Dental Sleep Medicine Insider April 2016 | Página 19

It takes about 90 seconds to complete. Since I do not yet have an every day presence in the practice, I tweaked it to accomplish two goals: 1) Give me the information needed to enter them into the DS3 software, and 2) have enough health-related information on the form that I did not have to access EagleSoft to get to a decision about their need for sleep testing. It works very well. In the normal practice the DS3 screening tool is also very powerful. enrolled four practices comprising thirteen physicians in our first month. We are also referring our patients who do not have primary care physicians to them. It’s truly a win-win situation. “In all, we enrolled four practices comprising thirteen physicians in our first month.” Brandie: How has DS3 helped you (if at all)? INTERVIEWED BY Brandie Havell Senior Account Manager [email protected] 877.95.SNORE “In the first two weeks we identified 28 patients who needed sleep testing and 2 who were CPAP intolerant. This when I knew I had to do this and this alone, for the rest of my career.” Brandie: I hear a lot from dentists about the difficulty in identifying potential MD collaborators. How did you achieve success in that area? Dr. Johnson: We had referral forms printed and an introductory letter generated by DS3. We started with our personal physicians and those of our spouses. My wife had a chat with the receptionist of her internist, and we had the first referral two days later. In one case I had a relationship with a Nurse Practitioner who saw my father often in a cardiology group of seven doctors. We met with him and created a great way to go in the “back door” of a practice where it was like herding cats to get in front of the doctors. We sold him on the benefits, and now he, rather than we, is selling the benefits of our services to the doctors. In all, we 19 Dr. Johnson: I do not believe I could have implemented an effective dental sleep medicine program without the DS3 software; it is the center of our sleep medicine practice. I have been a user of dental-related software since 1986. This is the best thought-out and most result-centered software I have ever encountered. It was designed to overcome the major barrier confronting all dentists who wish to practice dental sleep medicine: implementation. Treating OSA in the dental setting is easy; getting paid for it is hard. The software and the support staff make a very difficult task a whole lot easier. “Treating OSA in the dental setting is easy; getting paid for it is hard. The software and the support staff make a very difficult task a whole lot easier.”