View Clinical Chart screen, view External Charting Entry screen. View Video, 10 min. 23 sec.

Charting External Items: Setting Tooth and Surface
All procedures and conditions require a tooth number (except for full dentures), and many require that a surface or surfaces be entered. For example, if you enter a 3 surface amalgam, you must enter both the tooth number and the surfaces in order for the charting program to display it. This is also true for conditions. If you are charting caries, you must enter a tooth number and the surfaces. If you are charting a missing tooth you must enter the tooth number.

Entering the tooth numbers for removable partial dentures is unique in that multiple tooth numbers are required. If you want a partial denture to display on the chart, you must enter the tooth numbers that the partial denture replaces. This can be in the form of tooth numbers separated by commas, or a tooth range. For example, a partial dental replacing teeth 2 and 3 and 12 through 15 can be entered as 2,3,12-15 or 2,3,12,13,14,15. Either is acceptable. This applies to posting externally through the chart’s posting program and internally through Diamond Dental’s regular posting screen.

Charting External items: Setting the Date
When the External Charting Entry screen opens, the date of the item to be posted is set to “Pre-Existing” by default. When you select Pre-Existing as the date, you are saying that you are not sure (and maybe don’t care) what the actual date is for a certain procedure or condition that appears in the mouth. You are only sure that it already existed when the patient presented himself or herself to you. If you are sure of the date, uncheck the Pre-Existing checkbox. Today’s date will appear in the date field. You may modify the date by directly changing it or by using the drop down calendar to the right of the date field.

When charting conditions for returning patients, you might want to use this date field to indicate when a condition was first observed. For example, assume a patient’s last appointment was six months ago and all their treatment was completed at that time. She comes in today and you observe caries on the mesial of tooth 19. You could chart the caries using today’s date since this is the date it was first observed.

Charting External Items: Resolution Date (conditions only)
On the sample of this sample of the External Charting Entry screen seen, a condition is selected, and therefore a Resolution Date field is displayed. This field only applies to conditions and does not display for procedures. For example, if you had charted mesial caries on tooth 19 on June 10, and June 15 you performed and MOD amalgam on tooth 19, the caries would have been resolved when the filling was done. Therefore the resolution date for the caries would be June 15. The caries time period for displaying on the chart will be from June 10, when it was first observed, to June 15, when the caries were resolved. If the chart date is set within that date range, the caries will display. If the chart date is set either before or after that date range, the caries will not display. If a condition is unresolved, the Unresolved checkbox will be check and the word “Unresolved” will be in the Resolution Date field.