There may be times when you need to alter the default hours for your whole practice. This could be when you shut down completely for an emergency, when you open your office back up with modified hours, or even if you just need to change your schedule temporarily.

Re-opening your practice following a shutdown will likely happen in stages. If you closed your practice on specific dates in the Appointment Book when you shut down, you’ll have to open those days again before you begin modifying individual days’ business hours.

It’s important to know how to correctly change your practice’s default hours so that the practice hours match up with your individual providers’ hours, and so that production is calculated correctly on reports.

1. In the Appointment Book, click Setup > Practice Appointment Setup.
2. Under Default Schedule, select the days of the week your practice is open.
3. To set the working hours for each day, click  the search (>>) button, and in the Set Time Limits window, enter a Start Time and End Time for the day. The default for each day is 8:00 am to 12:00 pm and 1:00 pm to 5:00 pm. Make adjustments as needed, and then click OK.
4. Click OK to save your changes.

You may need to adjust your practice hours to add additional time at the beginning or end of the day to see more patients who have been waiting for treatment, or to allow extra time between appointments for cleaning and disinfecting, without cutting down on the number of patients you are able to serve.

For additional information, see the following topics in Dentrix Help:

• Setting up Practice Hours
• Changing Office Hours for a Day
• Closing the Office for a Day
• Opening the Office on Weekends of Holidays