Practice Management is the application area that most dentists are interested in. In this chapter, you learn how to manage various administrative aspects of your practice using computers. These include patient data management, billing, insurance processing, scheduling and inventory management. The chapter discusses several major existing practice management systems.

Practice Management will include the following chapters:

Patient data management
- Basic patient data - individual - family

Billing and insurance processing
- Overview of billing and insurance processing
- ADA codes
- Cash billing
- Predeterminations
- Insurance claim submission - submitting paper claims - submitting electronic claims

Financial management
- Basic accounting principles
- Accounts receivable
- Accounts payable
- Account aging
- Collections

Scheduling
- Paper-based scheduling
- When does computer-based scheduling make sense
- Options for scheduling (shared calendar, built into practice management application, by patient through practice Web site)
- Intelligent scheduling programs

Inventory management
- Why manage inventory
- Microcosting
- Online ordering from suppliers
- Reorder points
- Automatic reordering