Good evening friends!
I don't think I talk much about my job. I work at a family dental practice and I am in charge of the scheduling. I actually wear a ton of hats in my office and sometimes wonder why I don't have a higher position, but let's save that conversation for another day. This month has been awful as far as scheduling. A lot of patients have been cancelling due to being sick. Please please do not force patients to come in when they are sick. I used to work for a corporate office that would charge patients for being sick. I can recall my old co-worker for yelling at a patient because she was vomiting and couldn't make it. She was charged a cancellation fee. Instead, let them patient know you care, and offer them an appointment in about 2 weeks. They will most likely be happy to stay on the schedule. However, you should be able to tell if a patient is cancelling because they don't care about whether they waste the Drs' time or not, it's important to let them know your standards. I have told a patient that if he continues to cancel his 2 hour Scaling and Root planning (SRP) appointments that I would have to ask the Dr if we could continue to see him. Guess what? This patient made his appointment and didn't try to cancel any of his following appointments. But what if that patient cancels and go elsewhere? That's fine, you just lost a bad patient and now they are someone elses problem. It's important to try and keep the patients that are already scheduled. You will hear many excuses from patients about why they want to cancel. One of the main reasons is money. I had a patient call in the day before to cancel a 3 hour appointment that was worth $1000 because of finances. Ok, that's a reasonable excuse so what do you do? Most offices required payment on the date of service, but is it more time effective for me to spend 5 minutes trying to work a financial plan out with the patient? Or letting them cancelling and spending potential a couple hours trying to fill it? The first thing I do is see what the patients copay is. Then I ask them what they would be comfortable paying, and when can they make the next reasonable payment? A lot of patients are fine with doing 1/2 and 1/2... or even a few 1/3 payments. 90% of the times I am able to keep patients on the schedule. I will slowly post my tips. If you have any questions, please let me know.
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Wow~ The end of 2019 really went by fast!
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Pearl WaltonKpop, beauty, cooking, fitness, and life in general! Archives
March 2018
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