When your patients come out to the front desk you presume they are ready to make their next appointment.

The Dentist or dental assistant lets you know what the next step is with the patient’s treatment and care and you make an appointment for them.

Easy and straight forward.

It can be ongoing treatment from their treatment plan, it might be starting treatment they urgently need or it can be an important preventive care appointment.

Now it should all run smoothly and an appointment will be made.

But what often happens is this:

There is not enough people working on the front desk making appointments and answering phones.

While your patient is in front of you, ready and waiting to make an appointment the phone rings and you need to excuse yourself.

The patient waits patiently until you put the caller on hold or get their contact details to call them back.

Then the phone rings again.

Now unless there are enough people on the front desk then this can affect the patient making the appointment.

We know that making an appointment for a patient does take time, thought and care. Usually there is a transaction of payment for the appointment they have just had then there is a discussion about:

• Timing of the next appointment
• Answering questions the patient has about their next appointment.
• Confirming the appointment day and time
• Going over the fees
• Discussing any special requests like payment plans
• Discussing anything that might be stopping the patient from going ahead

So, there are a few steps to go through with your patient when they are making their next appointment.

It is worthwhile looking at how smooth this part of the appointment is.

If there are constant interruptions and you don’t have enough time to properly go through the steps for making the appointment, then it can mean the patient decides not to make their appointment or will call you later when you are not busy.

Recently I spoke to a Front Office team and they said that they miss out on making the patients’ next appointments because they are not able to spend the necessary time with the patient and go through the steps.

You want every patient to make their next appointment before they leave so make sure the front office are able to do this with minimal interruptions and can spend the time they need with the patient.

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If your new patient numbers are down, or if you’ve “sensed” for a while that something’s just not working as well as it should be, as it relates to the phones… then Click here for a  copy of my Free Report, right now:
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