New patient consultations: how long is too long to wait for an appointment date?

In doing some deeper analysis on data in the US and abroad, we looked more closely at the percentage of patients that show up for their consultation appointments (i.e. the show up rate) and the percentage of consultations that actually start treatment (i.e. the batting average). 

Intuitively, we would guess that certain events would cause a patient to be more or less likely to show up for his or her appointment and then sign a contract after going through a consultation.  Specifically, if a patient calls for a consultation appointment and is scheduled to be seen that same day, the chances of that patient showing up are much greater than if the patient’s appointment got scheduled 6 months from the date of the call.  Pretty simple, right?  If you make someone wait 6 months for an appointment, they will probably find another provider.  Even if you are a major star in the industry, folks want to get started when they want to get started.

But exactly how quickly do things drop off when it comes to the time a patient has to wait for a new patient appointment.  Like banana left in the refrigerator, things tend to go downhill pretty fast.  Here are some specifics:

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3 tips for hiring and training to maximize staff performance

Unless you’ve hired James Bond, no member of your team is great at everything.  Running your business takes a wide range of skills and finding that absolutely perfect person to handle every single thing is damn near impossible.  Marketing talent may come at the expense of skills with collecting money from past dues.  

We recently had one office manager who had years of experience in the dental field.  She was outstanding in building relationships with patients, handling billing disputes and staying on top of the day to day glitches that befall every office.  But this person did not have a comfort level with the latest tech (like the nuances of digital x-rays) and did not want to push the practice’s social media efforts.  

Clearly, the solution here is not to terminate such a valuable person.  Rather, the answer is to complement the person’s skill set with either the other people or systems.  Note that I did not say to hire someone just because that person may have a skill that no one else has.  Your first consideration priority needs to be on having a properly sized staff.  

Let’s look at some of the considerations in ensuring that your staff has complementary skills.

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Find the right person for the job via a test

In our last post, we discussed the qualities you might want to find in your office manager.  This begs the obvious question of “how do I determine up front, whether or not a candidate for the job has the skills I seek?”  The skills could be the ones we discussed earlier or a skill set that you find to be appropriate for your practice. 

The classic solutions are rather limited in their benefit.  Anyone can fluff a resume and interview questions elicit only so much information.  A short trial work period is usually impractical, especially for an office manager who has to be able to be productive from day 1.  You cannot lose valuable patient trust or potential new patients while someone is in the trial phase (note: this may work better for an entry level position less critical for the daily operation of your practice).  

Here’s one oft-used solution that has provided substantial benefit to us in the past, no matter what the available position or required skill set: a test.  With a test, you provide a standard set of written or oral questions that the interviewee can respond to orally or in writing. For us and our practices, the resume is usually the first hurdle.  The number of candidates can be narrowed substantially from the resumes.  Those who make that cut will get the test.

Some ideas for setting up your test:

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3 qualities to look for in your office manager

Throughout the life of this blog, we have discussed the size and significance of the staffing and employee cost in your practice.  Over the coming posts, we are going to dig deeper into the human resources component of that cost.  We’ll talk about components of costs, characteristics to look for in a new employee, hiring, firing, discipline and much more on incentives.  

Today, we look more closely at one of the key people in your practice: the office manager.  Over time, this person can develop into your right hand for carrying out the business operations of the practice and a trusted advisor on matters of future practice development.  They’ll usually oversee the front desk area, monitor marketing, receivables, cash management, payroll and a host of other tasks.  This person may also be responsible for other hires so his or her personality and preferences will touch every piece of the practice.  

In this segment, we look at some of the characteristics we feel are most important when considering what type of person to put in this key position (aside from the obvious things like not being a psychopath).  This characteristics are ranked in order of importance:

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