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Front Desk

Front Desk

Medical terminology

5 Tips Help Your Front Desk Team Decipher Medical Terms

From diplococcus to cyanosis, the medical terminology that crosses your desk on a daily basis can make your head spin. Looking up the terms can be time-consuming, but without knowing what they mean, you could misunderstand patients and schedule them with the wrong specialist, report the wrong codes when you’re getting preapprovals, or make mistakes […]
Phone skills

5 Tips Every Front Desk Phone Staff Member Must Master

When a patient calls your practice for the first time, you have about 60 seconds to make a first impression. And although your words count, only 16% of their impression of you is based on the words you use. The other 84% involves your tone of voice and other factors. To boost your phone skills […]
Angry patient

5 Strategies for Setting Boundaries With Angry Patients

Every medical practice has seen its share of angry patients, and their behavior can often be scary. If you see a patient whose anger appears to be bubbling over, you must know how to set boundaries with them to protect yourself, your other patients and your staff members. Check out five essential tips that can […]
QMB

5 Staff Training Tips to Help Sidestep QMB Billing Issues

Medical practices may see Medicare and Medicaid patients every day. What could be less common at your practice, however, is a patient who has both Medicaid and Medicare, known as a qualified Medicare beneficiary (QMB). All Medicare providers—not just those that accept Medicaid—are prohibited from charging QMB patients for cost-sharing. If you’re in this category […]
Medical front desk

5 Regulatory Issues Every Front Desk Staff Member Must Master

Being at the front desk of a medical practice can sometimes feel like you’re running interference at an air traffic control station. From working with insurers to calming frustrated patients, the job can be all-encompassing. One area that some medical front desk staffers may not have time to focus on is unfortunately one of the […]
revenue cycle

Build the Ideal Revenue Cycle Team With This Quick Primer

The best way to ensure that you bring maximum revenue into your practice is to involve several key team members in the revenue cycle process so you can master every step along the way. And once you identify the participants, you’ll need to train them properly to keep the entire team running at maximum potential. […]
active shooter

Strategize an Exit Plan if An Active Shooter Enters Your Practice

Your front desk team is likely to encounter angry patients from time to time, but when patients get violent, things can take a very stressful — and dangerous — turn. In some cases, that may mean your front desk team is confronted by someone with a weapon. Unfortunately, active shooter incidents have occurred at several […]
phone skills

Retain Patients by Improving Your Practice’s Phone Skills

Good patient relations can mean more than just reading a script when you’re talking to patients on the phone. In many cases, how you say something is just as important as the message you’re trying to convey. Take, for example, what happens when a patient asks for an appointment and your front desk staff member […]
how to deal with angry patients

Ask These Questions to Calm Angry Patients at the Front Desk

The sooner you can de-escalate angry patients, the better it will be for everyone in your office. The key is to ask questions that will ease their tension and create a calmer environment. Consider the following examples of questions that can help when you’re figuring out how to deal with angry patients. 1. Identify Common […]
angry patient

Five Intuitive Ways to Identify Potentially Violent Patients

Anger is a natural emotion that affects everyone now and then, but when an angry patient comes to your front desk, the repercussions can be serious. Not only can dealing with stressed-out patients make it hard for your front desk team members to do their jobs, but having someone cause a scene in your waiting […]