If you prefer not to discuss fees with patients when they’re in the chair, try something like this (in a kidding fashion): “You're trying to get me in trouble! I'm just kidding, but Mary at our front desk gets mad at me when I try to discuss fees. She always tells me if I stick to dentistry, she'll stick to her front desk duties. She'll take good care of you and will answer all your questions. She knows her stuff."   Kevin Tighe, Cambridge Dental Consultants, Senior Consultant, got bitten hard by the business and marketing bug during long summer days working...

A dental practice is too small of a business to afford any weak links. If you want to produce at a high level of production and efficiency, you cannot afford any weak links. Poor organization is also at the heart of patient complaints. Organization of a practice is, in essence, composed of ensuring you and your staff know how to efficiently and effectively process:  a. New Patients b. Returning Patients c. Emergency Patients Another action we take early on with new clients is to evaluate where the weak links are in handling new, returning and emergency patients and then systematically strengthen...

You want to keep relations with staff friendly but professional, kind of like the idea that “high fences make good neighbors." Consider using Facebook's privacy settings as your "fences" to control what posts your staff see or not. It's very easy to do.

During normal business hours it is vital all calls be answered within three rings and that any hold times be minimal. If this not happening, typically the reason is not enough staff or the current staff need to be trained better and/or have better discipline. If you have too many calls coming in for your front desk to handle, you need another person up front or consider hiring reputable dental specific phone overflow service. After hours or weekend calls? Google phone number/voicemail is free. Your office number can be forward to it. The voicemail has ab employee or your voice which...