Dental Practice Management

There are three or front office positions or functions. Call them what you want, but they break down as follows:   a) Receptionist, b) Scheduling coordinator, c) Accounts Manager d) Treatment Coordinator. In a small practice one employee does all the front office functions.  As a practice grows, two staff should be able to handle these functions up to 80-100K in production espcially if yousource all or part of your insurance processing.  The natural breakdown would be to combine the four functions as follows: In a bigger practice you might have one person for each position or some other combination that...

Should you cross train your staff? Cross training has its place when there is a temporary need. But under normal circumstances each employee should have specific responsibilities, otherwise you lose accountability. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with employees helping in an area outside their assigned responsibilities during peak periods or when another employee is absent. But staff need to stay focused on their specific assigned job and functions once the overload is handled.  

Outside of working hours your voice message should contain: a. Your dental practice hoursb. Instructions for your patients in case of an emergency, i.e., call your cell phone, call 911, or call the on-call dentistc. When the patient can expect to be called backd. What information the patient should leave, i.e., the reason for the call, their name, and a good time to call back.Your message should be clear, friendly, and professional.

Many dentists will agree it's never a good idea to hold onto an employee—if you would dismiss the person otherwise—out of concern for an increase in your unemployment insurance. Each state has its own formula to calculate unemployment benefits but all the states use the employee's earnings when figuring it out. The length and maximum weekly benefit varies state to state. How much any given employer is responsible for will be based  on a percentage of what the employee earned from their previous jobs over a specific period of time and can't exceed the state's weekly maximum.   Kevin Tighe, Cambridge Dental...