topsOrtho - Data Foundation

To ensure success visualizing your data on Gaidge, ensure your practice management software is set up to help you track items as efficiently as possible. As part of our implementation process, we will share some best practice strategies. 

Please don't delete items before our data review as this may affect the accuracy of your historical data. You may want to mark them with a  z at the beginning of their description to indicate they are no longer used.

Most of your financial information is automatically pulled from your system as that is standard for all users. For your non-financial key practice indicators we must map your data to Gaidge.

Gaidge collects data for your new patient exams, observation and between phases visits, retention checks and emergencies/repairs from kept appointments. Your appointments marked Begins Treatment and Completes Treatment update the patient's Tx Start Date and Tx Finish Date which Gaidge uses for Starts and Debonds.

Schedule statistics are pulled from appointment statuses, for example no-shows and completed appointments.

Appointment Types

In tops under Practice Setup → Calendar, go to Appointment Types.

The Appointment Types screen has several important features used by Gaidge. 

These checkboxes are how we know which appointments are:

• Emergency/Repair - Emergency is checked
• New Patient Exam - Count as New Patient Exam
• Observation/Between Phases visit - Count as Recall Exam
• Retention check - Count as Retention Visit
• Start - Begins Treatment is checked, thus updates Treatment Start Date
• Debond - Ends Treatment is checked, thus updates Treatment Finish Date

If you do not have one or more of these appointment types, create them. If any of these were previously combined into one type, convert existing appointment types to the new types and then delete the original type so it will not be used in the future.

New Patient Exams

New Patient Exams are counted based on an appointment type having Count as New Patient Exam checked. Age (determined by date of birth) at the time the exam was completed determines Adult or Child Exam. These appointments are also used to track New Patient Exams scheduled in the future. Medicaid exams are those which also have State Funded in Patient Admin File → Status/Notes/Alerts → Financial Status.

Pre-Treatment and Between Phases Observation Visits

Observation Visits are tracked based on an appointment type that is flagged Count as Recall Exam. The patient’s status determines whether it is Pre-Treatment (Development Monitored-Not Ready For Initial Tx) or Between Phases (Development Monitored with or without Retention.)

Retainer Checks

Count as Retainer Visit is used to indicate Retention Visits

Repair Visits

Repair Visits are counted when a completed appointment type has the Emergency box checked.

Starts

Starts are counted when a patient has a Tx Start Date within the date range reported. 

• The start type is determined by treatment phase and treatment method. If one of these is missing the start will not be counted on Gaidge.
  For example, Full Aligner starts have a treatment phase of Comprehensive Treatment and a treatment method where count as aligner method is checked.
• Appointments with the Begins Treatment checkbox marked, update the Tx Start Date. 

The best way to ensure this happens as accurately as possible is to have specific Start Appointment types. In other words, don’t have appointments that are sometimes a start and sometimes not. A patient should only complete one start appointment during treatment otherwise they may be counted as a start multiple times.

Debonds

Debonds are counted when a patient has a Tx Finish Date within the date range reported. Appointments with the Completes Treatment checkbox marked, update the Tx Finish Date. Specific Debond appointment types are the best way to ensure accurate data.

Treatment Methods

Lastly, we want to check that under Practice  Setup → Labels, Treatment Methods all aligner treatment methods have an X in the aligner column.

Origin of Start & Payment Arrangements

Gaidge tracks the  Origin of Start and Payment Arrangements for your Treatment Starts. The Origin of Start and Payment Arrangement information is determined by topsOrtho automatically. 

Origin of Starts

We look at two types of exams: New Patient and Observation/Recall - with 2 types of start outcomes: accepted treatment at appointment and uncommitted with later acceptance. 

From Exam

A patient has had a completed appointment that is flagged in practice setup as Count as a New Patient Exam and they have a Treatment Start Date within the date range (generally this month.)

From Pending (Exam or Recall)

A patient with the treatment status of Will Call Pending, Seeking 2nd Opinion or Awaiting Specialist Results between the Exam Date and the Start date.

From Observation

A patient has had a completed appointment that is flagged in practice setup as Count as Recall Exam and they have a Treatment Start Date within the date range.

These are gathered when a contract is started. They are based on the bulk of the patient portion of the contract (not the initial fee, except of course paid in full.) If a patient later changes their arrangements, this does not change.

• Paid In Full – Patient Initial Fee = Patient portion of Contract (not necessarily that the Co-Pay balance is $0)
• Bank Draft – Patient has Auto Pay Plan of Bank Draft and a contract balance
• Credit Card Draft – Patient has Auto Pay Plan of Credit Card and a contract balance
• Other/Coupon – Patient’s Insurance has entire contract balance (patient portion was never assigned) or Patient has a contract balance (not PIF) and does not have an Auto Pay Plan (essentially anything other than the 3 above)