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Finding the patient in Open Dental

Names on an EOB and names in Open Dental often disagree. Insurance may print a nickname, misspell a last name, or use the name on the ID card. Open Dental may have an abbreviated first name, a maiden name, or a typo from registration.

You should not have to rewrite the EOB name just to find the chart. Ordo suggests possible Open Dental patients; you pick the right one.

This is who is this person? Claim matching (which visit to post) still happens after Fetch Open Dental. See Matching and remarks.

Where you do it

Open a patient (from Patients or from inside an EOB) → Open Dental tab → Find possible patients.

Nothing is linked until you click Select patient. A high-ranked card is a suggestion, not a decision.

What Ordo looks up

It uses what is already on the extracted patient:

Field Used?
First name, last name Yes
Date of birth Yes, when present — this is the strongest rescue when names differ
Subscriber ID Yes, when scoring charts already returned
Phone, email, address Only if those values exist (EOBs usually do not include them)

Ordo does not send names to an outside matching service. Search stays inside Open Dental and Ordo.

How search works

Open Dental’s API is not a fuzzy name engine. A search for Smith will not return Smyth. Ordo therefore runs several lookups and combines the people it gets back (same Open Dental ID only once):

  1. Name + date of birth
  2. Date of birth only — finds the chart even when the first or last name is wrong in either system
  3. First + last name
  4. Last name only — then Ordo scores first names locally (John vs Johnathan)
  5. First and last swapped — in case the names were reversed

It then ranks the combined list. Similar first names (John / Johnathan) and similar last names (Smith / Smyth) are scored after Open Dental returns rows. Date of birth is how misspelled last names still appear.

Weak hits are dropped (same last name, completely different first name, no matching DOB or subscriber ID).

What you see

Each remaining person is a card, not an automatic link:

  • Name and Open Dental ID
  • Date of birth (and a masked phone when the chart has one)
  • Strongest suggestion or Possible match
  • Why this was suggested (for example: DOB matches, first name is similar, last name matches)

If several charts look plausible, all of them are listed. You choose.

Example. The EOB says Jonathan Smith, DOB March 12, 1985. Open Dental has John Smith on that date (registration used a short name). Ordo lists John Smith as a strong suggestion and any other charts with that DOB as possible matches. You select the correct Open Dental ID. You do not edit the EOB name first.

Action What it does
Select patient Links this EOB person to that Open Dental ID. Posting then uses that chart.
Unlink Clears the link so you can pick again.
None of these are the correct patient Opens a manual search: first name, last name, date of birth, or Open Dental ID (PatNum).
Find possible patients Runs the suggestion search again.

Manual search uses the same Open Dental lookup the rest of Ordo uses. Phone and email are not searchable in the Open Dental API; use name, DOB, or ID.

No candidates vs Open Dental is down

These are not the same:

Message Meaning
No candidates found Lookups ran. Nobody looked plausible. Try manual search, or confirm the patient exists in Open Dental.
Unable to search Open Dental The connection failed. This is not “the patient does not exist.” Fix the connection, then search again.

Ordo will not invent a chart and will not create a new Open Dental patient from the EOB.

What this does not do

  • It does not silently pick the top-ranked person when more than one chart looks plausible.
  • It does not change the name stored in Open Dental.
  • It does not replace Fetch Open Dental (that step still loads claims for posting).
  • It does not mean every misspelling will appear. Without a date of birth, a badly misspelled last name may still need manual search (try an alternate spelling or the Open Dental ID).