AVOIDING INEFFECTIVE MEETINGS A very poor way to run an office is for you and your staff to have meetings infrequently and only when there has been a problem.  Staff meetings should be something that are useful and routine, not something that are called as emergencies because you’re upset or there have been problems or somebody has made a mistake.   You can make the mistake of calling a meeting when only one individual needs to be corrected and that individual is talked about in the meeting as if it’s “everybody.”  That will do two things very poorly.  First, this is a way of chastising...

Can you imagine baseball without any rules? Or, driving in rush hour traffic with no laws or guidelines governing what to do when the lights turn green or red? The obvious result would be confusion and chaos. This same logic applies to every organization.  If there are no guidelines and rules for employees to follow they will not know what is expected of them. Frustration, confusion and unnecessary disagreements then happen.  For these reasons, it is vital that you have both a general policy manual as well as individual manuals for each position in your dental practice. In addition to achieving your...

A dental receptionist (or any staff member for that matter) should never try to wing it when it comes to answering patient’s dental questions. Your receptionist should only answer those questions she knows the answer to without diagnosing or giving out medical advice.   If the receptionist does not know the answer or it is beyond her scope of responsibility she should simply say something to the effect of, “Mr. Jones, that is something I will have to check with the doctor on (or office manager or whoever). I will get back to you by the end of the day or first...

UNSCHEDULED TREATMENT The first step. If the patient cannot schedule, for example, because the patient needs to review finances with their spouse, whoever did the consult needs to get the patient’s agreement to follow up with a call the next day if at all possible. Get a specific time and the phone number the patient can be reached at.  In the situation where the patient needs to talk to a spouse but, after doing so, the patient still does not schedule, suggest to the patient that the spouse come in so that the treatment plan can be explained and why the...