Dentist slang and KPIs, in plain English.

A Dental Service Organization: a company that provides business, admin, and operational support to multiple dental practices under one parent group.

DSO stands for Dental Service Organization (sometimes Dental Support Organization). It's the corporate entity that owns or supports multiple dental practices, handling non-clinical operations such as billing, HR, marketing, procurement, and analytics so clinicians can focus on care. In Root Data, an organization is treated as a DSO view once it has two or more synced offices, and emails + dashboards automatically switch to show practice-vs-organization comparisons.

Two or more practice locations operating under a shared owner or brand, often smaller than a DSO.

A group practice is a smaller multi-location structure, often 2-10 offices, typically without the full corporate services layer of a DSO. Root Data supports both models with the same enterprise dashboard.

Practice Management System: the software used to run the practice (scheduling, charting, billing).

A Practice Management System (PMS) is the operational software running the practice — examples include Open Dental, Dentrix, and Eaglesoft. Root Data connects via a read-only integration to the PMS and never modifies PMS data.

The full fee-schedule value of all procedures performed, before any adjustments.

Gross production is the total dollar value of procedures completed in a period, valued at the office's fee schedule. It does not account for write-offs, insurance adjustments, or discounts. It's useful for measuring clinical output, not actual revenue.

Gross production after insurance write-offs and other legitimate production adjustments.

Adjusted production equals gross production minus write-offs and production-side adjustments (PPO fee reductions, courtesy discounts, etc.). It's the best proxy for the real expected value of the work performed.

Total money actually collected (patient payments + insurance payments) in the period.

Gross collections is the total cash received from patients and insurance carriers. It includes direct patient payments (PmsODPayment.payAmt) and insurance check amounts (PmsODClaimPayment.checkAmt).

Gross collections minus merchant / finance fees. The money that actually lands in the practice's bank.

Net collections = gross collections − |merchant & finance fees|. Merchant fees come from card processors and financing companies (e.g., CareCredit) and are tracked as negative adjustments. Net collections represent the true cash that reaches the practice after those fees are deducted.

Collections divided by adjusted production. A health check on how well you collect what you earn.

Collections ratio = collections / adjusted production. A healthy practice typically runs at 98%+ over a trailing window. Sub-95% often signals billing, follow-up, or write-off issues.

Fees charged by card processors and financing companies, deducted from gross collections to get net collections.

Merchant and finance fees are costs charged by payment processors (Visa, Mastercard, CareCredit, etc.) for accepting cards and patient financing. In the PMS they usually appear as negative adjustments. Root Data reports them as an absolute value and subtracts them from gross collections to calculate net collections.

The cost of running the practice as a percentage of collections.

Overhead is total practice operating expenses (staff, rent, supplies, lab, etc.) divided by collections. Benchmarks vary by specialty; most general practices target 55-65%.

A patient with no prior recorded visit at the practice, completing their first appointment in the period.

A new patient (NP) is someone seen at the practice for the first time. NP volume, NP production, and NP show rate are leading indicators of marketing, referral health, and schedule capacity.

Percentage of scheduled new-patient appointments that actually show up and complete.

NP show rate = completed new-patient appointments / scheduled new-patient appointments. Low show rates usually point to weak confirmation protocols or unqualified lead flow.

Percentage of new patients who leave with a follow-up (hygiene or treatment) scheduled.

NP reappointment rate measures whether new patients are being retained. It captures how many NPs leave with a next appointment on the books, which is one of the single best predictors of lifetime value.

An appointment cancelled late or missed entirely.

Broken appointments include late cancellations and no-shows. Tracking broken-appointment rate surfaces scheduling hygiene, confirmation process quality, and patient trust issues.

Diagnosed treatment that has not yet been scheduled on the books.

Unscheduled treatment is the dollar value of diagnosed, accepted, or presented procedures sitting unscheduled. It's one of the highest-leverage opportunity pools in any practice.

New-patient bookings captured in Salesforce (marketing/intake) before they land in the PMS.

For DSO practices using Salesforce for intake or marketing automation, some new-patient appointments are first booked in Salesforce and later reconciled in the PMS. Root Data shows the combined total (Open Dental + Salesforce) so owners see every booked NP, not just those already in the PMS.

Percentage of hygiene patients leaving with their next hygiene appointment already scheduled.

Hygiene re-appointment (or recare) rate is the percentage of hygiene visits that end with the patient's next cleaning on the books. It's the single strongest indicator of recurring revenue health. Drops often show up weeks before collections does.

Share of hygiene visits that are periodontal rather than preventive (prophylaxis).

Perio % measures periodontal services (scaling & root planing, periodontal maintenance) as a share of total hygiene visits. Benchmarks are typically 30-40%; chronically low perio % usually indicates under-diagnosis.

Average adjusted production generated by the hygiene department per scheduled hour.

Hygiene production per hour is adjusted hygiene production divided by scheduled hygiene hours. It captures diagnostic assertiveness, fluoride uptake, and appropriate perio utilization in one number.

Share of presented treatment that the patient agrees to schedule or complete.

Case acceptance measures how much diagnosed or presented treatment converts to scheduled work. It can be measured by dollar value or by case count, and is a direct indicator of treatment presentation and financial-arrangement effectiveness.

Treatment diagnosed and completed in the same visit.

Same-day treatment captures procedures performed on the same day they were presented. High same-day rates correlate with strong diagnostic confidence, schedule flexibility, and patient trust.

Percentage of available chair time that is actually scheduled with production.

Chair utilization = scheduled production hours / available chair hours. Unused chair time is one of the most expensive forms of waste in a dental practice.

Production attributed to an individual doctor or hygienist over a period.

Provider production breaks total adjusted production down by the clinician who performed the work. It's used for compensation calculations, pod planning, and identifying capacity gaps.

A Key Performance Indicator — a specific number used to measure business health.

A KPI (Key Performance Indicator) is a single number chosen because it reliably reflects whether some part of the business is healthy. Root Data surfaces a focused set of dental KPIs rather than overwhelming you with every possible metric.

The Root Data assistant that watches your KPIs and explains what changed and what to do next.

The AI Coach is Root Data's continuous monitor. It reads your KPI trends, identifies meaningful shifts, explains the probable cause in plain English, and points you to the specific area to review so you can act fast.