Why I left Dentrix dental practice management software from Henry Schein

Dental practice management software (DPMS) is typically divided into two parts:  1) the database, which includes all patient data, the ledger and clinical records, and 2) imaging, which includes x-rays and photography.

When I built my current office around 2005 I upgraded from Henry Schein’s EZ Dental DPMS to Dentrix because I understood it was more sophisticated.  I paid approximately $20,000 at that time for Dentrix, which included the database and imaging components.

Approximately five years later I received a notice that Dentrix had sold it’s imaging division to Danaher Corporation’s Dexis Imaging subsidiary.  I was also informed that I would have to pay Dexis to use the imaging part of Dentrix that they now controlled – even though I had recently paid Dentrix for it.

The price Dexis demanded for the use of their imaging software varied over several years starting at about $12,500 to a low of about $5,000 if I promised to buy a certain amount of dental supplies from Henry Schein.  I never took the offer because I felt it was morally wrong — and a really bad business decision for Henry Schein.

I was therefore forced to remain using Dentrix G4 because it was the last version of Dentrix that did not switch to Dexis imaging.  For about the past five years I could not perform annual upgrades to Dentrix.  I was really annoyed but trapped.  Customer support at Dentrix and Henry Schein got nowhere.

Other weaknesses in Dentrix also bothered me.  For one, I didn’t need all the complexity the software offered and wanted to be able to completely turn off sections in the root directory but could not.  As a dental school professor for twenty years I also found the medical history and treatment planning sections quite weak.  In December 2015 I made the decision to leave Dentrix and thereby Henry Schein after nearly 30 years.

Next week our practice will begin using Patterson Dental’s Eaglesoft DPMS.  Eaglesoft offers both the database and imaging components for one reasonable price.  My own research on Eaglesoft showed it to be well-liked and my brilliant DPMS IT consultant, Josh Noskow, also thought highly of it.

I have grown to really admire Patterson over the past ten years – and really liked that I could directly reach their CEO when I had a problem a few years ago because he provides his personal email on their corporate website.  He personally solved a problem in 48 hours.

I plan to write about my personal experience with Eaglesoft at a later time.

Dr. Jeffrey Dorfman
The Center for Special Dentistry®
New York

Categorised in: Dr. Dorfman Says

This post was written by Dr. Jeffrey Dorfman