How to track unscheduled implant treatment. Using the report your PMS already has.

• Add booked patients: check “Include patients with upcoming appointments”.
• Add secondary and no insurance: check “Include secondary insurance and no insurance”. It ignores Ins Month Start.
• Match a mid-year benefit year: set Ins Month Start to the month it begins.
• Narrow it: filter by procedure code or range, plan date, or benefits remaining.

For Dentrix, a Dentrix Magazine article names three reports:

• Treatment Manager (Appointment Book, Options menu): an on-screen list you can sort by column.
• Unscheduled Treatment Plans (Office Manager, Reports, Lists): has to be printed.
• Practice Treatment Case Report (Treatment Planner): printed, and filters by accepted, rejected or proposed status if your team marks cases.

On other systems, find that report in your vendor’s documentation and check how to filter it by procedure code and plan date.

Where the report has a procedure code filter, enter the implant codes your office plans. Add a plan-date filter for plans presented since your last review, so each week you see the new cases first.

The CDT code ranges, as the AAPD’s coding chapter lists them:

• Implants: Implant Services, D6000 to D6199.
• Full-arch extractions: Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, D7000 to D7999.

A full-arch case can be one plan with many procedures: extractions, implants, temporary teeth and the final teeth. Count it as one case on your list, with one owner.

The report tells you a plan has no appointment. It does not tell you why, what the patient was quoted, or who promised to call. Keep one line per implant consult with these fields:

1. Consult date and patient.
2. Fee presented.
3. The reason the patient gave, in their words.
4. Who else decides.
5. Owner of the next contact.
6. Next contact date.
7. Status, from the short list in step 4.

Fill it in the same day, from the consult note. What to record after an implant consult covers that note.

Keep the log in the PMS if it lets you, or in a shared file the front office can open. Never on a personal phone.

Give each case one status, in the same words every week:

• Scheduled.
• Thinking it over, next contact set.
• Waiting on financing or insurance.
• Needs another visit: a second consult, the spouse, or records.
• Referred out.
• Declined.

Take a case off the list when it is scheduled, done at another practice, no longer recommended by the dentist, or clearly declined with the reason charted. The dentist decides what is no longer recommended.

If your PMS has case statuses, mark them there too. A report that filters by status only works when the team marks it.

1. Step 1

   Run the report

   With the implant code filter on.

2. Step 2

   Add new consults

   One line for each consult since last week.

3. Step 3

   Call whoever is due

   Everyone whose next-contact date has come.

4. Step 4

   Log before you hang up

   Write the result and set the next date.

5. Step 5

   Fix cases with no date

   Move them to the top of the list.

ACT Dental’s follow-up guide likewise names one owner for the process and a weekly run of the unscheduled treatment report.

Every open case carries a date. For published follow-up schedules, see full-arch consult follow-up scripts. For who owns the list and when to stop, see unscheduled treatment follow-up.

Pull your last 10 implant consults that didn’t schedule. For each one, check:

1. Does the record say why the patient didn’t schedule? If not, the consult note is the gap.
2. Does it name who owns the next contact, and when? If not, tracking is the gap.
3. Was the patient called on that date? If not, calling is the gap, or nobody has time for it.

If calling is the gap, add hours or people before you buy a tool: compare in-house and outsourced treatment coordinators. If the note is the gap, see AI notes for dental implant consultations.

Each month, count the implant plans presented, then each stage on its own: contacted, reached, booked, attended and completed. A low reached count is a calling problem. A low booked count among patients you reached points to the conversation or the financing.

Which report should we use?

The one your PMS shows on screen and lets you filter by procedure code. In Open Dental, that is the Treatment Finder. Of the three Dentrix reports, the Dentrix Magazine article’s pick is the Treatment Manager.

Do we need separate software?

Not to find the cases; the PMS report lists them. Software is worth a look when the reasons, owners and dates are not getting written down, or when nobody has time to make the calls.

Is a spreadsheet good enough?

For one location, a shared log with one line per consult works. The risk is that it drifts from the PMS, so reconcile it against the report every week.

Who should own the list?

One named person. When “the front desk” owns it, nobody does.