What it watches
The error library, by role.
Every entry is a check that runs constantly against your live Open Dental data — every 15 minutes, hourly, or overnight depending on the check. Each one names the error, what it costs, and how it is caught. Every role sees its own list; the office manager sees all of them with a count.
GoDentalInsight
Office Manager
One summary page with a count beside every open item across every role, refreshed constantly through the day — every 15 minutes, hourly, or overnight depending on the check. The morning huddle starts from it.
| The error | What it costs | How it is caught |
|---|---|---|
| Hygiene days not full in the next two weeks | An empty hygiene hour is production that never happens and a recall opportunity that went to nobody. | Counts scheduled hygiene hours per day against the practice's full-day target and lists every Monday-to-Thursday that falls short. |
| Doctor days below the production target | A light day found on the morning of the day cannot be filled; found two weeks out, it can. | Compares scheduled net production in the doctor operatories with the daily target for each of the next fourteen days. |
| Before the patient leaves: something still open | Unsigned plans, uncollected portions, and unbooked next visits are cheap to fix while the patient is in the building and expensive afterwards. | One row per patient seen today, latest first, with everything still worth raising before they walk out. |
| Patient care reminders for today's schedule | A missed medical alert or pre-medication is a clinical risk, not a paperwork problem. | For every patient arriving today, raises medical history, alerts and pre-medication before they are seated. |
Scheduling Coordinator
Errors that live in the appointment book and are invisible until the patient is in the chair.
| The error | What it costs | How it is caught |
|---|---|---|
| Appointment not confirmed within three days of the visit | A no-show on an unconfirmed slot is lost chair time with nobody to blame. | Lists every scheduled appointment in the next three days whose confirmation status is still unconfirmed. |
| Patient due for an exam but the exam is not on the booked visit | The patient comes in, has a cleaning, and the periodic or comprehensive evaluation is missed until next time. | Finds patients who already have a future appointment and are due an exam that was not added to it. |
| Child prophy code scheduled for a patient over fourteen | Wrong code, wrong fee, and a claim that comes back for correction. | Checks the scheduled procedure code against the patient's age. |
| Inactive patient with a future appointment | A patient marked inactive drops out of recall and reminders while still holding a slot. | Matches patient status against the appointment book. |
| Obsolete procedure code on a scheduled visit | A retired code is a claim rejection waiting to happen. | Flags any scheduled code that is no longer valid. |
| Build-up or extraction booked without a periapical x-ray on the visit | Insurance wants the image; without it the claim stalls or is denied. | Looks at upcoming build-ups and extractions for a periapical booked on the same visit. |
| Patient in the chair today with overdue recare, planned treatment, or a family member with nothing booked | The easiest appointment to make is with the patient who is already here. Miss it and it becomes a recall call. | A per-patient care-opportunity list for today's schedule. |
Insurance Coordinator
Verification that was right when it was done and wrong by the time the patient arrives.
| The error | What it costs | How it is caught |
|---|---|---|
| Appointment flagged for eligibility or benefits verification | Unverified insurance means an estimate the patient will dispute and a payment the office may never collect. | Lists upcoming appointments where eligibility or benefits need verifying or updating, re-evaluated after every booking change. |
| Procedure that needs preauthorization, not yet requested | The procedure is done, the claim is denied, and the patient owes the full fee nobody warned them about. | Checks scheduled procedures against the codes that require preauthorization. |
| Missing-tooth clause applies but no note on the appointment | A replacement the plan will not pay for, discovered after the work. | Matches upcoming procedures against the missing-tooth clause and looks for the appointment note. |
| Procedure at risk of declined payment by the plan | The patient's own history already puts the procedure outside the plan's frequency or limit; the claim is dead on arrival. | Compares each scheduled procedure with the patient's history and the plan's limits, before the visit. |
| Appointment with production but no saved treatment plan | No plan means no signed estimate, no financial arrangement, and a conversation at checkout instead of before. | Flags upcoming appointments carrying scheduled production with no treatment plan saved. |
| Patient financial instructions missing from the appointment note | Front desk does not know what to collect, so it collects nothing. | Looks for the patient-portion and account notes in the appointment note and flags an unresolved amount. |
Patient Care Coordinator
Compliance and collection at the moment it matters: while the patient is still here.
| The error | What it costs | How it is caught |
|---|---|---|
| Visit started without a treatment plan signature | Work done without a signed plan is a dispute waiting to happen. | Counts every arrived, seated or completed visit whose treatment plan carries no signature. |
| Visit started and a consent is needed but missing | A missing consent is a liability, and it is far harder to get after the procedure. | One row per started visit where the work needs a consent that is not on file. |
| Patient portion not fully paid on a started visit | A copay calculated and not collected becomes a statement, then a phone call, then a write-off. | Compares the patient portion, from the insurance estimate once a claim exists, with what was actually collected. |
| Completed appointment without a scanned routing slip | No slip, no audit trail for what was done and charged. | Matches completed appointments against scanned documents. |
| Patient deactivated without a communication log entry | Nobody knows why the patient left, so nobody can win them back. | Flags status changes to inactive with no comm-log note beside them. |
Financial Coordinator
Money that is in the system but not where it should be.
| The error | What it costs | How it is caught |
|---|---|---|
| Manual write-off without a note | An unexplained write-off is exactly what an audit, or an embezzler, hides behind. | Lists every manual write-off in the past two months with no note. |
| Payment taken but not applied to a procedure | The patient paid, the ledger still says they owe, and someone sends them a statement. | Shows unallocated payments from the past two weeks with what that patient owes beside each one. |
| Family holding unapplied money while a member still owes | Credit sits on one account while another in the same family goes to collections. | Matches unallocated payments and prepayments against claim-settled balances across the family. |
| Patient balance outstanding after insurance has settled | The longer a settled balance sits, the less of it is ever collected. | A patient accounts-receivable list built only from balances where primary and secondary claims are done, with any AR note attached. |
| Deposits that do not match Open Dental | A gap between what was posted and what reached the bank is the one error that nobody finds by looking at Open Dental alone. | Reconciles Open Dental against bank, card-processor and financing statements, matches refunds, and flags a closed month whose figure later moved. |
Claims Coordinator
Claims are money in transit. Every stalled one is revenue on pause.
| The error | What it costs | How it is caught |
|---|---|---|
| Completed procedure not attached to any claim | Production that was never billed. It does not show up as a denial because it never left the building. | Lists procedures completed in the past sixty days that are on no claim. |
| Claim created but never sent | Each week a claim waits is a week of collection delay, and timely-filing limits are real. | Shows claims not yet out the door after the five-day waiting period, separating what is queued from what is stuck. |
| Claim sent but never answered by the carrier | A claim the carrier never received is money that will not arrive until someone notices. | Every claim with a procedure the carrier has not answered past the thirty-day grace period. |
| Monthly-payment claim not fully paid | Ortho contracts collect in instalments; a stopped instalment is easy to miss for years. | Tracks instalment claims across three years and flags those that have not finished paying. |
Back Office
The lab case that was never sent is discovered by the patient sitting in the chair.
| The error | What it costs | How it is caught |
|---|---|---|
| Lab case not received for an appointment in the next seven days | The patient arrives for a seat and there is nothing to seat. Chair time lost, patient rebooked, trust spent. | Matches upcoming appointments that need a lab case against cases marked received. |
| Recent appointment that needed a lab case, none created | The impression was taken and nothing was sent. Nobody notices until the seat date. | Looks at recent appointments with lab-requiring procedures and finds those with no case. |
| Lab case not attached to an appointment | A case with no appointment has no due date, so it can be late without ever being late. | Lists unattached lab cases from the past twelve months. |
| Crown or bridge marked completed with no matching procedure history | A seating with no crown on record is either a charting error or a missing charge. | Cross-checks completed crown and bridge work against procedure history. |
Providers
The items only the doctor can close.
| The error | What it costs | How it is caught |
|---|---|---|
| Completed procedure with an unfinished clinical note | An unsigned note is a compliance gap and a claim the carrier can question. | Lists completed procedures whose clinical note is not finished. |
| Upcoming appointment that needs doctor review and approval | A plan the doctor has not looked at is a plan that changes on the day. | Flags scheduled visits awaiting provider review. |
| Implant part not ordered for a visit in the next three weeks | No part, no surgery, and the slot cannot be refilled at short notice. | Finds scheduled appointments carrying an implant code that needs a physical part ordered ahead. |
| Clear aligner case not yet sent by the doctor | The patient is waiting on trays that were never ordered. | Tracks aligner lab cases still unsent. |
Recall and Patient Follow-up
One task per patient, with the real reasons, rebuilt every night from the live chart.
| The error | What it costs | How it is caught |
|---|---|---|
| Patient overdue for hygiene with nothing booked | Every lapsed hygiene patient is a slot to fill and, eventually, a patient lost to another office. | A nightly scan builds one recall task per patient from five reasons: hygiene overdue, treatment unscheduled, broken appointment not rebooked, visit not rebooked, long absent. |
| Planned treatment never scheduled | Accepted treatment that is never booked is the largest pile of lost production in most offices. | Counts planned work as a recall reason until the patient books, and stops counting it after a year so the list stays honest. |
| Recall attempts nobody records | The same patients get called; the valuable ones get missed; nobody can say what worked. | Every attempt, outcome and reason is logged, priorities weigh value against how winnable the patient is, and a success rate is reported by person, channel and reason. |
| Ghost appointment: booked but never confirmed, never reminded | An unconfirmed patient is a coin toss. | Appointment confirmation texts at seven, five and three days, with a staff call task two days out if there is no reply. Part of the phone and text integration, a one-time project at a fixed quote; switched on when the practice decides. |
And much more.
This is the standard library. Every office runs a little differently, and checks written for one office's policy tend to end up in the library for everyone. If your practice has an error it keeps finding by hand, that is the first thing to mention on the call.
GoDentalInsight
And the money, end to end.
Every payment posted in Open Dental is matched against your bank, card processor and financing statements. Refund cheques are matched too. A month that was reconciled and later moved is flagged, because that is the edit nobody expects anyone to look for.
See your own list on the call.
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