From our inception, KSB Dental has been on a mission of serving pediatric dentists with our DOX|Pedo Technology Suite™. However, throughout this journey of specialization, orthodontics has been a vital component of consideration as we have evolved our practice management and clinical record keeping applications.
We feel confident that we are the first company who has truly arrived at a comprehensive software suite to serve this unique “Dual Specialty” focus. There is no longer a need for the pediatric dentist to feel compromised by being forced to work within a “generalized” supply house application. Likewise the orthodontist will no longer feel underserved by having to work within a practice management application that does not understand, or provide for, the unique dynamics of orthodontic patient care management.
A Brief History of our Team’s Dedication
KSB Dental was formed 15 years ago based on a call to action by over 600 pediatric dentists who were being forced to leave their legacy product (DataTrac) due to industry wide merger/acquisition activities occurring at that time. These clients were not thrilled with the proposition of leaving software that had been tailored from a management perspective for the needs of pediatric dentistry. The idea of migrating to a general purpose application just for the sake of consolidation, market share and profit making was unsettling at best. As a result, this created a strong sense of obligation within a small group of trainers and support personnel (who had worked many years establishing these relationships) to take action. We are proud of this legacy because the company was truly formed out of relationship first; entrepreneurial pursuit was at most secondary as a motivating factor.
A Specialty Within a Specialty
There is no doubt that throughout our product development, the pediatric dentist was front and center in all design decisions. However, from a practice management and business perspective, the requirement of managing ortho elegantly was an absolute prerequisite for adoption due to the ubiquitous nature of dual specialty practices. The challenges are significant, so much so that most software companies have instructed practices to setup a separate ortho account for the same patient to deal with limitations of a financial and billing nature. In stark contrast, we look to transition the practice to our specialized solution that allows for ortho and pedo to be managed in one family account. Additionally, we provide optimized billing statements for parents and crystal clear ledger views that facilitate dealing with inquiries (including insurance) for the dental team. This extends to concepts like the setup of automated recurring credit card billing for elegant contract billing, and appropriate handling of A/R for roll due functions, as well as multi-practitioner/multi-location producer reporting.
Digital Chart Replacement
In 2005 a key milestone effort for KSB Dental to take all of its existing pediatric dental practices “live” on digital charts was well under way. As if handling the unique needs and dynamics of “Patient Care Management” was not enough from a pediatric dental perspective; computerizing the orthodontic chart was becoming a necessity if the entire practice was to become paperless). During the early stages of this transition, we served the orthodontic counterpart by leveraging our industry unique “custom form/exam engine” to deliver orthodontic tools.
Digital Charts – the “Tipping Point”
As we gained mastery in the nuances of pedo on the clinical side and the “tipping point” of digital chart preference over paper charts was reached. Digital clinical records (what we now refer to as “digital workflow automation”) has definitely rendered the paper chart obsolete. In parallel, orthodontists used our custom form technology to arrive at some approximation of what they really wanted but the discrepancy in achieving similar adoption was a challenge to our sense of service.
2010 Orthodontists In Focus
In 2010, we made a conscious choice to expand our focus on serving the needs of the Orthodontist as a parallel track of priority development, signalled by our launch of the new DOX|Ortho Treatment Card™. This new addition to our DOX|Pedo Technology Suite was received with great enthusiasm. The design of this tool (like our DOX|Structured Chart™) was based on a 25 year history of working with dental technology and the simple premise that we have never met the same doctor twice, and more specifically; “never seen the same chart twice”. With the knowledge that our orthodontists tend to have their own views of process throughout consultation, evaluation, diagnosis, treatment objectives/planning, and recurring care, we designed our software to function as an “engine to be harnessed” versus a design that dictates your methodology. The end result is that KSB offers a suite of tools that give orthodontists appropriate prioritization, harmoniously integrated into the pediatric framework.
2016 DOX|Ortho Technology Suite™
Today KSB Dental feels very confident to reach out to orthodontists with our application suite, although our efforts still remain centered around marketing our offering to the pediatric dental community. The product can now be thought of as a full featured orthodontic application living harmoniously in the pedo specialty suite.
Continued Commitment to Relationship Based Technology Advancement
There is no doubt that along the way in this journey we find ourselves serving the whole of dentistry when we work with those practices that serve a diverse set of needs in their practice. However, we have resisted the temptation of a shotgun approach to market to all dental disciplines. We definitely believe in the idea of “serving fewer to serve better” and recognize the simple truth that narrowing focus gives us the opportunity to seek mastery by digging into the nuances.
For more information, call (866) 410-4500 or email info@doxpedo.com.
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