Appointment scheduling is so much more than putting names into a book, or a computer screen. Effective scheduling uses mechanics, experience and skill. An effective schedule will create a balanced and productive day. Doctors will be happy that production is being met, Assistants and Hygienists will be happy because they have a full schedule without being too full and crazy. When the clinic team is happy, it filters over to the front office team! Following are a few tips that I teach in our Dental Office Administration course. https://www.advanceddentaladmin.com/dental-office-administration-course
The first thing to do is to figure out the # of operatories and providers you have. How many rooms will the Doctor be using? Is your Doctor able to hop between rooms or do they prefer to stay in a room until completely finished and then go to the next room? Do you have EFDA’s and do they have their own rooms? How many rooms for the Hygienist? Do you use Assisted Hygiene? Will the Hygienist stay in 1 room or hop between 2?
Once you know your rooms and providers, agree on what your days and hours will look like.
Next, talk to your Doctor and determine what the daily production goal is. This # is a combination of the Doctor’s goal and the Hygienist’s goal. We need to schedule to meet that goal every day.
Next step – figure out how long most procedures take the Doctor to complete. Typical time units are either 10 minutes or 15 minutes. Take a few weeks to time each procedure. Time the same procedure multiple times to come up with an average time. How long do you need to allow for a 3-surface composite filling? What about a crown? How will you schedule multiple restorations in the same quadrant? For example, if you need 45 min for a MOD comp, and the patient needs a MOD on #29 and #30, do you need two 45 min blocks of time? Not really, because you won’t need to allow additional time for anesthetic. You will just add, maybe another 15 minutes to the procedure.
How long does your Hygienist need for 6 month exam/prophy appt? What if they add x-rays? How about periodontal treatment? Knowing your required times for procedures will make the next steps so much easier.
Now, ask your Doctor if they prefer longer mornings/shorter afternoons. Do they only want surgeries on certain days. Do they mind large procedures in the afternoons? Knowing these answers will help you schedule a mix of procedures – keeping the day interesting. I mean, who wants to do the same procedure all day? Mix it up!
Now that you know the mechanics, the basics of what your schedule needs, you can start getting creative with the art of making the schedule look how you want it to. This takes time to learn. Your schedule needs to be set but also be able to be flexible so that adjustments can be made to meet the goals for the day.
How do we this? We start by using pre-blocks. Remember when you timed the procedures? A pre-block is a block of time reserved for a certain type of procedure. Having a mix of procedures keeps the day interesting. Utilizing the operatories with the best timing keeps team members working together and helping each other out. And, it ensures production goals are being met.
So, what kinds of blocks should you have? High production, restorative or mid production, and low or no production blocks are definite. What about New Patient blocks – in both Doctor and Hygiene rooms? Blocks assure a New Patient won’t be waiting months for an appointment. How about Emergency blocks? Perio blocks? Team meetings? And especially lunch! Yes, you should block lunch, because if you don’t block lunch, chances are you wont get lunch.
Utilize short call, or asap lists to fill in any open time. It is so important to build a short call list so you have something to pull from. Every practice will have short notice cancellations. To develop an asap list, ask every patient when they make an appointment if you can also place them on the asap list, so if there is a change in the schedule they can be seen sooner. Then mark that appointment as asap.
Staggering time for the Doctor, EFDA, and Assistants keeps everyone busy and uses the operatory time wisely. Scheduling restorative appointments as soon as the Doctor diagnoses the treatment emphasizes the importance of the treatment and doesn’t allow the patient time to “forget” they need the treatment. There are so many times the patient will wait until the Doctor leaves the room and then say why do I need this? Your clinical team should be able to talk to patients about their treatment.
Keeping the schedule full is a team effort. Doctors need to diagnose treatment, the clinical team needs to reinforce and educate patients about why they need the treatment and the front office team needs to get it scheduled before the patient leaves. Maybe the patient doesn’t NEED any treatment, but has mentioned in the past they would like to HAVE treatment, maybe whitening or something cosmetic – the Doctor should be made aware of that and talk about it.
Sometimes, no matter what verbiage we use, a patient has to move the appointment and now you have open time to fill. This is where an asap list is so important. Filling these holes in the schedule shouldn’t fall to only the front office team. Ask your Hygienists if they can think of anyone that needs to come in – sometimes a patient will mention their kids or husband need to be seen but nothing was really done about it at the time; ask your Assistants if there are any crowns that can be seated. Pull an appointment from later in the month if you know the patient is flexible. Use your asap or short call list!
Make treatment follow-up a weekly task. Start with any treatment diagnosed that week that wasn’t scheduled, then look at the previous week, and so on. Calling someone about treatment that was diagnosed 5 months ago and never addressed seems awkward and doesn’t speak to the importance of the treatment. The patient might think, if it is so important, why are you just now calling me about it?
Things get busy in the front office area, and keeping a schedule full can take a big chunk of time. Utilizing these few tips can save some time!