I don’t know about you, but while the stores were promoting July 4th sales, they started displaying some items I was not prepared to see, back to school supplies! Is it really that time already? Is it me, or was it just the other day was the last day of school? Seeing this reminded me of something. Now would be a good time to make sure college and other school aged children see their dentist. Do you know who this applies to in your practice? How well do you know your practice demographics? Now is the time to pull those reports and make sure to get them scheduled before they go back to school. Chances are your patients are very busy, and have not even thought about getting their routine 6 month appointment scheduled.
I just had a situation regarding this subject occur with a client. In the end, it was a breakdown in communication. At this particular practice, there are two team members at the front desk. Each one thought the other one had pulled this report to schedule their patients who are away at college to be seen. There were some holes in the schedule that needed to be filled, and there was space for these patients. After experiencing this with a client, I thought I would write about this as a reminder.
I also wanted to correct this process for my client so this breakdown did not occur again. To solve this issue and make it easier for them at the front desk, I created a monthly calendar for them to use. This may benefit you as well with organization of when to reach out to a particular group of patients when the calendar is important for them. The calendar is important not only for students in the summer, but also scheduling patients that have unused insurance benefits as well as treatment planned but not completed before their benefit or calendar year is over.
I hope this was helpful for you. There are so many tasks that we are responsible for in our dental practices and it is very easy for things to slip through the cracks. If I can be of assistance to you, please get in touch with me for a complimentary 30 minute consultation.