Pre-Requisite Reading: Document Editor Introduction, What are the Document Editor Merge Fields and How are They Used?
Introduction
The Letter Queue is the avenue by which your practice communicates patient information to recipients outside the practice. It may be an update on the patient's condition that needs to be communicated to their Referring Dentist. It may be a request to an Oral Surgeon regarding a patient's need for extractions. Or it could be your "graduation" certificate when a patient has finally completed their orthodontic treatment. All of these letters communicate something to their recipient that is vital to the continued success of the practice. The professionalism of these letters is critical. In this article, you will learn how to merge the standardized templates that you have previously created in the Document Editor into the patient's specific information that can be delivered to the intended recipient, in order to achieve the desired result.
Letter Queue Basics
Step 1. Accessing the Letter Queue begins by selecting Home > Letter Queue from the primary menu, as shown below.
Step 2. Once in the Letter Queue, you will notice the top row of buttons. We will cover what each of these buttons do.
Step 3. From left to right, the first button in the top left corner is the Refresh button. The refresh button has two arrows moving in a circle. Notice that the refresh button, and the white plus button in the blue field are the only two that are not grayed out. This is because a specific letter would need to be selected before you get the options to Merge, set the Status, or Edit a letter.
Step 4. Next, we will pick a letter by checking the tick box in the letter queue. As you can see, the control buttons are now available, because a specific patient and letter have been selected.
Step 5. The second button from the left that looks like a building is the Merge button. With a letter from the queue selected, (by checking the box to the left of the specific letter), the patient specific information will be merged with the Template of the Letter identified in the Document column on the far right of the screen. Once you click the merge button to merge the letter, you can see that the Merged column in the letter queue has now changed from False to True, as that specific document has been merged with the Template. This merge button is how you can go in and edit the body of the letter. If you need to add some custom text, or a special note to the general dentist, you can merge the letter, go to the merged preview screen, and then save the changes to the letter.
Step 6. The third button from the left that looks like a clipboard with a check mark is the Status button. To create Letter statuses within Cloud 9, go to Edit > Setup > Letter Statuses. Once these statuses are created, the status button is where you can change the status of each letter.
Step 7. The fourth button is blue with the white plus in it and is where patient information can be added directly into the Letter Queue. When selecting this button, the Add Letter screen pops up. Complete each applicable field (if this is an extraction request or a "Graduation" certificate, the Contract and Insurance fields may not be necessary) and select the blue Add button at the bottom. This will insert the patient information and the template from the Document Editor into a combined letter in the Letter Queue.
Step 8. The fifth button from the left that looks like a clipboard with a pencil is the Edit Letter button. A specific letter to edit must have be selected by checking the button to the immediate left of the applicable letter within the queue. Once selected, a box very similar to the Add Letter box shown above will appear, except the title for this box is Edit Letter. Disregarding that difference, the boxes are identical. This is where you can edit anything that you have previously selected. For example, if you need to select a different recipient for that letter.
Step 9. The sixth and final button, the red x, is the Delete Letter button. With a letter in the queue selected, click the Delete Letter button. A box will pop up confirming your request to delete the letter. You have one final option to Delete or Cancel that action. Once a letter has been printed or emailed, instead of leaving it to languish forever in the Letter Queue, use this button to delete it.
Tip: The Letter Queue can also be populated by completing a questionnaire for a specific patient. From Edit Patient, select a patient. Use the dropdown next to their name to get the options list. From this list, select either View Questionnaire, or Run Questionnaire.
Run Questionnaire is used if you need to begin with a new questionnaire, completing each of the fields in order to gather patient specific information.
View Questionnaire is used to view a previously completed questionnaire, to make minor changes, or to make additions that were not included when it was initially completed.
Once you have completed either of these two avenues for getting information into a questionnaire for the patient, select the Save button. You will then be greeted with the 'Letters to Merge' screen shown below.
Let's review the above 'Letters to Merge' screen.
-The far-left column is the relationship to the patient. This will include everybody who is linked to the patient, such as parents, referring providers, oral surgeons, etc., all of which may at some point need to be emailed documentation. In our example, it is only the patient and their father.
-The second column is the Recipient, and it provides the names of each person and how they will appear as the recipient of the letter.
-The third column will include their email address, if one is entered in the patient's chart.
-The fourth column is titled Document and will provide a list of document names that have been linked to the Questionnaire. If you do not see the document in this list, you can go to Edit >Setup > Questionnaires and identify the specific document by name. Add the document in the section toward the bottom right, which is called Documents. Save your work, come back to this patient, select View Questionnaire, save, and the document should now appear in the list of available documents linked to this Questionnaire.
-The fifth column will show the Questionnaire that has just been completed.
-The sixth column will show which Contract is being linked to the questionnaire, if there is one.
-The seventh column will show the linked Insurance Company if one has been selected for the purposes of your letter.
-The eighth column is titled Add and must be checked to pick the recipient of the letter. Once you have selected this column, your final choice is whether it should be Merged and Printed Now or sent to the Letter Queue.
The Merge and Print Now option will open the document on your screen and allow for minor changes to be made, a signature to be applied, and for the letter to be sent.
However, if your practice chooses to put these in a specific area to be reviewed later (typically at the end of the business day), you can select the option to place the letter in the Letter Queue by selecting the Queue button.
Letter Queue Functions
The Letter Queue provides users the ability to merge, view, edit, print or email a letter, or to email or text a financial arrangement. The Letter Queue IS NOT a cabinet in which to store hundreds of letters.
Creating a Letter Status
To have the ability to create a letter status, you will have to have been provided the permission under Edit > Setup > Employees, and be assigned the Edit Library Items permission.
Under Edit > Setup > Letter Statuses, you can create or edit statuses that will assist you in the management of this Letter Queue. There are three statuses pre-loaded in the system that cannot be deleted, edited, or restored. They are Emailed, New, and Printed. They are denoted in the Status column as E, N, and P.
Some statuses you may want to ad could be Waiting for Review, Signed, etc. You can select the Code attached to the Status, but it cannot exceed two letters.
Assigning a Letter Status
From the Letter Queue, you can assign a customized or standard letter status. As an example, you may want to set the status of a letter to "Waiting for Signature" and assign it to the doctor who needs to sign it. Then the signing employee can use the Letter Queue to filter by the Waiting for Signature status, and by their name.
To set the Status of a letter it is the third button from the left that we learned about earlier.
Merging a Letter
Select which letter you want to merge by checking the box on the left side of that letter information. Once checked, the entire line should be highlighted. Select the Merge button at the top of the screen (second from the left). Once you do this, the Merged Letter Preview screen appears. It should look similar to this.
The name of the document from the previous screen should be highlighted as seen above, along with multiple new buttons. At the top left are the Print Letters, Print Envelopes, and Email Letters buttons shown from left to right. Notice that the buttons are grayed out, as the highlighted document has not been checked. Once the document is checked in the tick box, the system will make those options available.
Beneath that is the option to 'Mark as Printed in Patient History when Printing.' Next to that is another box titled, 'Store a copy of printed letters in the Document Cabinet' which can (and normally should) be selected to store a copy of printed letters in the Document Cabinet. As soon as this document is sent to a printer or emailed, that patient's document cabinet contains a copy of what was sent. Which precludes the need for this document to continue to be stored in the Letter Queue. Meaning the final step of sending this letter and storing it in the patient's document cabinet should be the deletion of the document from the Letter Queue.
While there are tabs for Home, Insert, Page Layout, Merge Fields, and View, along with font changes (Font Size, Boldness, Color, Italics, etc.) there should only be minor changes made to this document prior to being printed or emailed. If you repeatedly have to make the same changes to a letter, consider going back to the template within the Document Editor and make those changes there, where one change will affect all future letters. If you have seen a change that needed to take place and have returned to the Document Editor to do so, you would want to close out of the merged letter preview screen, returning to the Letter Queue. Once you have done so, you will need to Re-Merge the Merged Letter.
Re-Merging a Letter
Once changes have been made to the underlying template of a letter, those changes will need to be applied to the Letter already sitting in the Letter Queue. To do so, select the letter by checking the box on the left side of the screen to indicate which letter you are working with, and then check the box to Re-merge Merged Documents. Once you select the Merge button, you will see a dialogue box that says, 'Re-Merging merged letters will cause you to lose any manual editing you have done to these merged letters. Are you sure you want to re-merge them?'
This dialogue box is simply informing you that if you have made any manual changes to this document since it landed in the Letter Queue, re-merging the document will wipe out those changes. You have the option to continue by selecting the Merge button or not continue by selecting the Cancel button. Once you have made changes in the Document Editor, and saved them, all future documents being added to the queue will contain those changes.
As always, if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to reach out to Cloud 9 Support by emailing us at cloud9support@planetdds.com, or chatting us online using the chat bubble on the lower right at https://cloud9support.planetdds.com/hc/en-us, or giving us a call during our business hours of 8:00 AM EST to 8:00 PM EST at the 1.800.394.6050 option 2.