by Front Office Rocks | Oct 8, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question: Laura mentioned outsourcing A/R and using a collections agency if needed. She talked about interviewing the companies. What would we ask and what’s important to know? QUESTION: Laura mentioned outsourcing A/R and using a collections agency if...
by Front Office Rocks | Sep 23, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question: If you have an employee, who steps away too many times from the desk for snacks and bathroom breaks, how would you suggest to address this matter? How many times is too many? ANSWER: I have two ways to go about answering this question for you. First...
by Front Office Rocks | Sep 4, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question: Patients continue to come to the office without proper face coverings. We tell them on the phone prior to their appointment that masks are mandatory. What is the best way to handle those who do not follow the rules in place? ANSWER: You are not...
by Front Office Rocks | Aug 27, 2020 | Patient Communication
A member asked me for help and I wanted to share this with everyone. “Right now we have a Huge number of patients that are non responsive to calls/texts I know in some of my forums other office managers are pulling their hair out too but if the pt isn’t...
by Front Office Rocks | Aug 27, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
PPE payments have become the latest problem for all Insurance Coordinators in the dental field. Many offices have decided to not charge PPE but you now are getting a bulk payment for PPE and you are unsure what to do with it. What to do with these payments are what...
by Front Office Rocks | Aug 19, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question: Our schedule is full right now but we expect to have an empty hygiene schedule in a few months. What do we do? ANSWER: You are already ahead of the game because you are being proactive and not waiting for things to fall apart. How we handle the...
by Front Office Rocks | Aug 13, 2020 | Patient Communication, Receptionist Articles, Uncategorized
The phone is definitely not the most high-tech device in your office, but it’s the most important and it can make or break a dental office. Without it, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to use all those other pieces of equipment. The phone is the technology that keeps...
by Front Office Rocks | Aug 12, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
We are wanting to offer some payment plans for our patients.... QUESTION: We are wanting to offer some payment plans for our patients. I am looking more for an agreement that we can have the patient sign. How can we best track these...
by Front Office Rocks | Jun 25, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
What is everyone doing with clinical staff coming up to the front area? We have extra computers for them to work on and they have lab slips up here. Answer: I believe right now, there should be a clearly defined clinical and non-clinical area. Everything clinical...
by Front Office Rocks | Jun 25, 2020 | Dental Team Training
Henry Ford said The only thing worse than training an employee and having them leave is not training the employee and having them stay. The Best Investment You Can Make In Your Practice Is Investing In Your Team. 40% of employees with poor training will leave the...
by Front Office Rocks | Jun 23, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question: There was and is a lack of management and direction in the front office. So I am looking to help them create more structure and be more systematic. How can this be done? Answer: Our team members today are very different than in the past. They are very...
by Front Office Rocks | Jun 18, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Q: *How to avoid patients walking into the office vs them calling/texting the office to let you know that they have arrived? A: Make sure when you confirm their appointment you go over the new protocols. It should also be added to any communications – texts,...
by Front Office Rocks | Jun 17, 2020 | Dental Team Training, Hiring
When a new person is hired, typically the team is excited as it not only offers a new, fresh face to add to the team but it means additional help. The issue with the new fresh face is that when it arrives at your office, most of the team has not prepared for the idea...
by Front Office Rocks | Jun 16, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Q: How many patients does Front Office Rocks recommend for a healthy 1 doctor & 3 hygienist practice? We currently have 3314 active patients who have been in our office in the past year and a half. The staff has been killing themselves for 2 years so we are...
by Front Office Rocks | Jun 12, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Q: When should offices replace team members that have left because of child care, or other obligations, due to the effects of COVID 19 even though production/profits are down? A: Add team members as needed…. just like when a practice grows. There is no...
by Front Office Rocks | Jun 10, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Q: We had a patient (nurse ) get very upset . We asked the COVID-19 screening questions when she came in and she answered that she saw a COVID-19 patient yesterday. We told her we couldn’t see her for the prophy until after 14 days or if she tests negative. She thinks...
by Front Office Rocks | May 28, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question: We have added about 4-5 hours per week, per hygienist to fit in urgent patients who missed an appointment while we were closed. I’m wondering if you would recommend that we schedule in 6 months with our pre- COVID 19 schedule, or plan on keeping this...
by Front Office Rocks | May 27, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question: What should I have staff do during this down time? The office is slow staff has done a lot of cleanup of supplies and rooms already. Answer: If your team has opportunities (I don’t like using the word down time) available during the day and you feel...
by Front Office Rocks | May 21, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question: “I’m an office manager. I want to see if Laura has a suggestion or a way to keep track of staff when the office manager is not on site? How to still manage and monitor away from the office?” Answer: If you have proper systems in place you...
by Front Office Rocks | May 20, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
I understand that right now we are all trying to survive and we are just in the moment trying to push through. We are hoping for things to get back to normal soon! You don’t want to change the way we would handle our patients and the care that we provide for...
by Front Office Rocks | May 20, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question: We have an in-house membership discount plan for patients without insurance where the patient pays $400 per year to get 2 cleanings, exams, etc. and 10% off dental work. We need to create a fee schedule for this plan so our books aren’t all out of...
by Front Office Rocks | May 14, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Question:When calling a patient to confirm their appointment, what should I be saying? Answer from Coach Missy: Even before the pandemic, we had specific skills we used when confirming appointments -the type of appointment scheduled, repeating the date and time at...
by Front Office Rocks | May 8, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
Ask Laura: Help I’m afraid to ask my employee… Help! I am a doctor and I am afraid to ask my employee how she feels about certain things at our office, and with her job honestly, because I am afraid of what she will say. How do you suggest I have this...
by Front Office Rocks | Apr 30, 2020 | Doctor Articles
As dentists prepare to reopen their practice, there’s going to be challenges. One thing you can control is how you plan to run your schedule. This post is a continuation from last week. If you missed tips 1-3 you can catch them here. I have outlined 6 things...
by Front Office Rocks | Apr 29, 2020 | Ask Laura Dental Office Q&A
*** Special Edition *** Every week we answer individual questions from offices, but the below answer is a result of multiple offices asking about what a re-open looks like at the front office. Things will not be “typical” in the dental office when we ‘re-open’ our...
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