Short answer: a basic breakdown updates the eligibility line on the patient's appointment note, and that's it. It does not push the annual maximum used or remaining into your practice software. Neither does it push deductibles or the plan's last-verified date.
The useful half is that we do have those numbers. A basic breakdown collects the annual maximum — the total, the amount used, and the amount remaining — from the real-time eligibility response and, where we have a payer portal connection, from the portal itself. They just live in Stratus rather than in your system.
Where to look for the maximum instead
Two places, both in Stratus:
The breakdown itself. Open the patient's breakdown from your breakdowns list. Scroll to the General Maximum card. Under Individual you'll see three rows: Amount, Used, and Remaining.
The PDF. Download the breakdown PDF. The same General Maximum block appears on the benefits page, with the same Amount, Used and Remaining figures.
If the plan has no annual cap, the Used and Remaining rows are hidden — an uncapped plan has nothing to count down.
If a row is blank, the payer didn't return that figure for this patient. It isn't a display problem; there's nothing to show.
What a basic actually writes into OpenDental
One line, on the patient's appointment note. It looks like this:
STRATUS 2026-08-03: Eligibility Active (Basic)
That's the status plus the date we checked. Running another basic replaces that line with a fresh one — anything else in the note, including notes your team typed, stays put.
If your account is set up for it, the breakdown PDF is also attached to the patient's documents so the full detail is one click away inside your system.
What a basic does not write
Annual maximum — the amount, the used figure, or the remaining figure.
Deductibles, individual or family.
Coverage percentages, per-code benefits, frequencies, or orthodontic benefits.
The insurance plan's last-verified date.
The plan note and the appointment eligibility field.
All of those move into your practice software only on a full breakdown. If you need the maximum used and remaining to land on the plan itself so your team sees it without opening Stratus, a full breakdown is the way to get it.
When coverage isn't active
If the patient comes back inactive, terminated, or not covered, you'll get the eligibility status and the plan details, but usually no benefit detail — no maximum, no deductible, no percentages. Payers generally don't report benefits on a plan that isn't in force. For a few payers we can still pull some detail from the portal, so you may occasionally see more than that.
If the payer's answer is unclear enough that we can't even establish a status, the verification comes back as Unavailable rather than completed, and no note is written to your system.
The quick version
In the Stratus breakdown | Written into OpenDental | |
Eligibility status and date | Yes | Yes — appointment note |
Annual maximum: amount, used, remaining | Yes | No — full breakdown only |
Deductibles | Yes | No — full breakdown only |
Plan last-verified date | Yes | No — full breakdown only |