How Andre Sets Up Provider Hours in Eaglesoft
So often I get calls, texts and emails asking why the schedule in Eaglesoft doesn’t reflect the time the office wants to be opened and/or closed. Typically, I find the “reason” being the office has not set up Provider Hours “properly”.
What does “properly” mean?
Let’s start from the beginning. When there are NO Provider Hours set up in Eaglesoft (see picture)
The Schedule will be closed (see picture)
To open the schedule, you add the treatment hours of each Provider. Example:
Dr Beere just works Monday from 7:45 AM to 5:00 PM. He treats Patients from 8:00 AM and expects the last patient to be dismissed at 5:00 PM. Dr Beere’s Patients will be shown in the Chair called “Dr Beere Restore 1”.
In Dr Beere’s Provider Hours we enter 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM as Dr Beere’s default Hours on Monday only with a Lunch break from 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM (see picture):
Now you must assign Dr Beere’s Default Hours to the Chair he will work out of. Use the Chair/Location drop-down menu to select the “Dr Beere Restore 1” chair.
Once the Chair is assigned, you can Save the Provider Hours.
The “Dr Beere Restore 1” Chair will now be open on Mondays from 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM
In most cases, Dentist would have hours Assigned to one or more chairs that they do restorative care from and not on the chairs where hygiene services are performed. Even though the doctors do examine Patients in those chairs. If this process is followed for each Provider, the schedule will be open and closed based on the work schedules of all Providers.
It is very important to make sure to remove assigned chairs from all inactivated Providers who still.
Offices have the choice to create Chairs based on operatories names (see picture).
Some offices name their Chairs based on the Providers who do treatment in those columns (my preference).
I find that Chair names corresponding to Provider names makes it easy to open and close as needed. It’s also easier when Providers move patients to any room they want.
I suggest Chairs ("columns") be names for each Dentist with examples like:
Restore 1 Grey
Prosth 1 Beere
Prosth 2 Beere
Restore 3 Yellin
Restore 4 Yellin
When it comes to Hygiene, this can be a little trickier. For full-time Hygienists, I use the same protocol as the Dentist chairs. For part-time Hygienists, I typically use a “split” name process. Examples:
Hyg 1 Annie
Hyg 2 Tia
Hyg 3 Barb/Sally
Hyg 4 Phyllis
For me, I can shut down a Provider and see who is working (or not) at a glance. If it's a “room” the question is always, "is Mary working that day or is it Sally"? But like I said... Choice. I set up practices like I would set up a McDonalds, I can train anyone in 2 second to schedule Providers. It's obvious who's working, what time they take lunch, who is the provider treating the patient and based in the Appointment type templates, what should be scheduled when. What Providers are available for exams etc. I've done this for two ops 1 doc 1 hyg and 26 ops with 8 docs and 12 hygs. Just a choice.
“Operatories don’t have lunch. People (Providers/Staff) do.”
If Provider hours are set up properly, you will get a warning (see picture) if you ever move an Appointment from one chair to another.
Warning:
Provider Hours can be confusing, and many offices do not have Providers Hours set up properly so even after doing the Custom Hours changes might not take effect. I recommend that you reach out to the Patterson Technology Center ("Support") to get some help.
Question: How do I Change the Name of my Column on the Schedule?
Answer: Go To List>General Setup>OnSchedule>Chairs and edit the Chair (which is the Column on the schedule). You'll need to close and reopen the schedule for the change to show up.
Attach the hours to the Chairs that Dr A works in the North Office and Hours to the Chairs Dr A works in the South Office.
Then save Views of the schedule for North Office and South office hiding or viewing the Nor or South Chairs. The one master schedule seeing both offices. That way at-a-glance you can see both offices or switch to see one or the other.
Question: Can a chair be used for one Doctor, one day and a different Doctor another day of the week?
Answer: Yes, In the same way I described a “split” chair for part-time Hygienists. Just assign each Provider hours and assign the Chairs to each Provider.
Here are videos on the topic: https://youtu.be/jDCHNVafQQo
DISCLAIMER:
This is a resource guide and all decisions on each dental office setup should remain the sole decision of the dentist/owner of the practice. Eaglesoft is a registered trademark of Patterson Dental Company. All other software or products mentioned are the property of their respective owners. Although Andre Shirdan was an employee of Patterson Dental, he is not associated with Eaglesoft or Patterson Dental Company or endorsed by Patterson or any other Company Mentioned in this blog
