Chart Auditing

CHART AUDITING

Ronald F. Arndt, DDS, MBA, MAGD, MCC

Mary Beth Bajornas, VA

How much dentistry is sitting on your wall? What financial opportunities are you missing with your patients of record? What are you willing to do to “harvest the diamonds in your own back yard?”

Chart auditing is the review of charts to determine the status of idle patients. Chart auditing is done by the front desk staff, and should be done minimally on an annual basis. Although this task can be time consuming it can also result in the reactivation of numerous, otherwise lost, patients.

Chart auditing should consist of the following:

Review of patient’s last appointment including length of time since their last visit, what their last visit consisted of, what recommended yet undone treatment exists and has any contact been initiated with the patient prior to the audit?

It’s easiest to work chart by chart. After review a personal phone contact should try to be made with the following sample script: “Hello Mrs. Smith, this is Suzie from Dr. Arndt’s office. I am so glad to have finally contacted you personally! How are you doing? We have noticed that you haven’t been to our office in over 18 months, and realize that you are past due for your cleaning. Is there a good day and time for you that we could schedule you with the hygienist?”

If the patient for some reason states they are unhappy with treatment, dentistry, etc. you could say the following “ Mrs. Smith, I hope you can give us the opportunity to take care of this – I am sure Dr. Arndt would want me to schedule an appointment for you with him personally for a consultation. Is there a specific day and time that might work for you to come in and speak with Dr. Arndt?”

If no personal contact can be made, a reactivation letter can be sent. A reactivation letter should be short and to the point. It should state the patient’s last appointment, what they had done, any treatment that has been recommended, and what they are now due for.

At the bottom of the letter a request should be made of the patient to respond to the following: If they have moved and wish their records to be forwarded, if they will not be returning and why, they haven’t realized they were so far behind and wish to schedule an appointment, or the wish to schedule but will call when it is convenient for them.

A return envelope should be included for the patient’s convenience, and they are more apt to return the request this way. As each request comes in, the patient’s chart should reflect their response. Forwarding records and contacting patient’s for appointments should be done the day the response is received.

If after 14 days there is no response, a follow up phone call should be made with this sample script “Hello Mr. George, this is Suzie from Dr. Arndt’s office. How are you?! We haven’t seen you in a while and recently sent out a reactivation letter to you requesting you to advise us of your patient status. We haven’t heard back from you and are touching base to make sure all is ok! We really miss seeing you on your recall visits. Is there a good day and time for you to come in to see Dr. Arndt?”

If after multiple attempts there has been no contact, the patient account can be inactivated, with complete and thorough chart notes being added of “no response from patient”. Copies of the reactivation letters should be kept, and any attempts at communication should be recorded as well.

By doing chart audits annually, you an ensuring: Your patient base is active, no patients have slipped through the cracks, an increase in your production and the opportunity to “right” things that may be “wrong”.

How long has it been since your charts have been audited? How much production is just lying around in your office, waiting for someone to act upon it? There has to be a consistent method of patient tracking in place and your practice cannot afford to overlook the obvious.

To really make your system effective you will want to establish measurables to determine your progress. Set firm expectations of your team and create a protocol on how they are going to reach these expectations.

Establish a goal of 16 calls per day or two per hour and keep track of efforts and results. Share these results with your team weekly to keep everyone on track.

Are you utilizing external marketing but haven’t audited charts? Your practice has many, many internal resources for filling your schedule and your whole team needs to be on board to renew relationships with the patients you already have!

Remember, your practice is either growing or dying. There’s pretty much nothing in between.