At the end of 2016, we thought it would be appropriate to highlight the important work that the front desk staff completes on a regular basis. To do this, we held a contest among the Clinicient network and had people nominate their front desk staff for an award.
After reviewing the nominations, we are happy to announce that our inaugural “Front Desk Person of the Year” award goes to Megan Manicom at TheraSpecialists in Texas. Megan recently spoke with us to discuss how the front desk is critical to the success of a practice and elaborated on topics such as helping patients stay on track to meet their treatment goals and the importance of preventing patient cancellations.
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Download Now- At Clinicient, we’ve always felt that the front desk is critical to the success of a practice and referrals are a big part of that. How do you determine if you are successfully converting new patients who call in? Does anything in the Clinicient system tell you how you are doing in converting referrals?
As one of the top clinics in the area, we understand how important it is to successfully acquire new patients to join our practice. A majority of our patients are recurring. Because of this, we believe in forming real personal relationships with all of the patients that enter our door. By forming close and familiar relationships with our patients, we know that they will continue their treatment plans with us and refer us to others seeking beneficial therapy treatments.
- Empowered front desk administrators also help keep patients on track to meet their treatment goals. How do you manage and monitor a patient’s scheduling frequency? Does anything in the Clinicient system tell you how you are doing in keeping patients scheduled with appropriate frequency?
At TheraSpecialists, we are really big fans of Clinicient’s “no activity” list. It is a very helpful tool that allows us to keep track of the patients who have fallen off of their predetermined schedules. With each of our patients, we like to schedule them for their full treatment, even if that means we’re scheduling for months in advance. This lets us and the patients plan ahead of time so they can remain on track with their treatments goals and not go long periods of time without a session.
- A front desk administrator is instrumental in preventing patient cancellations and no shows. How do you prevent cancellations and no shows? Does anything in the Clinicient system help you prevent no-shows and cancellations?
It’s no surprise that physical therapy clinics and their front desk staff have to deal with patient cancellations and no shows. We, like many other clinics, sometimes have patients who cancel at the last minute. One tool that we find extremely helpful is a Clinicient text reminder. The reminders are able to help tremendously in preventing cancellations and no shows. If possible, we try to set all of our patients up for text reminders, but we have noticed that it is more likely younger patients will use this more frequently.
In addition to the text reminder, we also issue a no show/cancellation fee. This is just another check and balance method to ensure that our patients attend their appointments. Although we use our best judgment when it comes to the cancellation fee, it is definitely another incentive to make patients want to come to their therapy sessions if they do not respond to or receive the text reminders.
- A front desk administrator is vital in preventing unwanted vacancies in a therapist’s schedule. How do you help keep a therapist’s schedule full? Does anything in the Clinicient system tell you how you are doing in preventing vacancies?
As I mentioned before, a key part of TheraSpecialists system is to schedule all possible appointments at once. Scheduling everyone up front allows us see which physical therapists will have available appointments and which ones are fully booked. This enables us to look at possible vacancies and decide which therapists can take on more patients.
I would also like to take the time to thank the great support team that Clinicient has. They have gone above and beyond and are able to help when it comes to getting statements corrected and billing done. Throughout our interactions, Clinicient has proven that they care about helping practices and front desk administrations in everyday tasks.
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