The Dental Front Desk Training Checklist
Dental Practice Management 101
Hiring and building a great team is so important to the overall success of your practice — and an efficient front desk is a key to a productive practice. Your busy dental practice can create an exciting front office environment for your receptionists to help manage.
Your front office team has to do a huge range of tasks, with a lot of interruptions, throughout their day. Creating a dependable task flow helps your front office team focus on their most significant tasks, even with interruptions. Your dental receptionist is responsible for making sure that the operations of your dental office run smoothly so that you and your dental team can concentrate on patient care and dental treatment.
How to Know When Your Front Desk Staff Needs Improvement with a Dental Front Desk Training Checklist
Making a positive first impression is a powerful part of the front desk staff’s job in your dental practice. They’re the face of your practice! Proper front desk etiquette is very important, yet many skip formal training for their folks working upfront. Your dental office manager is the first person that comes in contact with the patient — so it’s pretty important that they are organized. Your dental practice’s success depends on having the highest possible level of organization for your office managers. If you are worried your front desk staff is falling short on their front desk manners, here are four questions to ask yourself.
- Is your front desk staff well trained?
- Does your front desk staff have strong interpersonal skills?
- Does your front desk staff exhibit proper phone etiquette?
- Is your practice a great place to work?
If you can honestly answer “yes” to the four questions below, you most likely have a good team. If you are not sure of your answers or if any of your answers are no, there’s room for improvement.
More Done Desk: 3 Communication Best Practices For Medical Practices
How Do I Train My Dental Front Of The Office?
Dental front desk training checklists are valuable for a couple of reasons. They can be practical when training new front office team members. It’s also helpful if another team member is filling in. The checklist gives the new team members a place to start.
To meet your front desk team’s goals, here’s what the Front Desk Coordinator should be trained to accomplish in the first few minutes with a new patient:
Project energy and enthusiasm. Even on the worst of days at the office, they must rise above any negative feelings to create a strong positive impression of your practice. Language like “We love seeing new patients!” or “I can’t wait to meet you!” sends the right message.
Gather information, including interesting personal facts. In addition to the usual patient information, your coordinator should draw out some personal details. These will be documented so you and other staff members can use them to help build a strong practice-patient relationship.
Find out how callers heard about your practice. For the sake of your marketing, you need to know what strategies are working for your practice. If your new patients have been referred by current patients, asking “Who can we thank for recommending us?” sends the message that you really appreciate your patients, both established and new.
Build value for you, the team, and the practice.
Praise for A) You. Such as, “Did you know Dr. Smith is board-certified?”,
B) Your staff. Like, “We treat our patients like family!”
C) Your office. Something like, “We have an amazing new imaging system!”
These can all be interspersed throughout the conversation between your front desk and new patients.
Schedule the first appointment within seven days. By the end of the conversation, all callers should be scheduled to come in soon for their first visit before the positive first impression your front desk coordinator creates can fade.
More Done Desk: Establishing Performance Measurements For A Medical Practice
You may also be interested in:
Dental Front Desk Training
$199 NOW $99 | FREE with Done Desk Membership for as low as $79/m
Train new Dental Front Desk employees with this 70-section, full-scale training course that teaches essential skills and knowledge required to perform various administrative tasks as a dental front desk professional — including appointment scheduling, patient communication, insurance verification, billing and collections, and record-keeping.
Section 1:
Dental Basics + Definitions
Section 2:
Business Processes & Patient Interactions
Section 3:
Procedures & Paperwork
Section 4:
HIPAA Compliance
Section 5:
Insurance & Billing Practices
Section 6: Housekeeping & Emergencies
Our Features
Endless paperwork, manual tracking of deadlines, and scrambling to update protocols every time there's a regulatory tweak – it's enough to make anyone's head spin. Plus, it eats into precious time that could be better spent making your patients smile.
TRAINING & LMS
Integrated LMS allowing you to create or choose from a library of our pre-built training seamlessly.
Ensuring consistent training across multiple locations can be a challenge. With Done Desk's LMS, you can standardize training protocols, deliver engaging content, and track team progress.
Choose training topics from Done Desk's built-in training library - or create and upload your own training. Course Tracks allow you to build sequences of training — anything from a 30-day onboarding Track to a year-long CE Track. Get Training Done with Done Desk.
Your Office Documents
Centralized document hub - upload, organize, and sign documents.
With Done Desk Doc Automation, all your compliance documents – licenses, permits, policies – are neatly organized in one digital hub. Plus, with our SignableDocs feature — employees can sign required paperwork like W4s, I-9s, and more directly in-app!
Centralize document storage, enforce access controls, and maintain audit trails with ease. Rest assured that your organization is always prepared for inspections and audits, minimizing risk and safeguarding your reputation.
Tasks & Task Tracks
Create, assign, and monitor tasks across your organization.
Done Desk's pre-built library of Task Tracks get's you one step ahead — telling you what to do and how to do it! Then, keep track of things until it's time to do it again!
Create video Tasks and keep training employees continuously — or try out a repeating Task for things that need to get Done on a regular basis. If you can Task it — Done Desk helps get it Done.
Done Desk for DSOs
Track adherence across multi-locations and quickly identify areas of non-compliance. Standardize your practices.
Done Desk keeps a detailed log of all your compliance activities office-by-office.
Done Desk grows with your organization, adapting to your evolving needs and driving continuous improvement. Experience the Done Desk difference and unlock the full potential of your organization today.
OSHA+HIPAA Built-In
Get the basics Done.
Get all your annual employee training Done with Done Desk! With our platform, you can ensure that your staff stays up-to-date and compliant with crucial regulations such as OSHA, HIPAA, and Continuing Education (CE) requirements.
Done Desk's LMS provides in-depth OSHA training modules covering topics such as infection control, hazardous materials handling, and emergency preparedness. With interactive content and real-world scenarios, our platform equips your team with the knowledge and skills they need to maintain a safe and healthy work environment.
Used & Loved by
Our Partners & Clients
“I use Done Desk to take the guesswork out of running Brush 365’s multiple offices! As the office manager, the platform keeps us efficient with employee files, timekeeping, onboarding, and the array of compliance regulations. Done Desk allows me to focus my time on the most important part of my role… leading my people!
The value of this platform simply cannot be underestimated.”
“I had literally been searching for something like Done Desk for over 5+ yrs. One of the most impressive things about Done Desk is the team. I greatly appreciate using a product where the founder is open & appreciative of feedback. How rare is that? And the communication goes two ways – with my feedback, they let me know the direction of growth they are focused on. In addition, the Done Desk team is exceptionally responsive, often within minutes of questions I have and this makes all the difference in the world.”
Feeling inspired?
Start assigning PFront Desk Training to your team today.
Drive more employee engagement— the #1 driver of business success— with Done Desk.
Companies with a high level of employee engagement are 21% more profitable (Techjury).
Done Desk Key Features
Hi! Want to keep up with Done Desk? We’ll make sure to only send interesting info, no crappy content or fluff. Just the good stuff — promise!
Get In Touch:
Done Desk™
Software proudly designed and handmade in the USA.
Headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.
100% Staffed by real people in the USA.
Done Desk EDU is an approved PACE Program Provider for FAGD/MAGD credit and AGD Approved Courses
Approval does not imply acceptance by any regulatory authority or AGD endorsement.
Provider ID# 389654 | 3/1/2023 to 2/28/2026
Copyright Done Desk™ 2024