Open Dental Case Acceptance: 3 Native Tools You Must Master (And the 1 Tool You're Missing)
- Maxillo Team
- Oct 29
- 8 min read
As a practice owner or manager, you live and die by your schedule. You know the frustration of a day that looks productive on paper but falls apart in reality. A patient with a $4,000 treatment plan accepts the care, your team celebrates, and then... nothing. The appointment is never scheduled. Or, worse, it's scheduled and they no-show.
That $4,000 in "accepted" treatment is now $0.
The gap between a patient saying "yes" and the treatment being completed is where practice profitability is won or lost. Your Open Dental practice management software is the foundation for closing this gap, but many practices are only using a fraction of its power. And, more importantly, they fail to see its one critical limitation.
This article will guide you through mastering the native tools inside your software to improve your presentation, financial discussions, and tracking. Then, we will introduce the AI-driven platforms that integrate with Open Dental to solve the problem that native tools cannot: automatically filling your schedule and ensuring that "yes" turns into a completed procedure.
This is how you build a resilient and truly effective open dental case acceptance strategy.
Part 1: The Foundation: Mastering Your Native Open Dental Case Acceptance Tools
Before you can automate, you must optimize. Open Dental provides a robust suite of tools designed to help you present treatment, build trust, and answer the all-important question: "What is this going to cost me?" If your team is still just printing a long list of procedure codes, you are losing cases.
Here is how to use the Treatment Plan module as a true conversion tool.
1. Use Saved Plans and Priorities to Present Clear Options
The single biggest mistake in case presentation is overwhelming the patient. When a patient sees a single, large dollar amount, their brain shuts down. They hear, "This is expensive," not, "This is important for my health."
Open Dental is built to solve this. Instead of one "all or nothing" plan, present clear options. For example, if the patient needs a missing tooth replaced, you can present an implant and a bridge.
Here is the professional workflow:
First, chart all possible procedures for both options.
In the Treatment Plan module, select the procedures for the first option (the implant).
Assign these a "Priority" (e.g., "Implant Option"). This groups them with a subtotal.
Click "Save TP" to save this as "Option 1: Implant."
Now, select the implant procedures and set their priority to "no priority."
Next, select the procedures for the second option (the bridge), assign them a "Priority," and click "Save TP" again as "Option 2: Bridge."
You can now present two distinct, professional, and easy-to-understand plans. [1] This "co-diagnosis" approach, where you walk the patient through options, transforms you from a salesperson into a trusted advisor.
2. Build Trust with Transparent Financials
The second a patient feels confused about cost, you have lost them. They will retreat to the default "no," masked as, "I need to think about it." Your Open Dental setup is designed to create absolute clarity.
Master Insurance Estimates: Ensure your fee schedules, insurance plans, and patient portions are accurate. When a patient asks "What do I have to pay?" your team should be able to show them, with confidence, the "Insurance Estimate" and "Patient Portion" columns.
Send Preauthorizations: For complex or high-dollar cases, do not guess. Use the Treatment Plan module to highlight the procedures and click "Preauthorization" to send it directly to the insurance. This provides the patient with a firm, documented estimate and builds immense trust. [1]
Use eClipboard: Instead of a wrinkled, printed sheet, send the treatment plan directly to a tablet using eClipboard. This allows the patient to review the plan in a high-tech, modern format and even sign for consent on the spot, creating a seamless and official "yes."
3. Proactively Offer Payment Solutions
For any treatment over a few hundred dollars, cost is the primary barrier. The American Dental Association notes that offering financing options is a critical component of modern practice management because it directly increases case acceptance rates. [2]
You are not a bank. Instead of offering risky in-house plans, use Open Dental's built-in tools.
Third-Party Financing: Open Dental has a direct integration with CareCredit. This allows your team to transfer patient information to an application and get a decision in seconds, all without leaving the software. [1]
Native Payment Plans: For smaller amounts or different patient needs, you can use Open Dental's own "Payment Plan" feature to set up a formal repayment schedule.
When you present the "Patient Portion" of $3,000, you must immediately follow it with, "And we can break that down into payments of about $130 a month. We can get you approved for that right here." This proactive approach removes the financial barrier before it is even fully formed. [3]
4. Bridge the Gap with "Planned Appointments"
What happens when a patient says "yes" to a multi-visit plan? Do not just send them to the front desk with a vague instruction. From the Treatment Plan module, you can create "Planned Appointments."
This feature attaches specific procedures to a "planned" (but not yet scheduled) appointment. Now, when the patient gets to the front desk, your coordinator does not have to guess. They can simply drag the "Planned Appointment" onto the schedule. It is a simple step that makes it quick and easy for your team to turn a "yes" into a scheduled appointment, drastically reducing the chance of the patient "falling through the cracks." [1]
5. Track What You Treasure: Open Dental Case Acceptance
You cannot improve what you do not measure. A crucial part of your open dental case acceptance workflow is tracking your performance. Open Dental has two powerful reports for this:
Treatment Presentation Statistics Report: This shows you the gross and net totals for treatment plans created in a date range. More importantly, it shows you how many of those procedures were marked as "scheduled" or "completed." This is your primary KPI.
Presented Treatment Production Report: This report totals the actual production that came from completedprocedures attached to a saved treatment plan.
To make these reports truly powerful, train your team to use the "Presenter" field. When a saved treatment plan is created, it is assigned to the "entry user." But if your treatment coordinator is the one who actually presents the case, they should double-click the saved plan and update the "Presenter" to their name.
Why? Because now you can run these reports by presenter. You can see which team members are excelling at case presentation and which may need more training. [1]
Part 2: The Critical Flaw in Your Workflow
You did it. You mastered all five native tools. You presented clear options, the financials were transparent, you sent a preauthorization, the patient agreed to the payment plan, and you even created "Planned Appointments."
Two weeks later, your schedule is full of holes. What happened?
A "yes" is completely worthless if the patient does not show up. An accepted treatment plan that becomes a no-show or a last-minute cancellation has a 0% conversion rate. This is the "leaky bucket" of dentistry. A missed appointment does not just cost you the revenue from that one procedure; it creates a cascade of inefficiency. Studies on practice operations show that the average no-show rate can hover between 5% and 10%, and each empty hour can cost a practice hundreds of dollars. [4]
Your front desk team, no matter how dedicated, cannot manually manage this. They are busy answering phones, checking patients in, and managing insurance. They do not have time to manually text 10 people on a waitlist the second a cancellation occurs.
This is where your native Open Dental tools reach their limit. You need a system that works 24/7 to protect the cases you worked so hard to get.
Part 3: Beyond Reminders: How AI Supercharges Your Workflow
The next frontier of practice management is not just "reminders." It is automated, AI-driven patient communication that integrates directly with your Open Dental schedule. These platforms are not separate programs; they read and write data to and from Open Dental in real time to solve the three biggest drains on your revenue.
1. Proactive No-Show Reduction
Open Dental has its own eReminders, but modern AI platforms take this to a new level. They use predictive analytics to identify patients who are "high-risk" for no-showing (based on past behavior, time of booking, etc.). These patients can receive a different, more personal reminder cadence. Instead of a simple "confirm C," the system can engage them in a two-way text conversation, dramatically increasing the confirmation rate and giving you a chance to reschedule if they waver.
2. Automated Cancellation Filling (The "Magic")
This is the single most powerful function. This is what turns a day-saving "miracle" into a standard operating procedure. Here is the workflow:
A patient cancels an appointment for tomorrow at 10:00 AM.
Your staff member breaks the appointment in the Open Dental schedule.
The integrated AI instantly sees this open, high-value (e.g., crown prep) slot.
It automatically accesses your digital waitlist and texts the top 5 patients who are pre-tagged as wanting an earlier appointment.
The first patient to text back "Yes" automatically claims the spot.
The AI writes that patient's appointment directly into the Open Dental schedule and removes the other patients from the offer.
What just took your front desk 45 minutes of phone calls (if they even had the time) now happens in 45 seconds, without a single human touch. You have protected your production and filled your schedule, ensuring your accepted case actually gets done.
3. AI-Powered Patient Reactivation
What about the patients who said "yes" to treatment but never scheduled? Or those who completed Phase 1 but never returned for Phase 2?
This is the "lost" revenue sitting in your database. AI platforms excel at patient reactivation. They automatically scan your Open Dental patient records for diagnosed-but-unscheduled treatment plans.
Instead of your team running a manual report and making cold calls, the AI system automatically starts a personalized, long-term nurture campaign. It will send a friendly text: "Hi [Patient], Dr. Smith wanted me to check in. We still have that crown you discussed on your record. We have an opening next Tuesday, would you like to claim it?"
This automated, gentle persistence is incredibly effective. Some systems have shown they can reactivate a significant percentage of a practice's dormant patients, bringing in tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue that was previously written off as lost. [5] This is the final step in a true open dental case acceptance loop: ensuring that no "yes" is ever left behind.
Your 3-Step Strategy for a Modern Practice
Turning your Open Dental software into a true case acceptance machine requires a strategy that blends human touch with smart automation.
Master and Measure Your Foundation. Train your entire team on the right way to use the Treatment Plan module. Use saved plans, priorities, preauthorizations, and planned appointments. Crucially, use the "Presenter" field and review your "Treatment Presentation Statistics" report monthly.
Automate Your Gaps. Implement an integrated AI communication platform. Let it handle the 24/7/365 work of confirming appointments, filling last-minute cancellations, and reactivating dormant patients. This frees your team to focus on high-value, in-person patient interactions.
Execute and Train. Technology is only a tool. Your team must be trained on how to use these systems together. The verbal handoff is key: "Sarah at our front desk will get you scheduled for Phase 1. Our system will also send you a text reminder, and if an earlier spot opens up, it will let you know!"
Your Open Dental software is a powerful engine. But it needs a modern navigation and automation system to run at full capacity. By mastering your native tools, you can close more cases. By adding AI, you can ensure those cases actually make it to the chair.
Take the Next Step
Your Open Dental software is powerful, but it cannot fill your schedule on its own. If you are tired of watching accepted cases disappear due to no-shows, cancellations, and patient apathy, it is time for a new approach.
If you are ready to see how a fully integrated AI workflow can dramatically increase your realized case acceptance and practice profitability, contact us for a no-obligation consultation.
Sources
[1] Open Dental. "Boosting Case Acceptance and Tracking Results." URL: https://opendental.blog/boosting-case-acceptance-and-tracking-results/
[2] American Dental Association. "Patient Financing Options." URL: https://www.ada.org/resources/practice/practice-management/patient-financing-options
[3] Pearl AI. "9 practical tips to increase dental case acceptance rates." URL: https://hellopearl.com/blog/topic/9-practical-tips-to-increase-dental-case-acceptance-rates
[4] MGMA. "No-show fees in medical practices on the rise to balance bumpy attendance rates." URL: https://www.mgma.com/mgma-stat/no-show-fees-in-medical-practices-on-the-rise-to-balance-bumpy-attendance-rates
[5] DentalAIAssist. "AI Dental Communication Campaigns Software." URL: https://dentalaiassist.com/features/ai-dental-communication-campaigns
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