After a Conversion

Every conversion has a specific conversion date. That date should be very very clear to everyone in the office. All procedures that were performed before that date should continue to be handled in the old system. All procedures performed on or after that date should be handled in Open Dental.

For example, a week after the conversion, you realize that you forgot to send a claim for some procedures that were performed last month. Whether or not the procedures themselves were part of a successful conversion, you would not want to send the claim from Open Dental. Instead, handle it the old way. If you previously filled out claims with a pen, then do that. If your old system printed claims for you, then enter the claim in the old system.

Any claim payments that come back in for procedures performed before the conversion date should be entered first into the old system. This allows you to track the statuses of your old claims. Otherwise, you will never know which ones have not been received. After entering the payment into the old system, the starting balance for the patient will have changed. Make an adjustment in Open Dental for the payment amount in order to correct the patient balance. The payment itself should not show in Open Dental.