Dental-only patient
From Thousand Smiles Wiki
A dental-only patient is a patient who is not a candidate for cleft surgery. These patients are not processed along with the cleft patients. Meaning, they are not lined up outside of the clinic, do not get registered at the computers, they do not get a regular chart, and are not triaged. Ten dental-only patients are selected outside by the Ensenada Centenaria Rotary Club wives group and brought to the Dental Scheduling Desk at the foot of the stairway. The person in charge of that desk asks if the patient has been treated at a prior clinic. If yes, the patients prior dental chart is pulled and checked to see if the x rays are less than 2 years old.. If this is the first visit by the patient he or she will be given a new dental chart and sent to x-ray. Likewise if the returning patient's x rays are more than 2 years old, they will be sent to x ray to have new ones taken. The charts are put in one of 2 baskets, one for x rays and one for patients ready to take the next available dental chair. The patients and their families are sent to the central patio to wait. The x ray tech picks up the charts from the x ray basket and calls the patients in from the patio by name, takes the x rays, sends the patient back to the patio and returns the chart to the Dental Scheduling Desk. These are then put in the basket of charts of patients ready for dental. Dental patient charts are selected from this basket as dental chairs become available. The patients are called by name in the patio and taken up to the dental department usually by a runner who gives the chart to the attending dentist. When the dentist is finished with the patient, he will make notes in the chart and return it to the Dental Scheduling Desk along with return appointment suggestions to be passed on to the responsible adult accompanying the patient. The dental-only charts are kept in blue folders and filed by clinic date at the Dental Scheduling Desk. These patients are seen on Friday in the order of their arrival as time permits (cleft patients having priority). Those who cannot be attended to on Friday are given the first appointments on Saturday starting between 8:00 and 9:00AM. There are some special groups of children brought in from orphanages or schools in low income neighborhoods. These patients usually arrive around 10:30 or 11:00AM and are processed exactly the same as described above with the exception that the charts are put in yellow colored folders. The objective is to have treated all of the blue folder patients who were not treated Friday by the time the yellow folder groups show up. At this time the person usually in charge of the Dental Scheduling is Gloria Chalfa. Dental-only patients or groups should not be scheduled without prior approval from the Dental Director who at this time is Dr. Irwin
See also Dental Patient Control
