Setting Up Your Team's Daily CoTreat Workflow

CoTreat works best when everyone in the practice knows which part of the workflow they own. Every appointment follows the same four steps: transcribe, review, share with the patient, and follow up in Conversations. Who does each step depends on how your team is set up.

This article walks through each step, suggests who usually owns it, and shows how to set it up whether or not your practice has a treatment coordinator (TC).

In this article

How the daily workflow works
Choosing who owns each step
Following the four steps
Setting it up for your team
Doing an end-of-day check
Getting help

How the daily workflow works

Each appointment moves through four steps inside CoTreat, and each hand-off happens in the platform rather than on paper or by word of mouth.

Transcribe the appointment and select the documents you need.
Review the clinical note and patient document.
Share the patient letter or case presentation with the patient.
Follow up on patient replies in Conversations.

The steps stay the same for every practice. Only the person responsible for each one changes.

Choosing who owns each step

The setup we see work best is: the dental assistant (DA) starts and stops transcription and selects the documents, the clinician does a quick review, and the front desk or TC sends documents to patients and follows up.

Use the table below as a starting point, then agree as a team on who owns each step at your practice.

Step	Usually owned by	Can also be done by
Start and stop transcription	Dental assistant	Clinician
Select documents to generate	Dental assistant	Clinician
Review the clinical note and patient document	Clinician	Always the clinician
Send the patient letter or case presentation	Front desk or TC	Clinician
Follow up on case presentations	TC	Front desk or clinician
Monitor and reply in Conversations	Front desk	TC

Agree on one person who checks Conversations each day, so no patient message is left waiting.

Following the four steps

Step 1: Transcribing the appointment

Start transcription when the patient is seated, and stop it when the appointment ends.
Select the documents needed for this appointment: the clinical note, plus a patient letter (after every consult) or a case presentation (for patients with a treatment plan).

Step 2: Reviewing the note and patient document

The clinician checks the clinical note and the patient letter or case presentation. This usually takes 30 seconds to a minute.
Edit anything that needs changing so the documents are ready to send.

To get notes and documents closer to how you write them, see Creating Custom Templates in CoTreat.

Step 3: Sharing with the patient

Send the patient letter after every consult.
Send the case presentation to patients with a treatment plan.
If your practice has a TC, the TC usually sends case presentations and follows up on them.

Step 4: Following up in Conversations

Check Conversations at set times through the day, for example mid-morning, after lunch and before close.
Answer patient questions and help them book treatment.
Pass any clinical questions to the clinician.

Setting it up for your team

Find the row closest to your practice and adjust it to suit your team.

Team setup	Transcribe and select documents	Review	Send to patient	Case presentation follow-up	Conversations
DA, front desk and TC	DA	Clinician	TC or front desk	TC	Front desk, TC as backup
DA and front desk, no TC	DA	Clinician	Front desk	Front desk	Front desk
Clinician without a DA	Clinician	Clinician	Clinician or front desk	Front desk	Front desk
Solo or small practice	Clinician	Clinician	Clinician	Clinician	Clinician or reception

The clinician always reviews the clinical note and patient document before it is sent, whatever your team setup.

Doing an end-of-day check

A two-minute check before close keeps everything on track:

Every consult today has a reviewed clinical note.
Every consult patient has been sent their patient letter.
Every patient with a treatment plan has received their case presentation.
There are no unanswered patient messages in Conversations.

Getting help

Bookmark the CoTreat login link on every workstation: dental.cotreat.ai

If you get stuck, click the question mark icon inside CoTreat, browse the CoTreat Help Center, or email help@cotreat.com.au.