View Clinical Chart screen. View Video, 10 min. 23 sec.

Conditions (displayed as Red)
Conditions are special charting symbols that are not posted through the regular Posting screen. These items do not have ADA procedures codes as defined in the Current Dental Terminology (CDT) code book. Conditions include such things as Open Margin, Food Impaction, Caries, Periapical Radiolucency, Torsiversion, Buccoversion, and many more. The Clinical Chart has its own screen for posting Conditions modeled after the regular Posting screen. Condition posting will be discussed shortly. Conditions are red in color.

These symbol categories can be shown and hidden by clicking the associated checkbox seen in the lower left of the Clinical Chart when the Chart Settings tab is selected. This tab is selected by default. Finished, In-Progress and Conditions are checked by default and display when the chart opens.  The Proposed procedure category is unchecked by default and Proposed procedures do not appear when the chart opens. To view Proposed procedures you must check the Proposed checkbox.

Display Pre-Existing
The Pre-Existing checkbox that is also present under the Chart Settings tab is a special category. The Clinical Chart has its own posting program that allows you to enter Conditions into the chart such as caries, root fracture, impacted tooth, etc. In addition, the Clinical Chart also allows you to post dental procedures that were performed outside of your own office. We call these External procedures. When posting conditions or external procedures you are asked to give the item a date. Since it is quite likely that you will not know the date for these items, you may indicate in the date field that the item was simply Pre-Existing. For instance, the patient comes to you for the first time, and you see existing dental work and dental conditions. You may chart these using the Pre-Existing date item. Pre-Existing items may be displayed or hidden by clicking the Pre-Existing checkbox under the Chart Setting tab seen in the lower left of the chart.

The Abbreviation Box
Above each upper tooth and below each lower tooth is that tooth’s Abbreviation Box. Each box can display up to 4 abbreviations for the symbols that are displayed for that tooth. In this Abbreviation Box example, tooth number 2 shows an MOD amalgam and a mesial Overhanging Margin. The blue color of the amalgam indicates that it is a completed procedure and the red color of the overhanging margin indicates that it was posted through the charting program itself as a condition. Tooth number 3 displays a root fracture, a Periapical radiolucency, and a crown using high noble metal. The bar connecting it to tooth number 4 indicates it is connected as part of a bridge, and is therefore a crown abutment. Tooth number 4 is a porcelain pontic. Now if you checked the chart ledger, you would see that the full description for tooth number 4 is “Pontic-Porcelain, High Noble Metal”. The abbreviation has limited space and is worded to give the best description it can in the space available. Notice the pattern of the all-metal crown of tooth 3 is distinguishable from the outwardly porcelain pontic and crown on teeth 4 and 5. The patterns will help you identify that different materials were used for these procedures. Likewise, the amalgam on tooth 2 is solid, whereas a resin would be cross-hatched. The bar connecting 3 to 4 and 4 to 5 indicate that these teeth are all connected in one bridge. Tooth number 6 is a porcelain crown but its green color lets you know that it is only proposed, and does not yet appear in the mouth.