New rules promulgated by HHS (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services) prescribe the capabilities and features a software program must provide in order to be used to create EHR (Electronic Health Records) qualified records.
The Complete Exam® dental office management software provides those capabilities and features. Most other practice management software programs do not fully qualify, mainly failing in the control of proper date and time stamping of records as well as preventing the editing of records at some time after their initial creation. Most all software products out there for dental office management can store information in what appears to be an electronic, paperless record, but very, very few can actually protect and lock up the records properly to qualify as a real EHR. It is truly amazing to see how many dentists have gone to what they call a paperless dental practice, even writing about their accomplishments with various well-known software programs blissfully unaware of the legal liabilities they would face should they ever have to rely on those records in a lawsuit or other situation where the actual legal integrity of those records could easily and successfully be challenged.
The Complete Exam®, on the other hand, was specifically designed with Electronic Health Record capabilities in mind from the beginning in 2000, and paid particular attention to the details that would guarantee the legal integrity of those records. The Complete Exam® has been commercially used in dental offices since its first installation in February of 2003 following two and a half years of development. TCE was designed to first satisfy the clinician's needs for Electronic Health Records, and from that information, derive all the necessary data to bill patients and insurance plans, and otherwise manage the dental practice. All other dental practice management software has been designed to first bill out the work done (accounting functions) with clinical functions like charting added on like an after thought.