In theoretical simulations and analysis of diagnostic measurements for hot dense plasmas in the inertial confinement fusion(ICF) researches, it is usually necessary to consider thousands of ionic energy states and transition arrays between these energy states. Average atom(AA) models are generally adopted for practical purposes. In order to calculate ionic populations of hot dense plasmas more accurately, we propose a method beyond the AA model, which can calculate the ionic populations of plasma in local thermal equilibrium with satisfactory accuracy, and may also deal effectively with the ionic populations of plasma in non-local thermal equilibrium.