Dictate the new patient assessment right after the appointment, and the letter to the referring dentist straight after that. Dictadoc transcribes on your computer, breaks the text into paragraphs and, with the right setting on, writes your measurements as figures: "seven millimetres" becomes "7 mm".
Treatment often lasts more than a year, and other clinicians take part in it. The longest documents come at the beginning and at the end.
New patient assessment
Extraoral and intraoral examination, function, analysis of the radiographs and study models, diagnosis, aims and treatment plan. It is the longest document in the record, written after the assessment appointment and sent to the parents as well as the referring dentist.
Letters to the referring dentist
Treatment or extractions needed before the appliances go on, a progress update, the end of treatment. Short letters, but each patient needs several of them over the months.
Letters to other clinicians
ENT for mouth breathing, speech and language therapy for a tongue thrust, oral and maxillofacial surgery for a combined orthognathic case. Each one expects a precise question and the parts of the assessment that concern them.
End-of-treatment report
The result, the final measurements, the retainers fitted and the follow-up planned. It closes a record opened months or years earlier, and you write it with the initial assessment open beside it for comparison.
Day to day
What takes time after the assessment
An assessment dictated as a single block
Today
The assessment runs through the examination, function, cephalometric analysis, diagnosis and treatment plan. Dictated straight through, it returns as one long paragraph that has to be cut into sections before it goes out.
With Dictadoc
Say "new line" after each heading and "new paragraph" between sections: the assessment arrives split the way you said it, with no AI. You can also leave the breaks to an optional model that runs on the computer and never rewrites a word.
Paragraph layout
Spoken punctuation
A letter that loses its shape in Word
Today
The assessment and the letters go out on practice letterhead, or by email to the parents. Text pasted from another tool often arrives without its paragraphs or lists, and the formatting has to be redone by hand.
With Dictadoc
Copy the assessment from Dictadoc, then paste it into your Word letter or an email to the parents: the paragraphs and lists stay where they were.
Copy to Word
Millimetres to turn back into figures
Today
Overjet, overbite, centreline shift, crowding: an assessment is made of millimetres. Dictated, they come back sometimes in words and sometimes in figures, and you go through the assessment line by line to make them match.
With Dictadoc
Turn on "Numbers, units and dosages". With it, "overjet of seven millimetres" is written "overjet of 7 mm", and "two point five millimetres" is written "2.5 mm". Angles in degrees are not converted, so check them along with the rest of the assessment.
Numbers, units and dosages
Dictation example
An extract from a new patient assessment
Teenage patient seen for an increased overjet, dictated after the assessment appointment.
What you say
Intraoral examination [new line] full permanent dentition [comma] good oral hygiene [full stop] overjet seven millimetres [comma] overbite five millimetres [full stop] lower centreline shifted two millimetres to the left [full stop] lower arch crowding estimated at four millimetres [full stop][new paragraph] functional assessment [new line] mouth breathing [comma] lower lip trapped behind the upper incisors [full stop][new paragraph] treatment plan [new line] ENT opinion on the airway [comma] then upper and lower fixed appliances [full stop] estimated treatment time eighteen to twenty-four months [full stop]
What Dictadoc writes
Intraoral examination
Full permanent dentition, good oral hygiene. Overjet 7 mm, overbite 5 mm. Lower centreline shifted 2 mm to the left. Lower arch crowding estimated at 4 mm.
Functional assessment
Mouth breathing, lower lip trapped behind the upper incisors.
Treatment plan
ENT opinion on the airway, then upper and lower fixed appliances. Estimated treatment time eighteen to twenty-four months.
The words in brackets are commands. Dictadoc replaces them with punctuation and line breaks.
With the "Numbers, units and dosages" setting turned on.
The settings list every command for your language.
Privacy
What you dictate stays on your computer
Transcribed on your computer
Your computer transcribes your voice itself. Nothing you dictate is sent over the internet.
Erased on quit, if you want
Choose to keep nothing, and reports and recordings are erased when you quit Dictadoc.
Encrypted on your disk
The reports you keep stay in an encrypted database whose key is held by your system keychain.
For a group practice
Dictadoc Server transcribes for every workstation in the practice from one computer. Workstations need neither a graphics card nor internet access.
Common medical vocabulary, yes. An uncertain word is checked against a medical list that does not cover orthodontics, and a word recognised clearly is not changed. Check the names of appliances and techniques.
Are cephalometric angles written as figures?
Not by "Numbers, units and dosages". The setting handles numbers followed by a unit such as millimetres, a percentage or a frequency, and degrees are not among them. An angle stays as the transcription wrote it, in words or in figures, so check cephalometric values before the assessment goes out.
Can I dictate the assessment in two stages?
Yes. Dictate the clinical examination after the appointment, then add a take once the cephalometric analysis is done. Takes are added to the same report, and each one can be played back or corrected by hand. The assessment stays in Dictadoc from one day to the next, unless you have chosen to erase everything when you quit.
Can I dictate a review appointment note into my practice software?
Yes, if the dictation key and writing into other applications are both on. With the cursor in the patient's record, press the key, dictate what was done at the chair, then press it again. The note appears in that field once it is transcribed. Dictadoc needs no connector for this.
How many licences does a practice with several chairs need?
One for each computer someone dictates on, and a licence cannot be moved from one computer to another. If you dictate at your desk and on the clinic computer, you need two. A computer nobody dictates on needs none.
Install the app on Mac or Windows, buy a licence, then enter the key you receive by email in Dictadoc. The licence year starts on the day you activate it.
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