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Why Choose ADSTRA Dental Software?

As a dental professional, choosing a dental practice management software for your dental practice is a significant task. You want to ensure that the selected software solution is cost-effective, is going to make the lives of you and your staff easier, will save you time on mundane tasks; giving you more time to interact with patients, and essentially, will allow you to work efficiently and effectively.

ADSTRA Dental Software is focused on providing its users high quality product and services and was specifically designed to satisfy all these core requirements.

ADSTRA Dental Software has been chosen by numerous dental offices because it is:

  • Trusted Solution: ADSTRA Dental Software has been used by new as well as established dental practices since 1994. For more than 20 years, the Canadian Forces Dental Health Services has been using ADSTRA Dental Software in their state-of-the-art health care information system that helps provide high quality oral care
  • Flexible and Scalable: ADSTRA is a leading software developer that provides an integrated dental software solution which has an intuitive, user-friendly interface with tools for managing all aspects of patient care with both on-premise and cloud-based options for dental clinics with multiple locations, as well as individual practices
  • Financially Efficient: ADSTRA Dental Software is a cost-effective, all-in-one solution for managing your dental practice, with no hidden fees, small up-front costs, affordable monthly fees, no cancellation fees, and no long-term contracts
  • All-Inclusive Solution: ADSTRA Premium subscription includes the ADSTRA Management, ADSTRA Clinical and ADSTRA Imaging modules and covers installation, configuration, initial training, upgrades, training for new features and staff as well as unlimited support
  • Secure and Private: ADSTRA Cloud has advanced privacy and security features, and is hosted on the enterprise-grade cloud computing platform – Microsoft Azure
  • Paperless System: ADSTRA Dental Software is a fully integrated solution that provides you the means to computerize all aspects of patient information, resulting in increased efficiency, case acceptance, and new patients
  • SMS Integration: Automatic and personalized SMS appointment confirmations and reminders with COVID screening forms can be sent to patients allowing them to confirm their appointments from their cell phone
  • Numerous Devices: ADSTRA Imaging integrates with imaging devices from multiple manufacturers, giving you the freedom to choose
  • Continuous Improvement: ADSTRA Dental Software offers a best-in-class solution due to continuous product development, and implementation of enhancements suggested by users
ADSTRA strives to provide the optimal practice management software solution for your dental practice, with a financially efficient, all-inclusive, secure and private software suite that is continuously improving.
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To get started on making ADSTRA the solution for your practice, contact us today to book a no obligation demo for ADSTRA Dental Software!
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How ADSTRA Cloud Dental Software Can Help Dreams Come True

Many dream of opening their own dental practice with the hopes of finding a safe and secure solution that will make the process as simple and efficient as possible. Today, majority of new practice owners opt for a cloud-based solution right from the beginning, and others decide to make the switch after years of being paper-based.

As technology has developed over the years, we have come a long way from when 56K modems were used to dial-in to the internet, or even further back to where everything was paper-based. In these times there were stacks of papers, and numerous files of treatments, notes, billing, reference letters and more laying around. Now, everything is stored on computers…what a change.

cloud dental software

When new practice owners are considering opening a practice they may want to invest in either a single clinic or multiple clinics that offer a variety of specialized treatments and a wide variety of services for patients. With this, it is important they do some research and find a safe and secure solution that is easy-to-use and contains the ability to have their database accessible in multiple locations. Upon their search results, they will come across ADSTRA Dental Software – a provider known to make the switch easier.

ADSTRA Dental Software has offered ADSTRA Cloud, a cloud-based version of their software for years. This solution provides the capability to store databases on a remote server which is hosted on Microsoft Azure, the most powerful cloud service platform in the world. Moreover, with ADSTRA Cloud a new practice owner would not have to worry about the additional costs associated with hardware, as well as servers as they are not required. With ADSTRA Cloud one will be able to access their software and database over the internet, from anywhere and on any device – one of the biggest advantages of this solution.

Additionally, ADSTRA Cloud also offers the opportunity to simultaneously share ones database with several of their locations, providing the management team global reports as well as reports for each location.

The idea of migrating to a cloud system interests practice owners for a couple of reasons. One is that they would not need to divest some of their older computers, and two is that this platform is compatible with tablets, allowing them to utilize all of their devices.

Since ADSTRA Cloud is accessible on a remote server, the main requirement needed is a fast and reliable Internet connection. Just as easy as browsing the Internet, one could access their software by simply connecting to their remote server database and logging in with their individual user IDs.

The ADSTRA Cloud dental software solution is a complete paperless system that also connects multiple locations with one database – which is exactly what one needs in order to start building their dream dental practice.

ADSTRA Cloud Paperless Dental Software Solution

For over 20 years, ADSTRA Dental Software has been a leading provider of paperless dental software. During this time, ADSTRA was selected by Lockheed Martin Canada to supply the paperless dental software component for the Canadian Department of National Defence’s state-of-the-art health care system.

To satisfy their users’ needs to access the same database from multiple locations, ADSTRA developed their cloud solution in 2015 which combined their three successful modules: ADSTRA Management, Clinical and Imaging, creating ADSTRA Cloud.

Choosing to partner with Microsoft Azure, the industry leader in cloud solutions ensured that ADSTRA Cloud would provide the highest standard for a safe and secure cloud-based paperless dental software solution.

ADSTRA Paperless Dental Software Cloud

ADSTRA’s one-stop solution also has the advantage of scalability offering an ideal paperless dental software set-up for small and large offices alike, and useful to either single or multi-location practices.

The three main components work seamlessly to encompass all computer needs based on the area of responsibility for each staff member.

ADSTRA Management provides the ability to run the administrative aspect of your dental practice smoothly and without the need for paper documents. Appointments, Financial Records, Patient Communication, Insurance Claims and even SMS Reminders are just a click away.

ADSTRA Imaging is flexible and scalable – capable of working with a variety of dental imaging devices providing a solution that is sure to meet your imaging needs. The various dental treatment infographics that are included in ADSTRA Imaging can be effectively used to improve patient knowledge and understanding of treatments, and increase case acceptances. Moreover, reports for referring dentists can be created with just a few clicks, increasing your overall efficiency and effectiveness.

ADSTRA Clinical allows charting patients’ examinations, odontograms and perio exams and recording dental treatments and treatment plans. Templates can be easily used within ADSTRA Clinical, minimizing the need for manual input. In addition, new exams start with the patients’ previous chart, simplifying the process with only new conditions needing to be charted. Furthermore, ADSTRA Clinical works seamlessly with ADSTRA Management and ADSTRA Imaging: users can view images from ADSTRA Imaging side-by-side with patient’s appointments from ADSTRA Management.

ADSTRA Dental Software provides the optimal cloud-based paperless dental software solution for your dental practice software needs by combining the capabilities of the three main ADSTRA Dental Software modules with the safety and security of Microsoft managed servers hosted on the Microsoft Azure platform.

Implement the ADSTRA cloud-based paperless solution in your dental practice, and experience all the benefits it has to offer.

ADSTRA Dental Software – Providing An Integrated Solution For Over 20 Years

ADSTRA provides the total package, which satisfies the paperless dental software needs of today’s modern dental practice.

For over 20 years, ADSTRA has been a renowned provider of dental software. As a respected leader in the dental software field – the ADSTRA integrated dental software solution has been used by small dental practices, multi-location dental clinics, and government agencies alike since 1994.

ADSTRA Dental Software

Over the years, ADSTRA has developed a paperless dental software solution that includes every element necessary to run your dental practice smoothly.

ADSTRA dental software contains many different tools to help organize dental practice operations, including, but not limited to:

  • Odontogrammes;
  • User-definable templates for patient forms;
  • Direct connectivity with imaging devices;
  • One-click printing and side-by-side image comparison;
  • A customizable appointment book with drag-and-drop rescheduling;
  • SMS appointment confirmation;
  • Role-base access control, and much more.

Now, with the popular monthly payment plan – you can access the full suite of the ADSTRA paperless dental software modules (ADSTRA Management, ADSTRA Clinical, and ADSTRA Imaging) and have access to unlimited technical support and training – all for one affordable monthly fee, with no up-front capital investment!

Track Appointments and Receivables with ADSTRA Management

Track appointments in the appointment book with multiple capabilities; appointments can be booked by team; search available time; appointments history; and access advanced analytics with more than 100 reports and charts.

Go Paperless with ADSTRA Clinical

Create odontogrammes based on previously charted conditions; minimize typing with clinical notes templates; define multiple treatment plans with tasks by priority order – and much more.

Enjoy the Flexibility of ADSTRA Imaging

Combine devices from multiple manufacturers including: Schick, Planmeca, Sirona, Air Techniques, and Carestream (Kodak).

Connect Every Element of your Practice with ADSTRA Clinical

Communicate with each other in the office with instant messages; unify and organize patient’s documents, forms, and letters; and track inventory for consumables and equipment.

Flexibility is key when it comes to choosing the right paperless dental software for your dental practice needs. As such, your dental practice can choose to have the ADSTRA paperless dental software installed locally or have it hosted on Microsoft’s data centers and accessible via the Cloud on any device (PCs, MACs, as well as tablets).

Included in the monthly payment plan are: installation, training, and support – again, with NO need for any up-front capital investment.

Contact an ADSTRA Customer Care Specialist today to see how your dental practice can step into the modern world, utilizing the ADSTRA paperless dental software solution.

Keep Your Data Safe and Secure With ADSTRA Dental Software

ADSTRA Dental Software is now available as a cloud-based solution for your dental practice. This cloud solution is a safe and modern solution to your dental clinic’s needs.

In a day and age where everything you could imagine is available via the cloud – people are often left wondering what the benefits are to buying software, apps, music, movies, and more, in this way. Dental software, and really – all software companies, are striving to develop cloud computing solutions that offer the consumer countless benefits. But what exactly are the benefits to a cloud-based dental software solution?

Cloud Computing Offers “Insurance”

Owning a physical copy of something is a way of the past. What would happen if you were to lose all your CDs? You’d have to go and replace them, right? Now let’s say instead of having physical CD’s – you just purchase and download your music. You can’t lose something if it’s in the Cloud. The same situation can be applied to your data. What would happen if your dental clinic had a flood or a fire? All those paper charts and your computers themselves would be destroyed. Do you have a procedure in place to recover all of your patient’s data now? If your patient’s data was stored on the Cloud – all you would need to do is login from any computer to access it again.

ADSTRA Dental Software Cloud

The ADSTRA Dental Software cloud-based solution, ADSTRA Cloud, is hosted on a safe and secure remote server. This allows you to have the ability to access your data from anywhere on any computer or handheld device (phones and tablets).

ADSTRA Dental Software uses Microsoft Azure – the most secure platform in the world

Microsoft Azure is used by many companies, large and small, as the host on their cloud solutions, and ADSTRA Dental Software is one of them. Using advanced encryptions methods and meeting the highest safety standards, Microsoft Azure is recognized as the most secure platform in the world and has methods in place for protecting you against the loss or theft of your data.

With ADSTRA Cloud:

·         Your data is safe and secure ·         You have access to your software from anywhere
·         Your backups are done automatically ·         You do not need to invest in or manage servers
·         Your security needs are met ·         You get access to the latest version of the ADSTRA Dental Software
Protecting Patient Privacy Is A Must

Working in the healthcare industry – dental providers have access to a lot of confidential information about all of their patients. It goes without saying that they have a duty to protect this information and ensure it is all securely stored. Recently the in the US, The Office for Civil Rights’ sanctioned a private oncology clinic for negligence because an employee had her laptop stolen which contained unencrypted data for 55 000 patients. With a dental software solution like ADSTRA Cloud, this whole situation could have been avoided. Since all of the patient data is not hosted locally on each computer but instead on a safe and secure on a remote Microsoft managed server, the loss of the computer does not the confidential patient data at risk.

The ADSTRA Dental Software cloud solution, ADSTRA Cloud – is an affordable solution for dental clinics of any size. Partnered with the security of Microsoft Azure, ADSTRA Cloud is the ideal dental software solution for your dental practice.

CONTACT us today to learn how ADSTRA Cloud can help your modern dental practice become more efficient.

Getting a Bigger Bang for your Buck with your Dental Software

“There’s gold in them thar hills, boys” is a phrase attributed to one of Mark Twain’s characters. In California during its “Gold Rush” period, Twain kept hearing a story from the miners who had come from Georgia. It seems in an attempt to keep the miners in Georgia an assayer of the Dahlonega Mint in Dahlonega, Georgia stood in the town square and proclaimed “Why go to California? In that ridge (as he pointed to the hills surrounding Dahlonega) lies more gold than man ever dreamt of. There’s millions in it.” Now, whether Twain used a writer’s license and deliberately changed the original quote or it was misquoted to him from the beginning makes no difference to the topic at hand. Both, Twain’s quote and the origins for it apply in getting more out of your dental software.

Beneath the routine day to day tasks of billing, scheduling appointments and providing daily reports, lies informational gold. This information allows your office to provide your patients with superior service which in turn strengthens your relationship with them. Stronger relationships mean more referrals and an increase in revenue. Your software should be able to track these referrals and remind you to thank your patients for them. Even better your software should offer you a means to send out these thank you notes either by mail or e-mail.

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Other ways that your dental software can help automate your office and help provide better service thereby increasing your revenue:
  • Following up on uncompleted treatment and unscheduled treatments for which predeterminations have been completed
  • Tracking and reminding the front desk personnel of cancelled appointments which have not been rescheduled
  • Providing reminders of recall appointments whether scheduled or not
  • Confirmation of upcoming appointments either by phone, email or text message
  • Tracking insurance benefits so as to be in a position to provide treatment reminders at appropriate times for your patients’ financial benefit
  • Keeping track of patients with open treatment plans but no appointments
  • Generating a list of patients with balances over 60 days old
  • Sending welcome packages to new patients and birthday wishes to existing ones
  • Sorting patients’ names by relevant information such as employer, date of last treatment, or type of treatment required

In addition to providing you with more revenue through tracking and providing reminders for cancelled and missed appointments, unscheduled recall and predeterminations, as well as increased patient referral, integration of your dental software will reduce administrative errors and provide greater management control with fewer front desk hours.

There is an axiom in software development called the 90/10 rule and it stands for 90% of any software users will only ever use 10% of the software’s capabilities. Although the percentage may vary from software to software, I have found this axiom to be quite true. Even in software as specialized as dental software, I have noticed that most offices do not take full advantage of most of what their dental software has to offer. After learning the basics of entering patient information, billing and booking appointments they get caught up in the day to day operations. They will not take the time to look into other ways that the software can help them not only manage their current patients but get new ones.

Remember to look for the potential untapped value that your software can bring to your dental practice, and find the gold laying just beneath the surface.

How Using Microsoft Word Templates Can Allow You To See More Patients

Writing consultation reports can be a time consuming, daunting task. Most reports are done using Microsoft Word and when using Microsoft Word templates to write them the task becomes every so slightly less onerous. Going a step further, imaging software that has a user-centric design and deep level integration with Microsoft Word can make report writing a breeze. In the case of dentists, this allows them to save time in the writing of referrals or reports so that they may see and spend more time with their patients.

Microsoft Word templates are a great tool for any type of document that has a standard format and is needed often. Microsoft Word templates will have predefined page layouts, fonts, margins and styles. They can have recommended sections or required text as well as content controls such as a predefined drop-down list or a special logo. You can Google and find thousands of different types of templates already created for Microsoft Word.

But what most people don’t know is – how easy it is to create their own Microsoft Word templates.

Microsoft Word Templates

Getting Started with Microsoft Word Templates

The best way to start, is to analyse which documents are created most often, and if there are sections of the document that are always similar in content and/or format. They are good candidates for becoming a template for use in the future. Once you find one, open it in Microsoft Word, go to the File menu and choose the option Save As. Give it an appropriate name and change the Save As type to Document Template.

Congratulations! You have just created your first template if you have never done it before.

Well not exactly, what you’ll want to do next is get rid of all the parts of the document that aren’t always the same, leaving you spaces to fill in as you need for each unique case. You could have areas of empty space that you type into or drop-down boxes with fixed selections or even check boxes. Many great how-to articles can be found on the Internet, on Microsoft’s own Office site or videos on YouTube. Just remember to look for ones that are using the same version of Microsoft Word as the one that you are using, as features both old and new and ways of adding them to the template can change with each version of Microsoft Word.

Would it not be great if you could open a patient file in your dental imaging software, and quickly associate both the patient information and images needed for a particular report or referral in a ready to send document? ADSTRA Imaging does have this ability.

Microsoft Word Templates and ADSTRA Imaging

By directly interfacing with Microsoft Word templates, ADSTRA Imaging allows you to create or modify templates that will import all relevant information like patient name, date of birth, provider’s name, practice name, and practice address, and it will also import specified patient images from ADSTRA Imaging directly into the Microsoft Word templates eliminating even more typing and importing of images into reports or referrals.

This is easily done through ADSTRA Imaging, on the Menu under File there is the Word Template option. This then gives you the option to open a Predefined template, Create New template, or Edit an existing template. The first option is the simplest because all that needs to be done is have the patient for the report selected in ADSTRA Imaging, open and highlight the desired images used in the document, and select the correct template. The only thing left to do is to make any adjustments in the document that are unique to this patient. The second and third options are similar. One allows you to create a new Microsoft Word template from scratch or from an already existing template. The other allows you to edit or modify an already created Microsoft Word template.

The only difference when creating or editing Microsoft Word templates when opened through ADSTRA Imaging, is the availability of a container toolbar that allows you to place the predefined elements that will be received from ADSTRA Imaging into the Microsoft Word templates.

As an example, you have a document that normally requires two images that are coming from a patient file in ADSTRA Imaging. You create the remainder of the template as per normal but, to indicate where the first image will be placed on the document, you click on the Image Container button on the container toolbar. A little window will open indicating the image number one and will have options for you to select for orientation and what image properties you would like to include with the image. Once you click OK, a template with two boxes will appear. The top box is the area where the image will go and the bottom box will be the area that will display any image properties that you selected. Both boxes can be dragged and resized anywhere on your template. You then repeat the above process for the second image. Once completed, whenever you select two images in ADSTRA Imaging and open this template, your document will have the two selected images placed and sized exactly as you wanted when you created the template.

Using Microsoft Word templates through ADSTRA Imaging is extremely beneficial to busy clinicians as it significantly increases the efficiency of preparing consultation reports. A little time spent upfront in creating a template for a document needed often should pay dividends many times over, thus allowing dental providers to spend less time writing referral reports and more time to seeing their patients.

Cloud Technology Helps Dental Clinics Provide Better Care

Because of better education about the benefit of good oral health when it comes to their overall physical well being, regular visits to dental clinics have become a way of life for North Americans over the past several decades. Patient demand and growing customer expectations from sectors outside of healthcare has led to a change in the way dentists do business. As a result, they are expanding their once modest clinics into large, modern, consumer-friendly facilities, and using the most advanced technological equipment available. Competition among practices is strong, and the pressure is on to present an appealing storefront while adopting cutting edge technology in order to attract clients. To complement the superior level of care dentists now strive to provide for their patients, many are turning to cloud-based technologies that streamline and modernize office procedures, unify multi-locations and reduce cost and complexity of delivering better customer service.

Cloud Technology

Since the 80s, the focus of dental care has changed to hygiene and oral health screening – in other words, preventive medicine – resulting in a markedly decreased need for extractions, fillings and dentures. This, however, has not led to fewer visits to the dentist, but rather increased demand for enhanced procedures. Canadians are well aware of the health and social impacts of neglecting their teeth and gums, and are willing to invest time and money to ensure the best treatment plans possible, including cosmetic dentistry, implants, orthodontics, and geriatric dentistry. Practitioners have responded by diversifying and expanding, which allows them to offer a comprehensive range of services to their patients. As a result, dental clinics – with a full complement of hygienists, general practitioners, periodontists, oral and maxillofacial radiologists, etc. – are busier than ever before.

INVESTING IN THE OVERALL GOOD HEALTH OF CLINICAL PRACTICES

With the cost of opening a new practice costing well in excess of half-a-million dollars, savvy practitioners are pooling their resources to equip and staff large clinics instead, enabling them to provide the greatest range of procedures and services to the greatest number of people. Instead of having to refer patients to outside resources, specialists are located within the practice, providing a convenient service to customers as well as keeping business in-house, even if at a different physical location. Patients are comfortable knowing that their care is under the supervision of one practitioner, and that they can rely on established standards of practice across all clinics.

TREND TO DIGITAL MEETS PATIENT DEMAND

Of necessity, there has been a significant shift in the way clinics handle business. Today’s modern multi-location clinics require an integrated system that enables them to operate as a single entity with multiple branches in order to run effectively.

This is a trend that has grown beyond dentistry and is now seen across all medical professionals who are replacing single location solutions or paper-based operations with comprehensive digital platforms. It enables more streamlined workflow processes, shared information, and at-a-glance analytics which help keep their respective businesses strong and successful.

In the past, accomplishing a successful integration was not an easy task. Essentially, a software solution and a very powerful hardware infrastructure requiring significant IT manpower and budget had to be custom built. Now, utilizing the most powerful cloud service platform in the world – Microsoft Azure ADSTRA is able to deliver a total integrated solution designed specifically for dental clinics.

Microsoft Azure is being used by thousands of companies around the world, including Fortune 500 companies as well as medical records companies, which are putting actionable data in the hands of clinicians and healthcare providers.

Dental clinics across North America have relied on ADSTRA since 1994 for managing their day-to-day operations.  For more than a decade, one large branch of government, with over 100,000 employees, has been using ADSTRA to manage more than 30 dental clinics around the world, making it simple and easy to treat any employee from any location. All patient records, x-rays and other pertinent information are available to every clinic, saving time, reducing costs and, more importantly, enhancing the level of patient care for this agency.

PAPERLESS, MULTI-LOCATION DENTAL PRACTICES UTILIZE MICROSOFT AZURE CLOUD PLATFORM

ADSTRA has a proven solution that provides dental professionals with efficient, paperless patient management, appointment scheduling, charting, imaging, financials, and communications.

Intuitive and easy to use, the colourful graphic interface allows users to:

  • Easily schedule appointments at any location, administer patient records, set up billing and payments, and prepare reports across all locations;
  • Create odontogrammes for existing conditions as well as perform and plan treatment;
  • Capture, organize and enhance images from digital equipment such as cameras and radiographic devices, and share with branch clinics and specialists;
  • Communicate with other departments/locations via messaging or text;
  • Access data from multiple locations using computers, tablets, or mobile devices.

An all-inclusive maintenance service is another strength of ADSTRA’s Cloud offering. The software is pre-installed and configured, interactive software training and support is provided on-demand, and all software updates are automatically applied.

“Because it is flexible and scalable and adheres to the most stringent privacy and security regulations, the Microsoft Azure cloud infrastructure is ideally suited for multi-location practices that previously had no commercial product available to them,” says Viviana Bardea, Director of Software Development. “And it is incredibly cost efficient. With no upfront capital outlay and dramatically reduced licensing costs, money otherwise spent on servers, networking, software and support can be rolled back into the business instead.”

Trends in dental care are changing. It’s time to start the conversation about how the infinite power of the Microsoft Azure cloud combined with ADSTRA’s proven expertise in information management systems for oral healthcare can help your dental clinics face the future.