Updated 4/25/2019

In Dentrix, there are two places you can note clinical details related to patient treatment: procedure notes and clinical notes.

Procedure notes are directly associated with an individual procedure. They are primarily used to document completed procedures for reference purposes. Clinical notes are free-form notes that are generally thought of as medical journal notes that do not need to be associated with a specific procedure. Clinical notes can be signed and locked immediately in Dentrix.

The decision to use a procedure note or a clinical note depends on what you are documenting. If you are documenting that a procedure was completed and providing specifics about the procedure, use a procedure note. If you need to provide additional information about a procedure, visit, or patient health status, or you need to sign and lock a note to ensure accuracy, use a clinical note.

The following table briefly describes when to create procedure notes or clinical notes:

For additional information, about procedure notes, see the Adding Procedure Notes topic in Dentrix Help.

For additional information about clinical notes and using clinical note templates, see the Dentrix Magazine article titled, Stay On Top of Your Clinical Notes.