It is important to also have at least one appointment scheduled for a patient before they leave. That appointment can either be a treatment appointment or a preventative care visit. That way, we will get them back in another time. It is easy to fall out of the routine of coming if there are not continuous appointments.
When you are being handed off a patient, they will tell you what appointments need to be scheduled, but you can also find it in the bottom portion of the routing slip. (see below)
If the patient leaves the office with no treatment appointment scheduled (if they need Doctor treatment), then they are added to the planned appointment list.
Above is a view from the Chart section in Open Dental. You can see that this patient did not schedule the fillings that the Doctor recommended. Pt then was added to the planned appt list with a call date that lists 1 week after we last seen him.
