Answers to commonly asked questions

Doctors guide to getting the most from your team’s training.

Printable video tracking sheet

This Receptionist checklist can be used to track and monitor the number of weekly and monthly recare and insurance calls that are made.

This Receptionist Instruction Sheet provides detailed information and definitions for the vital terms used while entering new patient information. Accuracy is vital when entering new patient information into your software. The entire practice relies on correct patient information to do their jobs.

This Receptionist policy is designed as a step‐by‐step guide to entering a new dental patient’s information into Eaglesoft and to ensure that your front office has all of the required data needed to ease the transition for the patient and the front office staff.

Sample Authorization for Use or Disclosure of Protected Health Information. Please work directly with your legal council or Human Resources professional to ensure your office is legally compliant while using any records release form.

This form can be downloaded and customized for your office. It will guide you as you select the correct insurance information for the patient.

Each day we need to make sure we get certain things done to open the office efficiently and at the end of the day to make sure we close office correctly. This Receptionist policy is a list of steps that must be done by the first person in from the front office team in the morning.

This Receptionist policy maps how to skillfully execute hand-offs in your office. The intention of good hand offs is to ensure that the patient is transitioned from one employee to the next with the correct amount of information and care.

Your communication skills can impact the flow of information throughout the office, not only helping you get what you need, but others getting what they need. This document focuses on the most efficient way to communicate with your team members and doctors and be effective through your communication.

If you are new to dental there are many basic dental terms that you will hear in a dental office daily that you need to know and understand. This document defines some of those terms in the area of diagnostic and preventative dentistry.

This document explains and illustrates what periodontal or gum disease is and how it is treated.

This document illustrates the different options for replacing a tooth or multiple teeth, when it is needed.

This document provides tips for asking for referrals, suggested scripts and an area to write your own “ask for a referral script.”

The Scheduler provides a well-run scheduled flow of the dental office. They oversee that patients are scheduled appropriately, keep the schedule productive, fill any openings in the schedule and confirm patients are aware of their next visit. Use this Scheduler Daily Duties list to stay on track and ahead of the day.

As a scheduler, use this form to break down and track your eight hour day while scheduling the doctor. We have illustrated how to break your day into manageable pieces and what to do with each allotment.

This Doctor Scheduler Checklist can be used to track and monitor the scheduler’s daily responsibilities specific to maintenance of the doctor’s schedule.

When confirming appointments, there are a few things that you should review prior to making the phone call and then update the notes accordingly. Use this Scheduling Policy to help break down the steps for the next day review.

When confirming appointments, there are a few things that you should review prior to making the phone call and update in the notes if needed. This policy provides step by step instructions to use prior to and during your phone call to the patient.

Every patient should leave the office with a future visit scheduled. We do this is because it’s easier to remind them when their appointment is rather than having to track them down to get scheduled.

It is important to understand block scheduling, the reasons to use and how to do it. This Scheduling Policy outlines the importance of how to block schedule, what happens when you don’t and the proper guidelines to follow for an effective and productive schedule.

On occasion, patients will run late for any number of reasons. If they are only late by a couple of minutes the impact is minimal, but if the patient is going to be 15 minutes late or more a quick assessment must be made to see if that will be acceptable. Use this policy to assess next steps for any patient who is running late.

It is the purpose of the scheduling team to make sure that the hygiene schedule stays as full as possible. In order to accomplish this, there may be a lot of movement within the daily hygiene schedule, including the hygienists’ lunch schedule. This policy provides guidelines for monitoring and managing hygiene lunches.

This document describes how to offer an appointment to a patient that fits their schedule, but ulitmately fills the needs of the office schedule. You will see the best way to offer an appointment.

Understanding how to schedule and what the goal is when putting together a productive schedule is the most important aspect of the scheduler role.  Each dental office is different, so it is important to find out what your office policy is when it comes to scheduling.  Front Office Rocks suggests that when learning how to schedule, you need to look at it from two different perspectives:  The doctor’s schedule and the hygiene schedule (if you have both to fill).

When trying to build a productive schedule, we don’t want to fill up the schedule with a lot of little appointments. By doing this, we end up with a lot of small appointments scattered all over the day and no room to put primary appointments. In this lesson, we explain how to save a block, while still providing a patient appointment times they want.

Use this form to confirm an agreement between the practice and the patient to receive payment for treatment and services. One agreement is good for each patient and is valid until the patient requests and updates the financial agreement.

Communication with patients is an important part of coordinating treatment. These templates are a good starting point for creating your own library of templates or using them just as they are to communicate effectively with your patients. Strong communication techniques will yield a full and productive schedule.

The doctor’s scheduler is in charge of the doctor’s schedule and needs to confirm with the patient not only their appointment time, but their financial obligation for the appointment. It is a significant help when scheduling patients, whether from the consult rooms or over the phones, to verify the patient’s plan for payment.

Most of our patients schedule their treatment at the time of the consultation and get it done in a timely manner, however, there are a few patients that just don’t follow that rule. With a high level of commitment, we work to get them scheduled by calling them, emailing them and sometimes bringing them back in for a second consult. Follow this policy to manage returning patients and their outstanding treatment.

This Financial Coordinator Checklist can be used to track and monitor the financial insurance coordinator’s daily responsibilities specific to financial and insurance specific functions.

Oftentimes, insurance companies will “downgrade” benefits for treatment. The instructions in this work around will save you time during insurance submissions and multiple bills to patients.

This document outlines the duties of the financial coordinator with explanations as to what each step/duty is and why it is important. The instructions define each step, what it means, how it is done and why it is important to your role and the office. You will also find basic terms and their definitions for each step.

This document outlines dental codes, what they mean and how they work and will serve as a reference while completing and submitting claims.

Whenever the dental office bills an insurance company for a procedure for a patient, the insurance company sends the dental office and the patient an Explanation of Benefits (EOB). Each insurance company’s EOB look different but typically have the same information. This document illustrates the information that you can expect to see on the majority of EOBs.

This document can be used to help you manage insurance benefits for each patient by breaking down their benefits. You can use this form to capture patient information, coverage percentages, frequency, and hygiene. There is also a place to enter your fees versus UCR and ortho if needed.

This is a reference document that provides a screen shot sample of a patient account with an unpaid balance.

Most insurance companies accept electronic claims, which are typically returned to us within two weeks. However, some insurance companies only accept paper claims, which can take much longer to be returned. Whether the claim was sent by mail or electronically, it is important to track the status of claims over 30 days old. Use this policy to manage outstanding insurance calls.

This policy is a list of treatments that typically require a narrative from insurance companies when submitting a claim. This list is a good starting point of reference to determine whether your claim should include a narrative at submission. Remember to add to it as you discover additional treatments that require narratives.

Here you will find detailed examples of Auto Notes to use in your office.

This Office Manager checklist can be used to track and monitor the daily, weekly and monthly tasks and responsibilities managed.

It is important to take the time first thing in the morning to look at the schedule and determine if there is anything in the day that needs to be remedied, moved, handled, etc. Looking for and addressing these issues early in the day helps keep the office running smoothly and productively.

A primary role of the Office Manager is to work with the doctor to not only set goals but to regularly know how your office is doing each day, week and month in order to meet those goals. This document contains examples and screen shots illustrating how best to track those goals.

Production in a dental office is important but if the office only focuses on production then eventually the office will start to become disorganized and result in decreased production. The reason for the decreased production is no time allotted for meetings and times to get more organized or to get organization addressed. Therefore, it is vital that regular meetings are scheduled and held throughout the month and the year. This policy contains a suggested list of meeting that should happen along with the purpose of the meeting and the suggested increments.

It is important to recognize that the noise level in the office can potentially increase the stress of patients and also may lower the ability to offer exceptional customer service. This policy outlines how to manage the noise level in your office.

The purpose of this meeting is to bring the management team together to review the past week and make a plan for the upcoming week. This meeting is also used to discuss each division of the office to make sure there is nothing going on that needs to be handled and/or discuss opportunities to make things run more smoothly. This policy will act as a guideline and agenda for the weekly executive meeting.

It is important to recognize the personal time, regular pay and overtime pay. As an employer, it is our job to make sure that our employees know the difference between each so each employee can be responsible for the time they are at the office and the work they are doing. This policy defines each type of time that an employee may or may not accrue during a typical work week.

Each employee, except the doctors, wears a headset while working to stay in good communication with everyone else and to save time trying to track people down to get things done. The headset communication is important too for the office manager to manage the flow of the office and the patients in the office. he amount of communication on the headset is important. If there is too much communication then it is distracting to those not involved with that cycle and if not enough communication or none at all then those trying to get something won’t know if it has been heard. The following are a list of the communication guidelines.