Open Dental stays your practice management system and your schedule. The ASAP list works over Intake.Dental's real-time sync with Open Dental, through Open Dental's published API and the eConnector on your own server. Booked appointments show up in the Appointments module like any other appointment. The ASAP list itself lives in Intake.Dental. We don't read or change Open Dental's own ASAP list, and we don't touch the broken appointment that freed the time.
Your team adds patients from the dashboard, with their preferred days, a time window, a provider if they have one, and text, email or both. Patients can also add themselves from your office's page: they enter their last name and date of birth, confirm with a code texted to the phone on file, and pick their days and times. Each patient has a minimum notice period: four hours by default, and 24 hours for patients who join the treatment list from your page. Treatment openings are a separate list you can turn on, so a hygiene cancellation never goes to someone waiting for a crown.
Every 15 minutes the system scans your synced schedule for the next seven days. By default it looks at your hygienists' columns. Turn on treatment openings and it looks at your doctors' columns too. It counts a time as open when a patient broke, no-showed or cancelled the appointment, or when there is a hole of 50 minutes or more between two appointments in a provider's column. Office cancellations are skipped, because they usually mean the provider is out. So is your lunch hour, if you've set one. Your team can also post an opening by hand.
Inside the notification hours you set, in your office's time zone, the system offers the opening to a small batch of patients whose days, time window, provider and notice period fit, three at a time by default. The text names the day, time and provider. Patients accept by tapping the link or replying YES. The offer stays open for 30 minutes by default, and the first to accept gets it. No patient holds more than one live offer at a time or gets more than three offers in a day.
When a patient accepts, the system reads that day live from Open Dental and checks that no one is now in the opening's chair. When the opening came from a broken visit that had a hygienist, it also checks that the hygienist isn't now booked elsewhere at that time. It reads the patient's chart back from Open Dental and books only if the name matches the list entry. Then it creates a Scheduled appointment at that time, in that operatory, for the opening's length, with a note saying it came from the ASAP list. The patient gets a confirmation, the office gets an email saying the slot is filled and no action is needed, and the patient comes off the list.
If your office is already connected to Open Dental through us (an API key pasted into Open Dental's API setup, with the eConnector running), the ASAP list needs no extra connection. Turn it on in the dashboard and choose the days and hours patients may be contacted, how many patients each opening goes to, how long an offer stays open, how far ahead to look, and whether treatment openings are offered as well as cleanings. You can edit the text message. Patient outreach is opt-in, so nothing is sent until you turn the ASAP list on. ASAP fill is one of the smart automations included in Practice Autopilot. Patient names and phone numbers on the list are encrypted at rest, and a BAA is signed before any patient data moves.
Put the patients on the Intake.Dental ASAP list and let it work the openings. When a patient breaks or no-shows an appointment, the system finds the open time on your Open Dental schedule, texts the patients whose preferences fit, and books the first one who accepts into that chair in Open Dental. Your front desk gets an email either way and only has to act on the ones it couldn't place.
No. The ASAP list lives in Intake.Dental, where each patient has days, a time window, a provider and a notice period. Open Dental's ASAP list isn't read or changed. Your team adds patients from the dashboard, and patients can add themselves from your office's page.
It finds appointments a patient broke, no-showed or cancelled, and holes of 50 minutes or more between appointments in a provider's column, over the next seven days by default. It looks at hygienists' columns unless you turn on treatment openings, which adds doctors' columns. Office cancellations and your lunch hour, if you've set one, are skipped. Mark a cancelled visit Broken in Open Dental rather than deleting it, so the opening is easier to find.
No. It never books on top of another patient it can see. Before booking, it reads that day live from Open Dental. If someone is now in the opening's chair, the patient is told the time is gone and keeps their place on the list. If the schedule can't be read, nothing is booked and your team is asked to handle it.
No. The appointment lands in the open chair at the right time and length, under the provider whose column the opening came from. Open Dental's separate hygienist field and hygiene flag aren't set, so your team sets those if your office tracks them.
Patients are offered it the same way, but when one accepts, your front desk gets an email to place the appointment. A hand-added opening has no Open Dental operatory we can check, and Open Dental accepts overlapping appointments, so booking it blind could double-book a chair. Openings found on your Open Dental schedule book straight back into Open Dental.
When the system can't confirm which Open Dental chart the patient is, when the opening has no chair to check, or when Open Dental doesn't answer. The office gets an email naming the patient and time. If the booking was sent but no answer came back, the email says it may or may not be on the schedule, so check before adding it and it isn't booked twice.
By tapping the link in the text or email, or by replying YES to the text. The first patient to accept gets the time. Anyone who taps later is told the offer is no longer available and stays on the list. Offers expire after 30 minutes by default.
No. Messages go out only on the days and hours you set, in your office's time zone. A patient holds one live offer at a time, is never offered the same slot twice, and gets at most three offers in a day.
If your Open Dental office fills cancellations by calling down a list, this does that part. Openings are found on your synced schedule, the patients who fit get a text, and the first to accept is booked into the open chair in Open Dental at the right length, after a live check that the chair is still free. Anything it can't place safely goes to your front desk.
Open Dental is a trademark of Open Dental Software, Inc. Intake.Dental is an independent product and is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Open Dental Software, Inc.
When a patient breaks or no-shows an appointment, or a gap opens up between appointments, Intake.Dental finds the opening on your synced Open Dental schedule. It texts or emails the patients on your ASAP list whose days, times and provider fit, and the first to accept gets the time. Before booking, it reads that day live from Open Dental. If the chair is still free, the appointment is created in Open Dental at that time, in that operatory, for the length of the opening. If the chair was filled in the meantime, the patient is told the time is gone. Anything it can't book safely goes to your front desk by email. Your team still runs the schedule. This handles the part where someone works down the list by phone.
אַ 20-מינוטיקער דורכגאַנג מיט אייער צײַטפּלאַן און אייערע פּראָצעדור-קאָדן. קיין אויסטוישן, קיין מיגראַציע, קיין ריפּ-און-רעפּלייס.
