Updated 4/29/2019

You probably all have that one patient who wants to be called by a different name than the name on their account—a Robert who wants to be called Bob, or a Rebecca who wants to be called Becky, etc. By default, Dentrix displays the first and last names of the patient on appointments in the Appointment Book as they are entered in the Patient Information dialog box in the Family File. There is also a field in this dialog box where you can enter a preferred name.

You can set up the Appointment Book to look at that Preferred Name field, which displays on patient appointments, so that when you are speaking with patients about their appointments, you’re using the name they prefer.

To show a patient’s preferred name on appointments:

1. From the Appointment Book, click View.
   
2. Select the view you want to display preferred names and click Edit.
   
3. Click the arrow to open the drop-down menu for line 1 (or whichever line is currently displaying the word Name). Scroll down the list and select Name/Pref.
4. Click OK to save your changes.

A couple of things to note about the options in the drop-down list:

• The option called Name/Pref displays the patient’s name as “Last Name, Preferred Name.” If the patient doesn’t have a preferred name entered in the Family File, the patient’s name is listed as “Last Name, First Name.”
• Make sure you use the Name/Pref option, and not the Pref. Name option. Using Pref. Name will display the patient’s preferred name with no last name. And if the patient doesn’t have a preferred name entered in the Family File, no name will be listed and the name line will be blank.

For more information, read the Editing Patient Information and Setting up Views topics in Dentrix Help.