Ideal Front Desk Assistant and Front Desk Coordinator

File: Office Binder > Front Desk

Marketing Binder > Retention, Recall & Reactivation

Ideal Front Desk Assistant and Front Desk Coordinator

Anyone who works on the front desk should have the following attributes, in order of importance:

a. A good team member. Understands and agrees with the mission of the office and is in harmony with the doctors and staff.

a. Friendly. Genuinely interested in people. Likes people, and wants to get to know them.

b. Very willing and effective in controlling patients. Not reserved about telling patients what to do and when to do it.

c. Excellent communicator. Likes talking to patients.

d. Not shy.

e. Very organized and efficient. Puts things and notations in their correct location.

Other attributes:

a. Very supportive of the purposes of chiropractic, the services of the clinic, and the skills of the doctor.

b. Has a “high capacity”. This means that she is fast, efficient, able and willing to handle a high volume of visits and new patients for a day, week, month, etc. Likes HIGH VOLUME.

c. Wants to see more and more visits each day, and more new patients.

d. Personally enjoys the higher rate of activity.

e. Takes good care of herself physically with an excellent chiropractic lifestyle.

f. Respectful of clinic director’s chiropractic expertise, and tells others about it when appropriate.

g. Has an exceptional ability to remain focused on the mission of the office, the front desk, the patients, and the tasks of her job.

h. Is mature, and takes good care of her life away from the office.

i. Starts work each day mentally and physically ready and eager to serve with energy and cheerfulness.

j. Willing and capable of moving patients, and sometimes doctors, to and from rooms, and in and out of the office in a courteous but crisp manner. Has no problem being “controlling.”

k. An ideal front desk C.A. should also be clerical competent. She should be fast and correct with arithmetic when dealing with collecting the patient’s portion of their charges, and fast and correct with the computer if there is one on the front desk.

If the front desk has any insurance or data entry duties, these, along with any other paper or computer work, are all of secondary importance to the above duties and mission of the front desk.
The front desk assistants are all knowledgeable and conversant with basic chiropractic concepts and terms, office policy and procedures, their job descriptions and department checklists and manual.
The Front Desk Coordinator is a leader and sets a good example for other C.A.’s. She is a role model.
Other attributes of the Front Desk Coordinator include:
She accepts responsibility for what caused the statistics of the front desk to go up or down, and works to improve conditions so that the performance monitors improve.
She coordinates the activities of the patients, doctors, front desk staff, and other staff who work with the patients as well.
She ensures that any staff working in the front desk are trained so that they can fit these attributes mentioned above, and can excellently perform the duties of the front desk as listed on the job description and department checklist.
Where more than training is required, she will help recruit and interview new potential front desk staff as needed.
She understands that her priorities are:
Patient care and happiness
Doctor’s needs
Billing and Collections needs.
Business and management needs.