How Your Dental Practice Can Benefit from Cloud Imaging

Thursday, February 25, 2016

How Your Dental Practice Can Benefit from Cloud Imaging

Last June, Dr. Antigone Skoulas decided to make the switch to the Dentrix Ascend cloud-based practice management system. She liked the idea of having access to patient information at any time, no matter where she was, and she knew a cloud-based system would improve efficiencies and reduce stress in her office.

When Henry Schein released the DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend imaging solution late last year, she knew it was a feature that would further streamline her digital clinical workflow and improve patient care in her practice. She not only has instant access to patient information and her schedule whenever she wants, with this new feature she can now easily take images from within her practice management software, immediately use them for diagnosis and patient education in the office, and then review them after hours from home if she needs to.

“Being on the cloud for me right now is a necessity,” Dr. Skoulas said. “If you don’t have x-rays and charts available to you when you’re not in the office and a patient calls in pain, it’s a disservice to the patient. Being on the cloud helps me communicate with patients and ensures I can check in on them when I’m not in the office. Having x-rays integrated into the practice management system is an integral part of that.”

Over the last few months, Dr. Skoulas and her team have experienced the benefits of cloud imaging firsthand, from the time it saves to the improved workflow it provides. Here’s a look at the many benefits a solution such as DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend offers, and why you might want to implement a cloud-based practice management and imaging solution into your practice as well.

How Cloud Imaging Works

Cloud-based practice management allows you to access your patient information from wherever you choose, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It also provides you with safe, secure data backup so you never have to worry about losing your data during a system crash. This means you don’t have to spend time backing up the data yourself or dealing with the other IT tasks and headaches that come with server-based practice management systems.

To take this cloud-based solution a step further, Henry Schein’s Dentrix Ascend is now integrated with DEXIS imaging. The companies worked together to create a custom-made imaging solution that doesn’t require bridges or on premises imaging servers, Dentrix Ascend Product Manager Adam McDaniel said. Dentists can access patient information and take the images they need for diagnosis and treatment planning all from one screen.

Open and Flexible

While Dentrix Ascend supports the DEXIS Platinum Sensor, it also supports a variety of sensors from other companies, such as Sirona, Carestream and Planmeca, Product Manager Adam McDaniel said. They wanted to open up the system to a variety of devices to ensure dentists are comfortable taking images through the cloud-based practice management software.

“When you launch DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend, you’re still inside the Dentrix Ascend practice management system,” McDaniel said. “The imaging system is part of the practice management system, and that’s one of the unique things that sets us apart from other cloud-based systems that bridge the imaging.”

The ability to acquire the images she needs through her practice management software without having to switch back and forth between windows is one of Dr. Skoulas’s favorite features. She used DEXIS in the past, and through DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend, she captures images she needs for diagnosis and treatment planning the same way as before. The difference is, those images are immediately stored in her cloud-based practice management system. Her assistants don’t have to save the image files to the desktop and then pull them into the document manager, giving them more time to dedicate to other tasks such as providing patient education and strengthening patient relationships.  

Cloud imaging truly has streamlined her practice’s digital workflow, Dr. Skoulas said, and she’s found it’s easy to use—if you can take an x-ray, you can use this solution, she said.

Automatic Patient Record Updates

Typically, every time you take a pan image or a bitewing, you need to update the patient’s file and note when those images need to be taken again. Through DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend, that information is updated automatically, a feature that Dr. Skoulas said helps her and her team members keep recare visits streamlined and organized.

“When I look at my charts I can click on a tooth in the practice management system and the tooth image pops up. I don’t need to have two separate windows, which can be confusing,” Dr. Skoulas said. “It makes things a lot simpler for me and my assistants.”

Once images are captured, they are sent directly to the cloud in about 1.5 seconds and are then available to all authorized system devices and users, McDaniel said. They’re stored by date, making it easy for you to find the image if you need to refer to it during the patient’s next visit, or any time before.

And the images are high quality—Dr. Skoulas said they’re just as good as images taken directly with DEXIS server-based software. This is because it is the same image. With DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend the original intraoral camera or digital x-ray image is saved to the cloud, so you don’t lose any image quality and detail when you use this cloud imaging solution. 

Streamlining Your Clinical Digital Workflow

DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend also enables you to tie an ADA code to every image you acquire—a feature unique to this solution that is designed to improve efficiencies, McDaniel said. When you click the imaging button from the patient chart, you can choose the ADA code that’s associated with the x-ray you’re taking, without opening a separate application. The stored image is posted to the patient’s ledger with the appropriate ADA code.

An Affordable Solution

DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend is available for a monthly fee, including storage—giving you everything you need for one fee and in one solution. You’ll no longer need an imaging server in your office, saving you thousands of dollars.

“One of the things we found in our research is dentists really believe imaging solutions are clinical tools for them and relate to clinical care for their patients just as much as doing a root canal or a crown,” McDaniel said. “We’re the first company to ever tie an actual ADA procedure code to clinical imaging.”

When taking intraoral images, you can choose if you’re charging the patient or billing the images to the insurance company, McDaniel said. You can also choose the provider billing form. 

“When you have live video from an intraoral camera, if you like the image you can actually pause the view screen and click on it to take a snapshot,” McDaniel said. “It goes to my Snapshot channel and then you can choose which images you want to keep. When you click on continue it’s now uploaded to the cloud. You can go back and look at the intraoral image in the progress notes and see that is has been taken and billed to the patient or the insurance company. There’s also a link to the image.”

DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend also makes it easier to send insurance eClaims, McDaniel said. You can look at the image from the practice management system as you’re creating the claim, and then attach it to the claim without any imports, exports or copies before you send it out.

Working with the Images

Once you capture the images, there are plenty of tools available to help you enhance them, McDaniel said. You can use the drawing tool to highlight certain areas, enabling you to point out decay and places the patient might need a filling, improving patient education. You can sharpen the image, change the color of different densities and perform measurements—all tools that help you better diagnose and treatment plan.

1.5 Seconds

the amount of time it takes for images you acquire via DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend to be uploaded to the cloud.

“You can contrast or enhance features to be able to more clearly see caries,” Dr. Skoulas said. “Some doctors might think this solution is lacking because they don’t have DEXIS right in front of them, but it has the same features. You can rotate the image and contrast the image. You’re able to see images clearly, just like with DEXIS.”

It’s also easy to compare images side-by-side to help you track a patient’s improvement over time, McDaniel said. You can show patients what’s changed and what hasn’t, giving them a better understanding of how important it is to maintain their oral health and to follow home care instructions. You can zoom in on specific areas and show them details that indicate both the positive and negative changes that have occurred since their last visit.

Images you take through DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend are easy to access and to share, which can be a huge time saver when you’re collaborating with specialists on a patient’s case or want advice from a trusted colleague, Dr. Skoulas said.

“I can pull up the image I want to discuss and send out an email, even when I’m not in the office. It’s great for time management,” Dr. Skoulas said. “If I’m at a study group and have my laptop with me, I can pull up an x-ray to discuss a case. There’s a lot of benefits to having your images on the cloud verses a server at your office.”

Saving Time and Money

Using DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend can save you a few minutes during every appointment—which can really add up over the course of the day. This frees you up to spend more time focusing on what matters most: educating your patients and helping them understand why they should go forward with treatment.

How does cloud imaging make you more efficient? It improves productivity because you don’t have to waste time moving back and forth between screens to take and store images, which helps appointments run more smoothly, McDaniel said. You also don’t have to do anything with the image once it’s taken—it’s automatically stored in the patient chart on the cloud.

Never Miss an Image

Using DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend ensures the images you take actually become part of the patient record, McDaniel said. Often, images taken aren’t entered into the practice management system simply because someone forgot to do it. This means you’re missing out on an opportunity to bill insurance.

“One of the things we really focused on was compressing the images and reducing the time it took to get images to the cloud. It takes 1.5 to 2 seconds from the moment you take the image until it’s stored in the cloud,” McDaniel said. “With other systems you have to wait. With some you have to wait 10 to 20 seconds before the image is processed and uploaded to the cloud. That takes time away from diagnosis.”

The image is also captured locally, McDaniel said, so if the office happens to lose its Internet connection as the image is taken, there’s no need to start over and re-expose the patient to radiation. The image is on the computer and can be uploaded to the cloud as soon as the Internet connection is restored.

DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend also saves you from the hassle of backing up your images. Because it’s cloud-based, backup is done automatically. Your images, along with the rest of your practice management data, are stored in a secure location.

This keeps your information safe; you never have to wonder if the team member you tasked with backup remembered to actually perform the backup today, or if she’s doing it correctly. Because if she isn’t, even though you think your information is safe, you’ll quickly find out it isn’t if there’s ever a system failure—costing you time, money and frustration that could have been avoided.

Another time saving advantage? No more software updates to install. The cloud-based solution updates on its own, McDaniel said. All you have to do is log in and you’ll be able to use new features right away rather than shutting down operations to install and test an updated software version on your practice server.

The Feedback

DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend was released in late 2015, but Henry Schein has already received plenty of feedback about the many benefits it provides. It’s proven to be one of the company’s fastest selling products, McDaniel said, showing there clearly was a need for a fast, reliable cloud imaging solution.

Dentists love the fact they can seamlessly take images from within their practice management software, then have the ability to pull those images up on a tablet, an iPad a Mac or a PC later—no matter what time of day it is or where they are. All they need is an Internet connection. They can look at treatment plans from the comfort of their own homes and access images when they’re traveling—giving their practice management system portability and efficiencies it never had before.

Dr. Skoulas is among the early adopters and is happy with the benefits DEXIS for Dentrix Ascend has brought to her practice. Her assistants love it because they don’t have to spend as much time in front of the computer, and she loves that it enables her to provide her patients with even better care.

“Everything is all in one place,” Dr. Skoulas said. “I don’t have to open up DEXIS. I open Dentrix Ascend to take images and then they’re integrated into the chart. I’m not continually clicking back and forth to other tabs on my screen. Everything is organized in one place, and that’s a great time saver. If I want to show patients an x-ray on my tablet or on the computer, I only need to open one window. I don’t need to pull up a bunch of screens and make things confusing for the patient. It’s a great time saver and a great patient education tool.” 

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