December 2019

It's time to end 2019, enjoy the holidays and plan for 2020!

December is always a hectic month for us.  We have often wished that the holidays and end-of-year accounting and computer tasks were not all in the same small time frame.

Some of the year-end stress has been alleviated by your software providing for reports to be generated by date ranges at any time.  There is no urgency to get your year-end reports done by the 31st.    In January 2020, however, support by the major software companies is ending for a number of their offerings.   This means that technical support will no longer be available either on a paid or free basis, critical updates for security and compatibility measures will no longer be applied.  To use DQB and DentalRx and to maintain compatibility with modern devices such as printers and scanners, here is where you should be: 

• Microsoft Windows 10
• SQL Server 2012
• .NET Framework 4.5
  
• DQB 1.60  
  

You can check your computer system by requesting the Control Panel from the Windows menu or search box, then clicking System.  

You can check your DQB level by clicking the About Box or in Options/Company Information.  To be at .NET 4.5, you should be at DQB 1.58 or later.  If you have already updated to SQL Server 2012, we will have recorded this in your profile.  

If using any of Intuit's web-based features such as payment processing, for the desktop versions of QuickBooks you should be at 2018 or later.   For the online versions, you should be at the latest version of Advanced.  

Here again is our holiday schedule:  We will be closed December 24-25 (Tuesday-Wednesday), December 31 (Tuesday), and January 1 (Wednesday).  

We wish you all a joyous holiday season and hope you have a fine relaxing break with your family and friends.

Your January tasks

For those who want to catch up to assure smooth running of their software, we are offering an open period from January 6-18 to provide extra technical support.   You will need to call in advance to make the arrangements and schedule a time for your support session.  

Let us know if there are any additions or changes to the email addresses for your staff and/or local consultants to receive the monthly and special newsletters. 

Also let us know if there are any changes you would like to have included in your lab profile here for your staff, equipment, auxiliary software.

New definitions for the work week

One of the increasing trends not only in the dental lab industry but also in the world has been more flexibility in the work week.   From the conversations we have with our customers, here are some examples of their new definitions for the work week:

• 4 days at 10 hours/day, off on Friday   
• 4 days at 9 hours/day with half day on Friday
• 6 days at 5 hours/day
  

For the DQB Master Schedule, to date there has been a default unit limit per day by work center, options to specify whether work is to be scheduled on Saturday and/or on Sunday.   Within the graphic calendars, you could change the limit for any date, then choose whether to extend it for the rest of the week or the rest of the month. 

To accommodate the new definitions for the work week, we have added in DQB Basic Lists/Work Centers an indicator for you to choose the limits by each day of the week for the work center.  If the indicator is ON, the limits by day of the week will populate each new month in the master schedule. 

This new feature will be available with the DQB 1.61 release in January.

Q: We have been asked to find all the cases we did in the past two years that include one specific item.   What is the best way to find these?

A: Here are some of the steps to generate a report for one specific item:

1. In DQB Basic Lists–Product Groups:    first create a product group for the item
2. In Cases-Special Items by Product:   choose the group, this will be by case entered date range
   
3. In Cases-Case Items Sorted:            choose the group, this will be by scheduled date range
   

If you are looking for the item due to a materials alert or recall and have been using the Materials Disclosure features, the reports in this set would be used to locate the cases.  

Q: The doctors who use our DentalRx to submit their prescriptions really like it, but we see reluctance by some of our other customers.  How are other labs addressing this?

A: Whenever there is an advance in technology it typically takes a while to gain wide acceptance.   A number of people tend to cling to whatever ways have worked for them; some resist any learning curve, no matter how small and easy.   The labs that have been successful with gaining acceptance for their portal have accomplished this in a number of ways:  

1. A steady beat of encouragement both written and verbal   
2. Communicating the many benefits to the dental office such as clear complete prescriptions to minimize misunderstandings   
3. Letting the dental office know there are less steps for the digital workflow  
4. The dental office will be able to lookup current and history cases at any time without playing telephone tag
   
5. Adding worthwhile content to their website to encourage regular visits  
   
6. Offering an incentive discount if the prescription and digital files are submitted via the portal 
7. Stressing the high level of safety and HIPAA compliance that DentalRx offers

Two of the labs have told us they mandated that prescriptions be entered via DentalRx and gained close to 100% acceptance.  See also the article below on expanding the DentalRx protocol for sending digital files.

Compliance in easy steps

There are a number of standards and reporting requirements in the dental lab industry, some absolutely enforced, others desirable but not subject to regulations.   Here in the USA there is quite a list that includes: OSHA, FDA, HIPAA, Materials Disclosure, Sales Tax, State and Federal Corporate Reporting, GMP, DAMAS

DQB and DentalRx provide for setting up and then recording the essential information for each case.  Having your staff trained to be complete and accurate when entering information about a case can make a world of difference should you be subject to inspection, audited, or have to respond to recalls.  Entering the critical dates, script, patient information, task schedules and completions, quality control issues and resolutions, selecting a materials disclosure with manufacturer, product id, batch/lot and dates can take just a minute or two for each case.  

Better yet, with DentalRx and some of the digital workflows, most of the entry can be performed in the dental office.   Using bar code scanning or tablet touch technology to mark completions can be very time-efficient. 

It is far better to make information compliance a daily habit than to be faced with the possibility of fines or time-consuming dreary work to get your case and financial records in good shape.                                                                                                                                                                                                   

Expanding the DentalRx protocol for sending digital files

The DentalRx web portal has been one of the most well-liked and reliable ways for the dental office and the lab to submit prescriptions and communicate.   It is available in two versions, DentalRx Custom and DentalRx Direct.  

The custom version has been uniquely customized for every lab that has chosen it.   The direct version is the one that is included in all the DQB service agreements. It comes with settings you can use to personalize it but not customizations.  With both versions, there are many benefits to the lab and the dental office.  

The companies that provide the dental digital technologies such as 3M, 3Shape, Carestream, iTero, Planmeca, Sirona have advanced their offerings to send the .STL digital files and .PDF case and patient information files to specific email addresses or web locations for registered labs.   At this point, however, there are still a number of time-consuming steps to rename files, transfer files, request and then transfer information in memo fields to specific fields needed to produce the case. 

DentalRx offers advantages to the lab:

• to require entry of information by the dental office and have it transferred automatically into the DQB case record
• to have the digital files stored so that they are automatically associated with the case and can be retrieved in a variety of ways

DentalRx offers advantages to the dental office:  

• to easily lookup current and history cases 
• to have less steps to create accurate reliable prescriptions and send digital files 
  

DentalRx offers advantages to both:  

• to create complete accurate easy-to-read prescriptions and help to reduce misunderstandings, adjustments and remakes  
• to be able to review the offerings and capabilities of the lab  
• to enhance communication as well as save time and money 
  

We have been working with two labs that have been accepting digital scans and want to continue to improve the workflow involved with them.   We have developed plans to continue to add to the capability of DQB and DentalRx toward this goal.   We invite you to add your wishes, concerns and ideas for this project.      

Note that the Advanced Backup Protocol is already in use to provide for automatic secured backups to both local and web-based storage for both the case management database and the digital files.

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