a procedure, simply click on the Clinical Note field and press the tab button. This will bring the selector inside the Note field, and you can type out your note.
To add a Clinical Note without a procedure, you can either right click a tooth and select 'Note', or you can click the Plus icon in the upper right of the Clinical Note table (visible in the above gif to the right of the Search bar).
Once a Clinical Note has been added, you can lock it from any changes by clicking on the lock icon in the Clinical Note Table. If a Clinical Note is unlocked, you can also change it by clicking the Clinical Note field and pressing tab.
Only the user who locked the note can unlock it.
If you double click the field, a window will appear displaying each change that had been made to this Clinical Note, and allow you to make in depth changes.
If you have a Common Clinical Note set in References > Common Clinical Notes, you can simply type the first few letters of the name or the text within a Common Clinical Note and it will automatically populate in a list.
If you delete a Procedure that had a Clinical Note tied to the Procedure, the Clinical Note will be placed in a separate filter named "Deleted Notes" to the right of "Conditions". This will allow you to review the clinical note that was deleted.
DR Ribbon
On the left side of the Clinical Notes Table, you can access the DR Ribbon by clicking on the x-ray icon.
The DR Ribbon connects to the Digital Radiography ability (which is a separate ability your office may or may not have access to) and pulls in all Digital Radiography images from the most recent visit by default.
If no tooth is selected, the DR Ribbon will display all images for that patient.
If a tooth is selected, the DR Ribbon will display only the images for that tooth.
You can also immediately identify which teeth have DR images associated with them if the tooth number in the Restorative Charting view is highlighted with a black background.
To preview a DR image from the Ribbon, click on the image and press the spacebar on your keyboard. This will open up a preview window.
Double clicking on a DR Image in the Ribbon will take you to the DR ability.
For more information on the Ribbon, please refer to Dental - DR Ribbon.