Dental front office employees, commonly known as dental receptionists, are the individuals who will assist and greet you when you walk into any dental office or clinics. They are essentially the "front line" and the first point of contact for any patients who call the office or arrive at the clinic.

In addition, they also schedule appointments and perform other administrative tasks.

Dental receptionists carry a wide variety of responsibilities which includes but not limited to scheduling and cancelling patient appointments, completing and filing insurance forms or dental billing records, managing office inventory and supplies, translating dental services into proper billable codes and so on. 

So if you are a job seeker and planning to work as a dental receptionist, you must know what employers are looking for in hiring a good dental front office staff or know how to become an efficient dental front office receptionist.

In this article, we will list the top 5 main front office tasks that you may want to know and may encounter when you start working as a receptionist. 

Top 5 main dental front office task

1. Greeting and welcoming patients.

As common as it may seem, greeting and welcoming the patients when they arrive is one of the essential things that should be done as soon as someone walks in since it will serve a first impression.

It's human nature to form an opinion about someone or something after meeting them for the first time, and some people can form an opinion about you in less than 20 seconds!

So, setting up a great first impression is really crucial not just for the employee but for the whole clinic ‘cause it will embody and also represent on how the patients will be treated.

2. Scheduling, rescheduling, or canceling appointments.

As we have discussed, he/she will also act as a front line. And being in a front line, it is expected that he/she will be on top of every appointment that can include setting up a new schedule, rescheduling if the dentist or the patient requested, and canceling appointments if as needed. 

In addition, one must act like a “bridge” between the dentist and patient since he/she will be handling appointments based on the availability of the patients or dentist. So great communication skills, organizational skills and understanding will come in handy; which is also something that should be present when working in a dental front office. 

3. Handle billing and payments.

As a front-liner of the dental office, it is also a responsibility to verify methods of payment, take or process those payments and review billing information to the patients, if needed.

The dental front office is also expected to communicate with health insurance companies to establish whether patients are needed to process co-payments. In this section, he or she is supposed to be more compassionate and straightforward while relaying information from the insurance provider to the patient.

4. Manage office inventories and place new supply orders if needed.

Keeping in track of the inventory is one of the main tasks of the dental front office.

Basically, most employees do not consciously aim to steal items from their workplace, but tiny objects like pens and sticky notes are easily misplaced. And if your office supplies are quickly depleting, you'll waste a lot of time and money trying to replace them.

So, inventory tracking is vital since it aids in the prevention of problems such as overstock and understock of items or products. In addition, he/she will be able to control or limit the needed supplies in a day, week or month.

5. Wide varieties of Administrative tasks.

Dental front office also handles a wide variety of Administrative tasks which include but are not limited to updating patients’ records, storing or filing of documents, basic accounting and so on. 

Because he or she will be managing files, the dentist front office professional must be efficient and have outstanding organizational abilities. Furthermore, having excellent time management skills will be beneficial if there are a large number of records to update.

Next steps

In conclusion, being a dental front office staff entails a wide range of jobs and obligations that will have an impact or benefit the clinic/organization. They also act as the company's backbone because dental front offices mostly accomplish things that help boost the clinic's productivity and smooth functioning.

Now that you are aware of the basic top 5 dental front office tasks, you may be thinking on how you can become one?

Well, look no further! You can check out other articles that can help you get started to be one of the awesome dental front office employees!

• Preparing a Dental Front Office Position Resume
• Skills to List on a Resume for Dental Front Office

We’ve also listed helpful links that can help you apply and land a job for the said position!

• Dental front office job in Phoenix, AZ
• Dental front office job in Scottsdale, AZ
• Dental front office job in Oregon City, OR
• Dental front office job in Portland, OR
• Dental front office job in Los Angeles, CA

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