Dental Assistant

Top 4 Appointment Scheduling Techniques for Grads of Dental Administration School

July 13, 2018

calendar with appointment

From managing last-minute cancellations to finding room for urgent appointments, making sure clients are promptly seen by dentists can be challenging for dental office admins. Thankfully, dental office administrators are trained to contend with these challenges, ensuring that their dental office’s schedules are well organized.

Below are some of the ways that dental office administrators make scheduling appointments easier and more efficient. Read on to learn more!

1. Dental Office Administrators Should Keep Track of Cancelled Appointments

Part of being able to better schedule patient appointments is being aware of which slots have become vacant due to cancellations. Many missed opportunities for clients often occur because dental administrators have not reviewed their cancellations before scheduling the current patient. One helpful way to keep better track of cancelled appointments is to clearly indicate on the schedule which clients have cancelled. Highlighting these cancelations or otherwise helping them stand out can help administrators better remember to check these slots first when scheduling new appointments.

2. Dental Administrators Benefit from Grouping Appointments for Similar Procedures

Grouping appointments for similar dental procedures, such as fillings or root canals, can be great for patients and dentists alike. In fact, a dentist might be more focused and better prepared as they will be performing the same kind of procedure throughout the day.

Graduates of dental administration training can start by taking appointments for patients with similar medical histories and oral health issues and schedule them on one or two days during the week. Scheduling in this manner minimizes the amount of time necessary for certain appointments and may free up more slots for other patients with complex oral health issues. Grouping similar dental procedures on the same day may also help a dentist diagnose certain oral health problems and perform subsequent procedures more quickly as well!

Grouping similar appointments could help increase a dental clinic’s productivity!

3. Avoid Double Booking Patients as a Dental Administrator

Sometimes dental offices and medical clinics may give two patients the same appointment slot in the event that one of them fails to show up. This scheduling technique, called double booking, can actually cause more problems than it solves, leading to some patients having to wait longer to be seen by a dentist—or worse, not being seen at all. In some instances, double booking can be good if a patient were to call in advance to say they are unable to make their appointment, but this does not happen often. Instead, grads of dental administration school can keep tabs of scheduling patterns, such as patients who frequently fail to show up to appointments, and plan accordingly.

4. Creating a Waiting List for Patients Is a Great Way to Deal with Last-Minute Cancellations

No-shows can be one of a dental office’s worst problems, and if it happens frequently enough, can prevent other patients from getting the timely oral care they need. Fortunately, this scheduling issue can be promptly solved by implementing a waiting list for patients. A waiting list allows dental office administrators to take down a patient’s information and contact them in the event of a cancellation. What makes a waiting list so ideal is that it can help dental offices compensate for cancelled appointments while simultaneously avoiding the problem of double booking appointments.

Are you ready to start your dental administration career?

Contact Medix College to learn more about enrolling in our dental college in Ontario!

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