Practice Management

Laura Hatch is an Office Manager that has started and successfully grown two dental offices and is also the founder of Front Office Rocks, a fully comprehensive online front office training program. For more information, visit www.FrontOfficeRocks.com.

Articles

It is typical in a dental office that when we hire a new employee at the front desk, they start by answering the phones for the office. Really, when looking at it from the dentist’s perspective, that is the easiest thing to start with, right? That definitely seems to make sense, but frankly, that is one of the worst things you can do for your office with a new employee.

3 reasons new employees shouldn’t answer the phones

Jay Geier is a speaker, consultant and the president and founder of the Scheduling Institute. He helps his clients reach new levels of success and create a lifestyle they dream of using their practice as the vehicle. He has a unique ability for getting results in a practice by leveraging its current resources with a primary focus on getting the staff to take more ownership, more responsibility and teaching them how to produce results. For more information on the Scheduling Institute programs, call (877) 215-8225 or e-mail info@schedulinginstitute.com.

Let’s face it, even with the ease of the internet, new patients want to speak with a live person. They want to know what to expect, what insurance you accept, how long it will take, etc. So they pick up the phone and call.

One ridiculously easy solution to increase new patients

Sally McKenzie is CEO of McKenzie Management, which offers educational and management products available at www.mckenziemgmt.com. Contact Ms. McKenzie directly at (877) 777-6151 or at sallymck@mckenziemgmt.com.

Do you want to improve telephone techniques in your dental practice? Here are seven of the most common mistakes practices make during patient calls and how to fix them.

The top 7 mistakes dental practices make during patient phone calls

Once you begin taking steps toward improvement within your dental practice, you can start keeping your profits in your practice and out of the toilet. Here are six ways to do that.

6 common trends that flush a dental practice's profits down the toilet

With more than 20 years in the dental publishing industry, Kevin Henry has guided the leading publications in the industry, including serving as the former group editorial director for 

. He now works as the co-founder for IgniteDA, a community designed to empower, enlighten, and educate dental assistants, and as director of marketing for Fortune Management, a coaching community dedicated to help dentists and teams have extraordinary practices and lives. He can be reached at kevinhenry@fortunemgmt.com.

Lisa Marie Spradley, the 2014 Office Manager of the Year, has some words of advice on dental fees and the role of the dental office manager in setting them.

The role of the office manager in setting the dental practice's fees

Patti DiGangi, RDH, BS, believes dentistry is no longer just about fixing teeth. Dentistry is oral medÂ­icine. Her work helps dental professionals embrace the opportunities and understand the metrics that accurate insurance coding provides. The ADA recognized her expertise by inviting her to write a chapter in its CDT 2017 Companion book and again for its CDT 2018 Companion. She is the author of the DentalCodeology series of easy-to-read, bite-size books. Her latest book, "Teledentistry: Pathway to Pathology" was co-written with Cindy Purdy, RDH, BS. She can be reached at patti@dentalcodeology.com.

"It isn’t difficult, but it takes team cooperation, new thinking, and practice." That's the mantra from author Patti DiGangi in this article.

How thinking like Twitter can reduce your dental practice's insurance frustration

There’s no question that the phone can be one of the best parts of your dental practice. It can also be one of the worst parts as well. Here's what you need to know.

The most important things to know when a new patient calls your dental practice

When a new patient calls your office, do your staff members give them a great phone experience?

Dental office dynamics: Four elements of a great phone call

o you want your dental practice to grow? For a dental practice, growth comes from new
patients.

Data for dentists: How hard facts can help you grow your practice

 When I moved to New York, I was still on the insurance plan of my company, which was headquartered in Oklahoma. What was a great benefits package in Oklahoma was slim pickins in New York City, and I was forced to choose between two or three dentists within all five boroughs who would accept my insurance. Naturally, I chose the one closest to me (after checking his Yelp reviews, of course).