Dentrix Continuing Care is the recall engine inside Dentrix. It links a procedure code to a continuing care type, calculates each patient's next due date from an interval you set, and then produces a list of everyone who is due and has no appointment booked. When it is configured wrong, patients stop coming back and nothing in Dentrix tells you.
Most practices treat it as a report. It is closer to a machine with three settings. Get those right, build views that match how your team actually follows up, and the Continuing Care List stops being a wall of names and starts telling the next person who opens it what to do.
What is Dentrix Continuing Care?
Continuing Care is the Dentrix module that monitors pending care and tells you who is due. Dentrix's own Help documentation describes it as a flexible way to monitor patients' pending dental care, with as many continuing care types as the practice needs, per patient defaults for intervals and providers, and the ability to attach a type to an appointment so the appointment picks up the right provider and the right amount of chair time.
It is not only a cleaning tracker. Dentrix Help notes that continuing care types were designed for recall exams but can monitor other things, and gives the example of a type that tracks which patients have started a treatment plan, assigns a call back date, and produces a ready made phone call list for anyone who has not completed it. Practices commonly run separate types for prophy, perio, bitewings and panorex.
The three settings that decide whether continuing care works
Nearly every broken continuing care system fails at one of three points. Check them in this order, because each one depends on the one before it.
1. The procedure code to continuing care type link
A continuing care type does nothing until a procedure code is attached to it. Certified Dentrix trainer Charlotte Skaggs explains in Dentrix Magazine that the type is tied to a procedure code, and that when you set that code complete from the Appointment Book, Dentrix prompts you to create the next continuing care appointment and recalculates the due date.
To check the link, open the Office Manager and go to Maintenance, then Practice Setup, then Procedure Code Setup. Find the code, click Edit, highlight the continuing care type and click Select.
The rule that catches most practices: a procedure code can be attached to only one continuing care type, but a continuing care type can be attached to many procedure codes. D1110 can sit under PROPHY alongside D1120, but it cannot sit under both PROPHY and PERIO.
This is why the three month, four month and six month prophy types you may have inherited are not doing anything. Skaggs is blunt about it in a separate article on setup: since the prophy code can only be attached to a single type, the other two track nothing. Keep one type per procedure and vary the interval on the patient instead.
If you want to track something that has no ADA code, such as periodontal charting or an orthodontic adjustment cycle, Skaggs recommends creating a custom office code first and not starting it with the letter D, so it can never collide with a real or future ADA procedure code.
2. The office default interval
Once codes are attached, set the interval your practice uses for most patients. In the Office Manager, go to Maintenance, then Practice Setup, then Continuing Care, then Continuing Care Setup. Highlight the type, click Edit, and set the default interval.
Two options on that screen are worth deliberate decisions, both documented in Skaggs' article on frequency intervals:
- Plus 1 Day. Dentrix can add a day to the interval. That exists because some insurance plans will only pay for a prophy every six months to the day. With the option checked, the next due date lands at six months plus one day from the completed date.
- Initial Status. Leave it at None. It is a default applied to every patient on that type, and a status set here will fight the status scheme you are about to build.
You can also assign a default provider for the type, either Provider 1, Provider 2 or a specific provider. Choosing Provider 1 or Provider 2 pulls the patient's own designated provider from the Family File rather than hard coding one name.
3. The patient level interval
The office default is a starting point, not a policy. A patient on a three or four month recall needs their own interval, and it is set on the patient, not by inventing another type.
Open the Family File, double click the Continuing Care block, select the type, click Edit, then click the button next to the Due Date to adjust the frequency. The same dialog carries the patient's status, default appointment time, provider and a motivational note that prints on their continuing care cards. Dentrix Help lists the same fields when you edit from the Continuing Care module itself.
Where is the Dentrix Continuing Care List?
Open the Appointment Book and click the Continuing Care button. That opens the Continuing Care module, and the list it shows is driven by whichever view is selected.
Dentrix installs seven views out of the box. They are useful for a glance and useless as a work queue, because none of them separates the patients who already have an appointment from the ones who do not.
| Built in view | What it shows |
|---|---|
| All | Every patient assigned to a continuing care type |
| Today | Patients due today |
| Week | Patients due within the next week |
| Next Month | Patients due in the next month |
| Next 3 Months | Patients due in the next three months |
| Next 6 Months | Patients due in the next six months |
| Overdue | Patients past due for their visit |
The field that turns a view into a work queue is Sched Appt?. Dentrix Help documents three settings for it: ALL, Only WITH an attached appointment, and Only WITHOUT. A follow up list should always be set to Only WITHOUT. Everything else is reporting.
The same setup screen also gives you a With CC or Without CC toggle, a status filter, sort order, a due date range or span, and filters for billing type, prior treatment date, last visit date and provider. Note that the provider filter reads the provider assigned in the patient's Continuing Care defaults in the Family File, not the provider on an appointment.
There is also a temporary view option in the Views menu for one off searches, which is the right tool when you are cleaning up rather than working a queue.
The six continuing care views to build
This is the configuration that turns the module into a system. Create these once, in the Continuing Care module under Views, then Continuing Care Views Setup, then New. Every one of them is set to Only WITHOUT a scheduled appointment, because a patient who is already booked is not work.
| View name | Type | With or without CC | Due date span | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Prophy due this month | PROPHY | With CC | 1 day before to 1 month after | The first call of the cycle, while the due date is still fresh |
| Prophy 30 past due | PROPHY | With CC | 60 days before to 30 days before | Second contact, before the patient has drifted |
| Prophy 60 past due | PROPHY | With CC | 90 days before to 60 days before | Third contact, last phone attempt |
| Prophy 90 past due | PROPHY | With CC | 180 days before to 90 days before | Mail or message, then reactivation |
| Perio due and overdue | PERIO | With CC | 1 day before to 1 month after | Perio maintenance runs on a different interval and a different column |
| Without prophy | PROPHY | Without CC | leave open | Patients Dentrix is not tracking at all |
Four of these are the same list sliced by how late the patient is. That is the point. A single Overdue view tells you a patient is late. A banded view tells you which attempt they are on, which is what decides whether the next action is a call, a message or a reactivation letter.
The Perio view is separate because perio maintenance patients are usually on a three or four month interval and should not be mixed into a prophy queue. If you track bitewings or panorex as their own types, add a view for each on the same pattern.
What continuing care statuses should you create?
Views tell you who. Statuses tell you what has already been tried. Skaggs' article on building an effective continuing care process recommends creating Call 1, Call 2, Call 3 and Letter Sent, and notes that Dentrix limits you to ten continuing care statuses in total, so the remaining six should go to the situations your office actually hits.
A practical ladder inside that limit:
| Status | Means | Next action |
|---|---|---|
| Call 1 | Spoken to once, not booked | Second call when they hit 30 past due |
| Call 2 | Spoken to twice, not booked | Third call at 60 past due |
| Call 3 | Three attempts, not booked | Letter or message at 90 past due |
| Letter Sent | Written contact made | Move to reactivation, stop calling monthly |
| Left Message | Voicemail, no contact | Retry inside the same band, does not advance the ladder |
| Wrong Number | Contact details are dead | Flag for records, do not keep calling |
| Moved Away | Patient has left the area | Clear from the active queue |
| Asked To Wait | Patient deferred to a date they named | Diary to that date |
The distinction between Left Message and Call 1 is the one that matters most. A voicemail is not a contact, and counting it as one burns a patient's attempts without anyone ever speaking to them.
Two habits make the ladder hold. Update the status on every attempt, and document the call in the patient's Office Journal, which is reachable from the Continuing Care list. Skaggs also recommends designating one person, often the schedule coordinator, as the owner, on the grounds that when too many people have a hand in continuing care each does it differently and mistakes follow.
How do you find patients with no continuing care attached?
The patients who hurt most are not on the overdue list. They are not on any list. If a patient was never attached to a continuing care type, they have no due date, so they never appear as overdue and no reminder is ever generated for them.
Dentrix Magazine describes three ways to spot one: the type is missing from the patient's Family File, the patient calls to book a cleaning and mentions they never got a reminder, or the patient has not been in for a continuing care appointment but does not show as overdue.
The Without prophy view in the table above is how you find them in bulk. Set the view to the prophy type, select Without CC, and generate the list. Then work it:
- Open the list and take the patients one at a time.
- Click Edit, then Selected Patient's Continuing Care to see which types they already carry. Some patients legitimately belong on perio rather than prophy.
- For a patient who should be tracked, select the type and click Set, then enter the next due date and provider.
- Watch names drop off the list as you assign them. That is the feedback loop.
- Run the same view monthly to catch new patients before they disappear into the same gap.
Repeat the pattern for bitewings, panorex and any other type you track. The underlying cause is usually appointments that were never attached to a continuing care type, so fixing the back end without fixing the booking habit just refills the gap.
How do you clean up continuing care types you no longer use?
Dentrix will not let you delete a continuing care type while patients are still attached to it, so cleanup runs in two stages. Skaggs documents the full sequence.
First, find everyone attached to the type. In the Office Manager, open Letters and Custom Lists, choose Misc, highlight Patient Report (by filters) and click Edit. Clear every filter field first, because anything left behind silently narrows the result. Set the status filter to include patient, inactive and non patient so nobody is missed, pick the continuing care type, leave the due date and prior treatment date fields blank, and set the Include box to ALL so you get patients with and without appointments. Click OK twice, then Open List Manager.
Second, clear each patient. From the List Manager, select a name, open the Family File, double click the Continuing Care block, select the type and click Clear. Once the type has no patients attached, go back to the Office Manager, open Maintenance, then Practice Setup, then Continuing Care, then Continuing Care Setup, select the type and click Delete.
Do this before you rebuild your views, not after. Views built on types you are about to delete are wasted work.
Who works the list when the phone is ringing?
Here is the part no Dentrix setup fixes. The Continuing Care List is outbound work, and it competes directly with inbound calls for the same person.
The cadence that works is weekly and banded: due this month in the first week, 30 past due in the second, 60 past due in the third, a letter or message to 90 past due in the fourth. That is roughly an hour a week of uninterrupted calling if the lists are clean. The front desk rarely gets it, because every ring pulls them back to the counter, and the recall list is the first thing that gets dropped. A quiet hour that never happens is the real reason hygiene columns stay soft, not a missing report.
Two things protect it. Give the list one owner and protected time on the calendar, exactly as the Dentrix guidance recommends. Then take the inbound phone off that person during the block.
That second part is what Telvana does. It answers every call around the clock, screens by your rules on new patients, insurance and emergencies, and books the right visit type and chair time straight into your practice management system with the ADA procedure code attached. The schedule coordinator gets the hour back, and the calls that arrive during it still get answered and booked. If you want the mechanics of how an outside system writes into your schedule, that is covered in how an AI receptionist books into Dentrix.
Frequently asked questions
Where is the Continuing Care list in Dentrix?
Open the Appointment Book and click the Continuing Care button. That opens the Continuing Care module. The names you see depend on the selected view, so if the list looks wrong, check the view before you doubt the data.
Why are patients missing from my Dentrix continuing care report?
Usually because they were never attached to a continuing care type, so Dentrix has no due date for them and they cannot be overdue. Build a view set to the type with Without CC selected to find them, then assign the type and a due date to each.
Can a procedure code be attached to more than one continuing care type?
No. A procedure code can be attached to only one continuing care type, though a single type can cover several codes. If you have three prophy types for three different intervals, only one of them is tracking anything. Use one type and vary the interval per patient.
How many continuing care statuses can I create in Dentrix?
Ten. Dentrix Magazine recommends spending four on a contact ladder of Call 1, Call 2, Call 3 and Letter Sent, leaving six for the situations your office hits most, such as a voicemail left or a patient who asked to be called later.
What is the Plus 1 Day option for?
It adds a day to the continuing care interval so the next due date lands at, for example, six months plus one day. It exists for insurance plans that will only pay for a prophy every six months to the day.
Does continuing care only track cleanings?
No. Dentrix Help describes continuing care types as suitable for tracking other recurring items, and gives the example of following up patients who started a treatment plan but have not completed it. Practices commonly add types for perio maintenance, bitewings and panorex.
Does Open Dental work the same way?
No. The equivalent follow up tooling in Open Dental is split across different lists with different rules, which is covered in the Open Dental unscheduled treatment guide and the ASAP List guide. If you are weighing the two systems, see Dentrix vs Open Dental.
We have the lists set up and still nobody calls. What now?
That is a capacity problem, not a configuration problem. Read the hygiene recall system guide for the scripts and ownership model, and the front desk checklist for where the hour comes from.
Get the hour back
A clean continuing care setup is worth real production, but only if someone works the list. Most practices build the views, work them for three weeks, then quietly stop when the phone wins.
Telvana answers every call 24/7, screens callers against your rules, and books the right visit type and chair time straight into your practice management system with the procedure code attached, so recall time stops competing with the phone. One published price, $399 per practice per month with 2,000 minutes included, no contracts.
Book a demo and hear it handle a real call before you decide.
