I had to hire a temporary dental assistant last week. Thank the heavens that agencies exist in dentistry. I wonder what dentists do if they work in an area without a proper emergency dental staffing company. If someone doesn’t’ come in, do you just work by yourself? Do you bring in a family member?
Of course we know a common solution is proper team cross training. Teaching a dental assistant to process third-party payer claims and having a receptionist memorize bonding protocols isn’t that difficult, though I suspect many of us don’t take the time to do it. But even if we worked to have a cross trained staff, it still stinks to make people pull double duty. Even the best office manager in the world can’t answer phones, break down and set up a room, and check out patients at the exact same time.
I suppose in a perfect world we’d have multiple team members in a certain position who are free to come in when our first line of defense falls apart. If you have two part-time assistants to fill your week, then hopefully one can fill in for the other when needed. Or if you employ two assistants in a single day, then you might be able to pull off your busy schedule with only one.
Does anybody have a great solution here? Let me know in the comments section below. I’m all ears.
Cheers,
Chris
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