Dentrix Ascend

RATING:

4.2

(228)

About Dentrix Ascend

Dentrix Ascend is a web-based software suite for dental care. The software suite provides tools for scheduling, appointment booking, e prescribing, and monitoring continuing care, as well as various chart types. Users can enter clinical notes and enable pop-up alerts that appear when a patient’s chart is accessed. Treatment planning tools track patient benefits to help set appointment schedules. Users can also manage billing and accounting, insurance processing and revenue. Reports can be run to track payments, medicaid reimbursement, and payer utilization. Permission controls allow users to restrict access for individuals or groups. The software can be integrated with other applications such as Allscripts, eClinicalWorks, Epic and SuccessEHS. Dentrix Ascend p...

Awards and Recognition

FrontRunner 2023
Software Advice's FrontRunners report ranks top products based on user reviews, which helps businesses find the right software.

Dentrix Ascend Pricing

Pricing information is available on inquiry.

Starting price: 

$248.00 per month

Free trial: 

Not Available

Free version: 

Not Available

Practice overview
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Dentrix Ascend Reviews

Overall Rating

4.2

Ratings Breakdown

Secondary Ratings

Ease-of-use

4

Customer Support

4.5

Value for money

4

Functionality

4

Most Helpful Reviews for Dentrix Ascend

1 - 5 of 201 Reviews

User Profile

Krista I.

Verified reviewer

Medical Practice, 11-50 employees

Used more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

4

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed April 2020

Good software

Good to fair. I use it at offices when I temp

PROS

I first was introduced to dentrix in dental hygiene school. At the time, It was the only dental software I knew of and felt as though it was pretty easy to use. In hygiene school, you do not use the software to its' best ability because we are limited to what we do w the dental charting, etc. I have used dentrix often during temping and do find it a little confusing, but I seem to manage pretty well with help from staff.

CONS

I am not a big fan of dentrix, I think it can be confusing and non-user friendly at times.

greg

Executive Office, 1,001-5,000 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This review was submitted organically. No incentive was offered

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

4

Reviewed August 2019

Multi-site infrastructure

support, from both my customer success manager, [SENSITIVE CONTENT HIDDEN], as well as the tech support team have made the experience of converting to Ascend easy to manage

PROS

ability to report, review, and manage all offices without having to be on site.

CONS

there are many of my current feature requests included in the road map, but currently i would like to see a marketing campaign tool.

Reason for choosing Dentrix Ascend

the quality of the R&D and product management team with Ascend

Reasons for switching to Dentrix Ascend

to unite all the locations and consolidate reporting for my support team, while creating the opportunity for centralization

Jesse

Medical Practice, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

OVERALL RATING:

2

EASE OF USE

2

VALUE FOR MONEY

2

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

3

FUNCTIONALITY

1

Reviewed April 2017

Gutless

Our office made the switch from Viive, which itself was a very frustrating piece of software as it would constantly drop connection to the server even after several "fixes" and technical support sessions with both Mac and Viive. I was excited for Dentrix Ascend, being a long-time Dentrix veteran, knowing the power of the Dentrix applications. However, in my experience with Dentrix Ascend so far, it is clear that Ascend is a gutless wonder, especially compared with how powerful Dentrix Proper is (and even Eaglesoft, for that matter!), and as such, is has been an utter disappointment. Full disclosure: I handle the front office/insurance/accounting end of things, so I cannot speak to the clinical end of things. My review is solely of the front office and accounting end of things. Keep in mind it may be delightful for the clinician. I am pleased with the fact that we no longer have to deal with constant server connection fails, so that is nice. But still not enough to make up for Ascend's other shortcomings. My first gripe is that once an insurance carrier is established, you cannot edit the payor ID. And once groups are established under a carrier, you cannot move the groups. This means, if a carrier is set up incorrectly (say, with payor ID 06126 that directs the clearing house to print and mail all claim) with several groups, you have to manually recreate the carrier and each group underneath, which is a cumbersome and time-consuming process. Secondly, with the procedure codes, many of them default to "mouth" for treatment area, even for common codes that virtually every insurance company requires more specific information. If the procedure code is used a single time, you lose the ability to edit even the treatment area. This was a big problem for us, as treatment plans converted over with several codes that are uneditable because they are "in use." We have had to create several "alias" codes, which the clinical side now has to remember to choose. Third, Viive allowed for payment tables under each group (similar to Dentrix Proper and Eaglesoft and several other software options), that would allow any exceptions in payment to be logged for future prediction. This is not the case in Ascend. This was an important Viive feature for us because we participate with an insurance company who calculates payment based on two fee schedules: maximum allowable per provider contract and maximum allowable according to policy contract. With Ascend, you are at the mercy of coverage percentages and cannot account for the two separate yet inseparable fee schedule. I got excited when I saw the "copay" field in the coverage table and spent a large amount of time updating this field for each group, only to find out from technical support that this is not a covered feature. So, ultimately we have had to develop external tools to help us predict patient responsibility. Dentrix Ascend has completely failed us in this area. Finally, we have hit a roadblock with NEA attachments. We are having to continue using Viive because of the inability of ledgers to be transferred over to Ascend (ledgers include open claims). To make a long story short, because we are maintaining a subscription to NEA through Viive in order to be able to keep sending attachments for unresolved claims, we are unable to send attachments through Ascend. Our only options are 1) to terminate our NEA subscription under Viive and print and mail all claims requiring attachments, 2) to manually move treatment over to Ascend and resume claim troubleshooting under Ascend, or 3) print and mail all claims from Ascend requiring attachments. We are probably going to go with option (1), but really, any option is a huge inconvenience. Bottom line, as the numbers and insurance person, I would never recommend this software in its current state. I am a huge Eaglesoft critic, but I would wholeheartedly recommend even that software over Dentrix Ascend. Ascend, you have a long way to go before you will get my vouch.

PROS

Access from anywhere, line-item accounting, some user-defined reports, everything is backed up in the cloud. There is potential.

CONS

Just about everything else: confusing ledger, user-unfriendly insurance setup, inability to edit procedure codes, inability to override insurance payments at a group level and on a procedure code level, NEA attachment failures.

MIRZA

Hospital & Health Care, 51-200 employees

Used daily for more than 2 years

Review Source: Capterra
This reviewer was invited by us to submit an honest review and offered a nominal incentive as a thank you.

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed September 2019

Value for Money

Analyzing the accounts receivables ,unscheduled treatment plans ,recare patients,patients portions and so on are some most needed and valuable reports from the power reporting.

PROS

The best thing i like in this software is there user friendly functionality which make it so different and valuable to all.

CONS

Sometimes it get froze so we need to refresh the browser to proceed.

Reason for choosing Dentrix Ascend

The features in assend are more user friendly and we get new updates too often as per the customer needs.

Reasons for switching to Dentrix Ascend

The features in assend are more user friendly and we get new updates too often as per the customer needs.

Kathy

Medical Practice, 2-10 employees

Used daily for less than 12 months

Review Source: Capterra

OVERALL RATING:

5

EASE OF USE

5

VALUE FOR MONEY

5

CUSTOMER SUPPORT

5

FUNCTIONALITY

5

Reviewed June 2019

Every Update Makes it Better

The best thing so far is being able to utilize Patient Communications, emails and texts make a huge difference with our recare.

PROS

This software is so user friendly. We are readily able to find what we need using the drop downs. When we want to add something to a chart it is clear where to find the chart, or notes, etc. Every time there is an applied update it improves the process and makes sense. Ascend is very in-touch with what we, the users, need.

CONS

There are only a few hiccups we have found but they are small and we have found work-arounds; some verbiage in the texts or emails, but they are all being looked at or addressed.

Reason for choosing Dentrix Ascend

N/A

Reasons for switching to Dentrix Ascend

The cloud based system is more streamlined and updated constantly. We have a smaller office and try to stay on top of all new technology when possible.