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.

Dentrix Ascend review

overall i like the product but correcting the accounting issues is something that is very frustrating and would possibly cause our practice to return to Dentrix

Pros

like that its cloud based and always evolving with updates as users make recommendations to improve. I like that I can access it anywhere.

Cons

I do not like the line item accounting and that credits can not be left on the ledger without affecting provider totals. A/R from previous months changes based on patient over-payments. We have all our fee schedules in and we do write offs at time of service /claim generation but there are still instances where we have over-collected and the only way to have the adjustment for the patient over-payment is to put the EOB in as insurance over-payment which is not accurate or refund the patient directly when the EOB is received, which is not practical

Mixed feelings...

We are a multi-site group practice so going to a cloud EMR just seemed essential. Going with HS made sense b/c of the stability. Some features are really great... and some are major works in progress IMO.... some are just lacking altogether. It seems with the financial backing of HS the software could really be developed faster and with more features and if it did that, would probably completely own and dominate the cloud platforms. Right now, within the community of DDS I'm associated with, I still hear people gripe about Ascend and talk about how the prefer other cloud based sofwares... but we just wanted to go w/ Schein b/c of the long term stability. So we're hoping the features that are lacking will be built in soon - hopefully 6-12 months max. Things like online forms, robust a medical history module, a great lab case manager module, and a referral module seem essential to modern group practices...

Pros

Ascend was the obvious choice for us b/c H.S. is a stable company that isn't going anywhere. though we had heard some really good things about a few other platforms... stability seemed critical. The support has been very good through the facebook group and the support of friday forums, etc... this has felt very good...

Cons

There are some - what I would consider very basic- features that I am surprised they would even launch a platform without. Starting with a robust - AWESOME - medical history form that new patients (and even existing patients) could fill out prior to their visit. This feature should be online and built into the software. From what I can tell, groups that have been on Ascend for years are still doing paper... scan... upload to the D.C. That feels very 2005. Thought Ascend is "new" (7 years?) it still lacks an online medical history form and a robust way of customizing, having it pop up at visits, etc. Dentrix core finally just got this... but it hasn't showed up in Ascend yet. Things like referring procedures in the software.... right now there is no way to track referrals. Things like a lab case manager... these are every day things in a dental office and we are stuck using major work arounds with paper tracking and google docs for lab cases and yes- we're struggling to get a good system going. This seems like after 7 years it should be in the software. I'd like to know some realistic timelines (+/- 3 months?) of when features like this might be coming. it's hard to know if "soon" means in 2-3 years or in 3-6 months. Hopefully some of these very "basic" features will be implemented soon.

Satisfied from the start

We have always been happy with Dentrix Ascend. Our IT needs and budget are a fraction of what they otherwise would be. We can always access and stay up to date with no additional cost or waste of time. Ascend continues to get better and better.

Pros

Intuitive. It has eliminated wasted time and money on training.

Cons

While being next generation technology and cloud based it has been very slow to publish APIs and become operable with so many other businesses that can enhance dental practice management.

Easy to use software

My overall experience with Dentrix Ascend is good - When we find a glitch or would like to see something change, we are able to get help from customer service quickly. I like that Dentrix accepts requests to make changes and prioritizes the requests by how many other companies are requesting the same change.

Pros

What I like most about Dentrix Ascend is that it is easy to use, web based so I can access the program anytime. They have a very good resource and support center to answer any questions I have. I utilize this for training new employees.

Cons

What I like least about Dentrix Ascend is that reports that I run are not consistant. I can run one report that gives me figures/numbers and run a different report for the same criteria and I can get different results.