Dental Support Specialties Blog

You need to make an appointment with your doctor, and you prefer to schedule it over the phone rather than online. As you call their office, expecting to have your needs met, instead of talking to a real person, you have to leave a message with a machine and wait to be contacted later. You hang up the phone unimpressed and frustrated by your interaction—or lack thereof—with the practice.

If you rely on an automated answering service at your dental practice, this is exactly how it can feel for your patients as they attempt to contact you. A smarter alternative is to turn to us at Dental Support Specialties for your dental answering service so that your valued patients can interact with a friendly team member and build a trusting relationship that lasts for years to come.

With the rest of the world, you waited at home during the pandemic for permission to reopen your practice. Like many out there, you’re feeling the economic pinch from being closed for several months, but now you have the chance to make up for lost time! But where do you start to recuperate? A great place to begin is with patient recall. In this post, you’ll learn how you can get patients back into your office and set your practice up for success in the coming months with scheduling support.

If you’ve ever worked with a call center, you know how annoying the experience can be. Even when you’re talking to a real person, they may or may not be able to help, and it can feel like you might as well be leaving your name and number with an impersonal machine. Dental Support Specialties goes beyond just providing a warm body to put on the phone with your patients. We can do much more than that! Read on to learn how our dental answering service can make a difference for your practice.

As a small business owner, you are familiar with the hiring process, unfortunately. Even when you have high hopes for a new employee, and they’re a good fit for your practice, no one is perfect, right? Think again! It isn’t practical to expect perfection out of an individual, but there is a way for you to enjoy all the perks. Dental Support Specialties has an entire team of experienced dental office experts, all devoted to the success of your practice through effective dental answering services.

At every opportunity, you try to make a positive impression with your patients and build trust. Your team greets them warmly when they arrive, everyone is friendly and kind, and you listen carefully to their needs before recommending treatment. Even with all these efforts, one thing can come along and shatter whatever good feelings you’ve carefully created—surprise fees. In this post, you’ll learn how dental insurance verification with Dental Support Specialties can help you stay in patients’ good graces for the long term.

Over the last couple of weeks, practices and businesses have temporarily closed their doors because of the threat of COVID-19. However, unlike many stores or offices, your practice needs to still be available to help with dental emergencies. That means you must remain accessible to your patients for dental scheduling even though your team isn’t in the office. Fortunately, Dental Support Specialties is already set up to help your practice remotely, protecting everyone involved and allowing everyone to stay safe during these uncertain times.

Managing your patient dental benefits on all levels is crucial to keeping your cash flow moving. Being proactive in managing your patient dental benefits is just as important! (think obtaining patient benefits and clean claim submissions!)

What are some of the front desk and scheduling precautions you will be taking in your office?

Here are some that we are seeing: (follow your state, county and health department guidelines)

• Limited if any seating in the reception area and no family members allowed to wait (unless they are waiting in their car)
• Having patients call or text your office from the parking lot upon arrival – Do as MUCH check in and check out as you can via the phone including treatment/financial consults, payments and scheduling. Have staff member fully protected with appropriate PPE meet patient at their car to take temperature and to ask health screening questions.
• Keep office door locked – no walk in patients. Appointment only. Have a sign on your entrance displaying this.
• COVID prescreening appointment calls. ASK the questions. DOCUMENT the answers.

We at Dental Support Specialties hope you and your families have been staying safe and healthy! What a crazy time this has been. With all the uncertainty that lies before us, one thing we can control is our actions. Our responses. Our proactivity. Our plans for reopening and what our new normal might look like. Being prepared to accommodate appointments and patient needs and having solid plans ready for immediate execution.

Be Prepared. The time is now to start preparing for your reopening on all levels.

You can view and print out the Presidents Guidelines for opening up here: https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/03.16.20_coronavirus-guidance_8.5x11_315PM.pdf

In an ideal world, patients would pay for their dental treatment completely out of pocket without needing dental insurance, but we don’t live in an ideal world. In fact, for many practices, dental insurance is almost considered a necessary evil, a way that patients are able to afford basic services. Although this payment method adds several steps to the process, did you know that dental insurance doesn’t have to be such a hassle for you and your team? Read on to learn how you can get dental insurance support for your practice.