Good morning all,
The OHCWA policy regarding missed, cancelled or late patient appointments, or non-responsiveness, has been updated. Please read and review the attached policy. The IT team is in the process of uploading this new document to the OHCWA Sharepoint (Admin Policies).
OHCWA now reserves the right to cease patient treatment if they miss more than 2 appointments within 12 calendar months, or if they reschedule at short notice more than 3 times within 12 calendar months. There will be compassionate exceptions to these numbers, however in order to ensure that you make the most of your clinical time these guidelines should be followed.
Please review your patient list for any patients that may meet the above criteria, and contact your Student Clinic Coordinator to confirm that they should be discharged. They will then email the reception team with the request to remove them from the patient list. If you have any concerns regarding a request to discharge a patient, these can be directed to the Clinical Operations Manager, Dr Michelle Huang, via email.
Patient documentation is an important step in this process. All booked patient appointments must have an item charged through - this is audited by the Department of Health. If a patient misses their appointment or cancels on the day, please enter either a MA - Missed appointment, or CA - Cancelled appointment code and have this approved and charged through by your tutor on the day.
All communications such as attempted phone calls should be documented in the Notes tab on Titanium by adding a new patient note. This can be used as evidence of attempts to contact, and is also good practice for documenting patient interactions. The note can be brief - “Attempted to call mobile, no response. Unable to leave voicemail”.
Please contact me if you have any questions regarding this updated document, or the above-described procedures.
Kind regards,
Dr. Lisa Bowdin BDSc, DClinDent (Paed Dent), MRACDS (Paed Dent), FICD, FPFA
Specialist Paediatric Dentist
Interim DMD Course Coordinator
Senior Lecturer, Paediatric Dentistry
UWA Dental School M512
17 Monash Ave, Nedlands WA 6009 Australia