As your dental receptionist becomes familiar with patients she will know a little more about them and will be able to talk to them about their interests, etc. This is very important. She should make a point of bringing up what she talked about last time the patient was in. For instance, if the patient just went on vacation, ask them how it went. If the patient had a baby, got a new job, is looking for a job, just got married, had a ballgame, went to a ballgame. . . anything! It makes the patient feel much more comfortable if...

Your confirmation system should be tailored to each type of patient and have a personal touch.  Auto-Pilot: Do not put confirmation on auto-pilot. Services such as Lighthouse are useful when used smartly but, when you put confirmation on auto-pilot, front desk can sometimes abandon responsibility for the schedule because, “Lighthouse is handling it”. Customize: Find out from patients if they prefer to be contacted by text, phone call or email. Ideally what time of the day they prefer to be called is noted in the patient’s chart. These days, except for older patients, most prefer texts. Education: For all the wonderful...

There are four dental front office/front desk positions/functions. Call them what you want but they basically break down as follows: Receptionist Scheduling Secretary Accounts Manager Treatment Coordinator In a very small office one employee does them all.  As a practice grows two staff handle the jobs/functions. The natural breakdown would be to combine the four jobs/functions as follows: Receptionist/Scheduling Secretary Accounts Manager/Treatment Coordinator Then in a really big practice you might have one person for each position or some other combination such as two receptionists, a Scheduling Coordinator and a Treatment Coordinator/Accounts Manager. Cross training has its place but it is...

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...