A recent poll shows it might be time to rethink scheduling in dental care

When it comes to practice management, many dental offices suffer from a multitude of inefficacies. As a result practices often find themselves in a maze of consultants, reps, and managers in frenzied attempts at remodeling the current system.Whether it’s filing insurance claims, sophisticating their marketing efforts, or attempting to digitize payments, many practices have a long way to go in maximizing profits. However, there perhaps are less obvious areas for improvement that could still have an impact on a practice’s bottom line.

Do practices know exactly how much time they might be spending back-and-forthing appointment times with patients? Probably not. That’s why we did some research to find out how many hours a week a practice spends rattling dates and times off over the phone. Writing emails with a dozen available appointment slots. Or, when checking out patients, how many minutes are spent vacillating through the week’s schedule?

While delving into these numbers it is important to note that there’s a lot more going on at the front desk than merely aligning patient schedules. Gross checkout times are comprised of payment processing, management of insurance and co-pays, and patient education of their next appointment. These tasks occur simultaneously, so why did we zero in on scheduling? Well mainly because at first glance it is an unnecessary responsibility. Why should it be anyone’s job to read a schedule? The experience is akin to going to a restaurant and having the waiter read you the menu. Astonishingly, most practices spend approximately 15 to 20 hours a week doing exactly that.

Of course, variables such as patient volume and staff makeup will affect this number. Lower staffed practices are forced to distribute tasks more evenly, so hygienists could be in charge of patient bookings themselves.

Though the issue is complex, any method that allows personnel to devote more time to patient interaction and improving efficiency will positively impact the practice.

We live in a world where digital technology has penetrated almost every facet of our lives. Accordingly, shouldn’t the arcane methods of scheduling and booking in healthcare be left behind?

Though several emerging players have offered a variety of digital solutions, to date, no single method has proven more effective than the status quo. Online booking still has a few kinks to be ironed out. The various reminder systems don’t always play nicely with existing software and often cause more headaches than they’re worth. They don’t offer a great efficiency improvement as they leave much ambiguity still to be filled in by front desk interaction.

The few patient apps or online booking platforms that could circumvent some of this work are still not ubiquitous enough. That said, it is only a matter of time until the right technology emerges which as an actual improvement for both practices and patients.

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