The words “come next week” sound clear during treatment. A week later, the clinic may not remember whether the patient was due for obturation, crown preparation, a review or only a payment discussion.
Separate treatment status from visit status
A patient can complete today’s visit while the overall treatment remains ongoing. Those are different facts.
- Visit completed: today’s clinical work is finished.
- Treatment ongoing: more sittings or lab steps are required.
- Treatment completed: no further clinical work is planned for that treatment.
This separation prevents completed visits from disappearing while the larger case still needs attention.
Record what happened at every sitting
Each sitting should preserve four details:
- what was completed today,
- what remains,
- whether a lab or healing interval is involved, and
- the next clinical action.
“Access opening completed; working length recorded; next sitting for biomechanical preparation in 5–7 days” is more useful than “RCT sitting 1.”
Choose the next date before the patient leaves
A vague follow-up often becomes a missed follow-up. When the next visit depends on healing, lab delivery or doctor availability, record a target date or date range and the reason.
Where the patient cannot confirm immediately, create a due follow-up rather than relying on a handwritten note or personal reminder.
Create one view for overdue treatment
Overdue cases should be prioritised by clinical need, not only by age. A delayed crown delivery, post-operative review and unfinished root canal do not carry the same urgency.
| Follow-up type | What the clinic should see |
|---|---|
| Scheduled sitting | Date, procedure and doctor. |
| Lab-dependent case | Lab step, expected return and patient contact status. |
| Clinical review | Reason for review and recommended interval. |
| Overdue ongoing treatment | Last sitting, pending work and contact attempts. |
Do not confuse pending treatment with pending payment
A treatment may be clinically complete with money still due. It may also be financially settled while clinical sittings remain. Keep both statuses visible.
When the patient pays during an ongoing case, apply the amount to that existing treatment. Do not create a second treatment merely because money was collected on a later sitting.
Follow-up checklist
- Record the outcome of every sitting.
- Keep visit and treatment status separate.
- Schedule or mark the next action before checkout.
- Track lab-dependent cases separately.
- Review overdue ongoing treatments every week.
- Keep clinical completion separate from payment completion.
- Document contact attempts for patients who do not return.
Make the next sitting visible before today ends.
CapDent connects treatment progress, follow-up dates, appointments and payments to the same patient record.
Open CapDent on Google Play