Unscheduled Treatment Follow-Up Policy
This Treatment Coordinator resource document provides policy to outline what steps need to be taken for each patient that requires treatment plan follow up, including weekly and monthly meeting updates.
Unscheduled Treatment Follow Up Policy
Purpose of Policy: The intention when diagnosing and presenting dental treatment to patients is to help them understand their condition and get the treatment needed to get them healthy. The hope is that patients will understand and want to get the treatment scheduled when it is presented but that does not always happen. For different reasons, a patient cannot schedule the treatment immediately at presentation and it becomes the responsibility of someone in the office to follow up with the patient to ensure they schedule.
It is important to understand that many times, patients are not excited about getting the dental work done and will not call in to schedule on their own. It is the responsibility of the dental office to reach out to the patient and attempt to get them scheduled. There is a balance between getting in touch with the patient in a timely manner so that they understand the urgency to get the treatment done but not bug them so much they get annoyed and don’t schedule at all. The following is a recommended timeline of follow up with the patient if they don’t schedule at the time the treatment is presented.
Suggested Follow Up Times:
- ) Agreed Upon Time: during the presentation, if there was an agreed upon time to talk next, that would be the time to follow up. For example, if the insurance company needed to be called and the next business day they can be reached, then follow up then. Another example would be, if the patient needs to speak to their spouse and the plan was to talk with them over the weekend, then the follow up would be on Monday.
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