Phone calls keep the dental practice alive. The sound of ringing means a new potential patient or a calling patient with an inquiry wanting to set up an appointment or their next cleaning.
However, while answering these calls and preventing them from going to voicemail is ideal, it isn’t so easy to pull off when one is managing a busy dental practice.
Even with the skeleton crews that most dental practices operate, the person at the front desk is not only taking names, but she’s also verifying insurance, collecting payments, and doing ten other things.
By the time the phone rings, either the person waiting at the desk has to wait longer, or the incoming call goes to voicemail. Neither situation is ideal.
When Calls Don’t Get Answered
When phone calls don’t get answered, it means lost revenue. If a potential patient cannot make their intended first appointment because they don’t want to leave a voicemail, they will call the next dentist on their list, who will likely answer on the first or second ring.
This is not just talking about new patients; existing patients who’ve called multiple times only to reach a voicemail greeting feel that they’re not a priority. They may not leave the dental practice immediately, but over time this frustration builds, and inquiries become more about leaving an answer than making an appointment.
Moreover, when patients leave voicemails, they get buried in a stack of other voicemails waiting for someone to respond.
Often hours or an entire day later, one dedicated team member might have time to check them all out and return calls, only to be rushed because it’s the end of the day and everyone wants to go home. But by that time, the call’s recipient has probably sought another office and already crossed this practice off their list.
What Has Been Done Before
Some dental practices tried having their clinical staff take turns answering the phone. This means taking a dental hygienist off schedule to field calls or pulling the dental assistant from patient care.
This isn’t effective because the team member should be doing what they’ve been hired and trained to do, helping patients, not trying to help callers on a multi-line phone system. Furthermore, having someone walk away from a patient mid-procedure because they need to answer a call is equally challenging.
Other practices attempted automated systems or other answering services like generic after-hours services. While avoiding automated phone trees frustrates callers wanting to speak to someone immediately, even answering services that are at least generic means that they cannot access these offices’ appointment logs or answer specific questions about practices. They essentially can only take a message in any case.
Finding additional staff for the front desk seems like a plausible solution; however, this applies to payroll bureaucracy, salary and benefit costs, training time investment once hired, and spatial concerns, many practices don’t have room for another person at a third desk (especially if it’s smaller).
Looking at a part-time employee or adding more hours to someone already there solely for phone coverage isn’t financially feasible.
How Remote Support Changed Everything
This is where most practices shifted. Adding more bodies is ideal as long as they’re in-house, virtual call management solutions changed everything.
A dental virtual assistant can access appointment logs and answer phones in real time while providing support that a typical receptionist would provide without occupying space.
To note, these assistants are trained for dental offices; they know coverage and common verbiage to field insurance questions and possess the technology skills for any other information needed. They’re not answering service workers who read off a script instead of listening.
Virtual call support works well because when the caller answers the phone on the other side, it sounds like they’re speaking to someone right there.
They don’t realize they’re on speaker phone from thousands of miles away, and their inquiry gets answered seamlessly.
What It Looks Like in Action
For example, every Tuesday morning from 9 to 11 AM at typical practices are busy check-in times. The front desk team member takes care of all first appointments of the day from check-in to insurance verification and collecting payments.
This is also when staff get their first breaks and realize they never set their six-month check-up appointment in time, as such, most calls come in during this transitional hour.
In rare cases, these missed calls go to voicemail. Yet with virtual call support in place, those calls are answered immediately by an outside member who pulls up the scheduler for options and books them immediately without ever having someone stop what they’re doing to field those incoming calls.
Similarly, if someone needs support about coverage for fillings, the team member can relay information that digs deeper than looking something up, dental coverage basics are behind this information. A follow-up can occur after checking in with the other staff.
The Office Benefit of Better Call Management
Why does this matter? Because things run smoothly. No callers are frustrated; patients aren’t waiting on hold. Anyone in office has their time respected and acknowledged without needing to wait while others are on hold behind them or annoyed, they weren’t answered immediately because they were previously on the line.
In practice, when calls get answered, staff receive easier situations too. During staff meeting discussions over patient satisfaction scores, everyone notices they’ve gone up in practice because people can reach people when they reach them.
Staff stress decreases because they’re no longer pulled in five directions at once trying to overcome excessive demand.
Additional benefits accrue with better management of virtual support. Hours covered by virtual support can extend beyond regular hours without any complications or boundaries with employees going home at 5 PM while trying to ease through things until everyone arrives at 8 AM.
Sometimes practices have their virtual support teams field calls during lunch or even early hours in hopes that they’re still operating on an open line before going into “office mode.”
Financially it makes sense since practices are paying for the support they need without paying for the overhead of another employee; no payroll taxes exist without benefits outlined without vacation coverage for specific days needed, as there’s no office support needed on payroll.
When more support is needed but few options exist beyond more bodies added to the office, it’s complicated.
How to Ensure This Works For Your Practice
These best practices come with those who orient their systems correctly from the start. With shared access through necessary platforms or protocols set up between independent parties accessing a virtual assistant’s third-party network and in-office setup, it’s easy to see how this isn’t equity in replacement, this is equity in collaborative help.
In other words, when call management occurs when a front desk administrative assistant is present, and assistance is there for anyone needing it from outside equity while helping those already inside required equity, better assessments are able to occur.
For practices that are struggling with call management daily and constantly fielding frustrated patients who’ve never had their calls answered (or answering machines that are full), it’s unnecessary to work harder. It’s quicker than rethinking how calls are managed in the first place.