Use Treatment Plans to send proposed care plans from your health record system to patients by email or text, track their responses, and follow up with patients who are ready to schedule.
Before you begin
Treatment Plans is included with Online Booking (Scheduling) at no extra cost. It works with Open Dental, Dentrix, and Eaglesoft. It does not work with other health record systems.
Treatment plans must already exist in your health record system. NexHealth reads them from there, and you can't create or edit plans in NexHealth. NexHealth changes a plan in your health record system only to update its status when you archive or reject it, or when a patient declines it.
This feature is different from the Enlive Treatment Plans Desktop app, which lets patients sign treatment plans on an iPad in your office. See the link at the end of this article.
Find and send a treatment plan
Go to Scheduling → Treatment Plans. The Available tab shows every plan from your health record system that has at least one unscheduled procedure and hasn't been sent through NexHealth yet.
Each row shows:
Patient name and date of birth
Total cost of care and patient estimate
Plan title and creation date
Date of the patient's last appointment
Search by patient name, or filter by cost of care, creation date, or last appointment date. To send a plan:
Click Send on the plan's row. The View Treatment Plan page opens.
Review the plan title and the AI-generated summary. You can edit both. Title edits change only NexHealth, not your health record system.
Review the procedure list: priority or phase, procedure code and description, tooth and surface, fee, insurance estimate, adjustment or discount, and patient portion. Badges show which procedures are already scheduled or completed.
Click Send treatment plan.
The patient receives an email and a text from your Treatment Plans template. Reminders go out automatically on the template's schedule.
Track sent treatment plans
The Open Requests tab shows plans you've sent that are waiting for a response, plus a running total cost of all outstanding plans. Each plan shows when it was sent, when the last reminder went out, and its status: Delivered, Viewed, or Snoozed. Hover over Delivered to see email and text delivery status separately.
Use these actions:
Manage — opens a read-only view of the sent plan, with options to send a reminder, cancel the request, or mark the plan inactive or rejected.
Send reminder — sends a follow-up outside the automatic schedule.
View previous — shows what the patient sees, including the email, the text, and the plan page.
Mark inactive / reject — sets the plan's status in your health record system to Inactive (Open Dental) or Rejected (Dentrix and Eaglesoft). The plan disappears from NexHealth.
Cancel request — turns off the patient's link, stops all reminders, and returns the plan to the Available tab.
Follow up with interested patients
When a patient clicks Schedule this plan, the plan moves to the Interested tab. This is your call list: every patient here has said yes and needs an appointment. The tab shows the date the patient responded, which procedures have been scheduled so far, and the plan's cost details. A running total appears at the bottom.
A plan leaves this tab when all its procedures are linked to appointments in your health record system, or when you mark it inactive or rejected. Manage, Send reminder, Mark inactive / reject, and View previous are also available here. Send reminder re-engages the patient and moves the plan back to Open Requests.
What patients see
The patient opens the link in the email or text and confirms their last name and date of birth.
The patient sees the plan title, a plain-language summary, estimated costs, and the procedures grouped as "Part 1," "Part 2," and so on. Each part is collapsed by default and shows a status of Scheduled, Completed, or Unscheduled.
The patient chooses one of the three responses below.
Schedule this plan — moves the plan to your Interested tab.
Remind me in 3 months — snoozes the plan. It stays in Open Requests with a Snoozed status, and the reminder sequence restarts in 3 months.
Decline treatment — sets the plan's status in your health record system to Inactive (Open Dental) or Rejected (Dentrix and Eaglesoft). The plan disappears from NexHealth.
Archive a plan without sending
If a plan on the Available tab is outdated, click Archive on its row. This sets the plan to Inactive (Open Dental) or Rejected (Dentrix and Eaglesoft) in your health record system and removes it from NexHealth. No message goes to the patient.
How the AI summary works
Each plan includes a one-paragraph summary of 40–60 words, written in plain language. It describes the proposed procedures and whether they are a sequence of appointments or alternatives. It never includes dollar amounts or claims about outcomes. You can edit it before sending. If NexHealth can't generate a summary, a text box appears so you can write your own.
Customize the Treatment Plans template
Go to Settings → Templates and open the Manual section to find the Treatment Plans template. By default it has two steps, and the second step goes out two weeks after the first. Each step sends an email and a text. You can edit the message content, change the timing, and add or remove steps.
Treatment Plans frequently asked questions
Which plans appear in Available?
In Open Dental, any plan that isn't Inactive and has at least one unscheduled procedure. In Dentrix and Eaglesoft, any plan that isn't Rejected and has at least one unscheduled procedure. Plans you've already sent appear in Open Requests or Interested instead.
What if a plan changes after sending?
NexHealth keeps plan details in sync with your health record system in near real time. If procedures are added, removed, or changed after you send a plan, the plan moves from Open Requests back to Available. You can review the updated plan and send it again.
Can I send plans automatically?
No. You review and send each plan individually, and each plan is sent on its own. You can't send several plans to a patient at once.