Front office and reception
The busiest revenue position in the practice does not hold a handpiece
Nobody notices the front desk until it is empty, and then everybody notices at once. WORKFORCE covers reception, scheduling, and treatment coordination across British Columbia, Ontario, and Washington.
One Tuesday morning
Front desk empty since 8:00
Calls unanswered
Standing at the desk
Left for later
- 8:00. Nothing has happened yet.
Nothing here is an emergency on its own. Together they are a morning you do not get back, and one of them was a new patient.
Four things the front desk decides, whether or not anybody meant it to
Who gets in the book
Every appointment in your schedule was put there by somebody at the desk. Scheduling is not a clerical task, it is capacity planning done on the phone.
Whether recall holds
A recall list only works if somebody is chasing it. Two unattended weeks show up in the hygiene column two months later.
Whether you get paid
Claims submitted the same day, payments posted, balances followed up. None of it is urgent on any given morning, which is exactly why it slips.
What the practice feels like
The first voice a nervous patient hears is not the dentist. Nobody remembers a well-run check-in, and everybody remembers a bad one.
Software fluency is the whole first day
A receptionist who already knows your practice management software is working by nine. One who does not is asking your office manager where the recall list lives, and your office manager has a day of their own.
Professionals list the systems they have actually worked in, so put yours in the posting. It is the single most useful line you can add.
Posting a shiftProduct names are listed by the professionals who have used them. They are their owners’ trademarks and are named here only to describe experience, not to suggest any integration or relationship with WORKFORCE.
You are making two hires at once
Which is why the front desk is the position offices most often get wrong twice in a row.
The systems half
Can they drive your software without being taught it, take a payment correctly, submit a claim the same day, and leave the schedule in a state your Monday self can read? This half is checkable, and it is the half a posting can ask for.
The other half
Can they hold a waiting room, tell a patient their treatment is not covered without the conversation going badly, and keep their temper on a Friday afternoon when three people arrive at once? This half is why a good front office person is hard to replace.
Booking somebody for a few days is the only way we know to test the second half. It is why a good share of the permanent front office people we place were temps at that office first.
Rates and who is responsible
Reception is on the published city rate card, so the rate is set before you post and it is the same rate for everybody in your city. On temp it is all-in: payroll taxes, remittances, vacation accrual, and insurance sit with us.
A placement fee applies only if you take somebody on permanently. It varies by market, it is quoted up front, and it is priced to stay competitive with what a recruiter would charge for the same hire.
Worth being exact about
- Verification is for temp placements
- On a temp shift the professional is our employee, so employment eligibility, payroll and insurance are ours. On a permanent hire you are the employer and those checks are yours.
- They work your process, not a generic one
- A front office temp follows your scheduling rules, your financial policy, and your insurance arrangements. We do not set any of those and would not want to.
- Patient information stays yours
- Anyone we place works inside your systems under your policies. Confidentiality obligations are part of their engagement with us and their obligations to you.
Do not leave the phone ringing
Tell us your city, your software, and the days you are short. We will tell you what we can cover.