It All Starts At The Front

Your front desk staff are the first impression of the practice, not only should they look professional and be welcoming to everyone that enters the practice but they are the gatekeeper from an administrative perspective. Coach your staff not to be casual with the details when interacting with the patients in your practice. As leaders we need to train our staff to ask the right questions and not generalize too much when communicating with our patients. It may seem small but asking the right questions has an impact throughout a patient visit with the clinical staff in your practice and with post care interactions like the pharmacy.

The most general question I hear front desk associates ask a return patient is “Has anything changed since your last visit?” This is far too general and can lead to frustuation in other areas of the practice. In 30 extra seconds have your front desk instead ask:

“Is your insurance still XYZ Insurance”

“Is your phone number still 555-5555?”

“Is your pharmacy still ABC Pharmacy on Main Street?”

By asking these simple yet targeted questions you are now making sure that your billing will be free of errors due to accurate insurance information, you have the correct phone number for your EHR system or staff to make reminder calls or follow up calls with results, and can avoid a prescription being sent to the wrong pharmacy which causes double the amount of work for your clinic staff and can be upsetting for the patient.

In this example by asking detailed questions at the front desk you will get paid faster with clean billing claims due to correct insurance information, reduce your no show rate by having the correct number for reminder calls and texts which increases revenue and increased patient satisfaction that their prescription was sent to the correct pharmacy.