How Dental Practices Are Covering Phones Without Adding Office Space

After a while, every dental office hits the same wall. The schedule is full, the new patient inquiries are pouring in, and there isn’t a desk to squeeze one more receptionist into the office. The waiting area is already cramped, and the break room is being used as a storage room. There’s no room for expansion. There’s no budget for knocking down walls. There’s no energy to add one more receptionist to the team by making the extended office next door into another office.

But no matter what, the phone keeps ringing. And when that phone goes unanswered during business hours, it’s not just a missed call. It’s another potential patient who will merely dial the next office on the list.

So, practices must find a way to expand front office coverage without adding square footage to the front office area.

No One Talks About the Physical Space Conundrum

The next time you walk into a bustling dental office, take a look around. Everything is spoken for – even space you didn’t think about. There’s a reception area (the part patients see), a sterilization room (bigger than you’d think), treatment rooms, the doctor’s office, and storage for supplies. Maybe there’s even a small employee break room if you’re lucky!

There’s one way to solve this problem, offer another person a desk to work from. But that isn’t as easy as plopping down a desk. It requires rerouting cables for electric, adding in phone lines, seeing if there’s additional room for lighting and air flow, and figuring out how to do all of this without cramming more desks in an already crammed space. Some offices who’ve tried have gotten estimates back that cause their jaws to drop open in shock.

Additionally, construction costs aren’t the only concern. More square footage often means increased monthly rents or property taxes. It means more square footage that needs cleaning daily. And if offices are renting, chances are there are lease agreements involved that may not even allow construction.

When Call Volume Exceeds Reachability

Growth is like the problem you don’t notice until it happens all at once. When an office expands hours (say, by offering nights or hiring an associate), suddenly they have 20% more patients to handle. Relative to before, this sounds great! Until someone realizes within that same hour constraint, they now have 30% more calls coming in.

For instance, from 8 to 10 AM, the phones explode with patients off work trying to schedule their appointments before heading in to work for the day. Meanwhile, the receptionist is chugging coffee while checking in patients arriving for appointments, answering their questions about insurance and follow-ups while transferring calls from new patients trying to get through on three different lines.

Something’s got to give, those missed calls end up going straight to voicemail.

Practices try various solutions. They get second phone lines established so someone can help from the back if an overwhelming amount of calls comes through at any given time. They establish online scheduling instead to alleviate phone calls. They hire a part-time receptionist from open until 12 PM just for mornings. Great, but now they need extra room for a part-time person who’s vying for the same desk as the established full-time one.

The Remote Reception Replacement

Now there’s a trend emerging where some practices look into services that cover phones not from within their small office but from somewhere else entirely. Those trained professionals answer the phones; they have practice management software access; they see what’s on the calendar and can book accordingly; they can answer questions and verify insurance if necessary.

For offices facing space constraints, dental receptionist outsourcing provides a way to expand front desk capacity without expanding the actual front desk. The support team works from their own location, which means zero additional square footage needed at the practice.

What’s even more advantageous about this is that practices can decide when they want remote support and when they’d prefer in-house support. They can staff lunch breaks or early hours or high-volume hours with remote help OR direct phones through remote coverage and keep in-house staff strictly for physical coverage needs.

How Workflow Changes Instead

Surprisingly, it’s not as complicated as it sounds – but it requires some restructuring.

First, one management system will be primary, but they can assume both remote and in-office staff access will allow access to schedules, patient records, and notes for treatment.

Usually, remote receptionists require training with systems like Dentrix or Eaglesoft or Open Dental to understand how things typically run in that office. They’ll understand booking preferences based on time allotted for procedures and which insurances are accepted along with how days are structured should dentists take lunch breaks in between clients.

Additionally, phone systems get configured so multiple locations can answer different lines – it’s not complicated if VoIP systems are used – but practices will reach out to their phone companies if something like call forwarding during lunch or if busy when someone calls comes into play.

Patients won’t even know what’s happening, immediate response from someone who’s answering professionally, with immediate insight into whatever question, and there won’t be any “Let me call you back” nonsense or “Can you try again at this time?”

Real-Life Examples

Say there’s a practice of one who’s very successful; they want to add Saturday hours for their working clientele; however, the current receptionist isn’t available to work weekends, or worse yet, a person who wants to work weekends may only want Saturdays and has no other intention of working elsewhere during the week.

A remote avenue covers Saturday calls; remote staffs exist who work Saturdays for multiple different offices; the dentist could provide great service without worrying about adding a secondary receptionist with such limited availability.

Or say there are multiple locations of one practice; each location needs a full-time receptionist (but there may not be enough work at each location to justify this) because they all have separate phone lines; however, every location only needs check-in and check-out services so remote services can cover all inquiries and crossover questions for patients visiting other locations.

The Cost Difference That Makes Sense

When it comes down to cost analysis over annual employees between $35-$45K in various markets along with benefits and payroll taxes after doing research to find a qualified candidate who actually accepts the position, it makes sense.

Remote services often run month-to-month or time-sensitive as hourly projects with coverage fees based on calls and needs. There’s no payroll burden or benefits guide or even access needed for a desk or vacated area for vacation coverage or sick days.

For practices that only need coverage on peak days or select hours here and there, this makes even more sense: Why pay for eight hours when coverage is only needed for three hours once a week?

Ensuring Patients Still Feel Engaged

Where practices worry most is how this will impact patient experience. Will patients merely feel like they’ve been shipped off to a call center? Will someone on another end know their specific needs?

Good remote teams make sure this doesn’t feel impersonal; they go through training with every practice they support while getting used to their name, with knowledge of dentists’ names and personalities familiar before even answering, and common procedures provided with notes readily available on returning patients.

Some practices have remote teams answer scheduling questions and verification questions while sensitive clinical inquiries go straight through someone in-house; others get diverted with clear direction about what can happen as timely as possible.

Ultimately, it’s not relevant whether they’re in-house versus on-screen with someone, they just need to be timely with their answers.

When Physical Space Isn’t the Problem

Even for those practices with physical space available, right now, it doesn’t help that dental receptionists are hard to come by. People want entry-level positions where they can feel secure providing competent service; people don’t care enough; turnover is high; taking time away from busy practices to train people is also overwhelming, so people who already worked in similar situations benefit.

Extra team members operating remotely already have training under their belts, they’re ready to go upon answering inquiries. There shouldn’t be a learning curve where someone doesn’t know how long a filling takes versus how much an insurance co-pay is due compared to someone else trying to figure out when they’re off on vacation so they no longer need coverage.

No scrambling happens when someone remote isn’t available, whether it’s a sick day or family emergency; staffing situations happen on their end; they’re responsible.

The Bottom Line

Is this beneficial for every practice? Probably not. Practices who want front office staff should get used to seeing the same smiling face every day who’s known every patient since they’ve been coming there twenty years probably won’t want help on this end.

But for those practices encountering growing pains due to lack of space, or frustrated by limited staff options, or annoyed by missed calls due to lunch breaks, remote options for dental receptionists offer satisfactory solutions to accommodate expanding offices without more physical square footage needed.

Dental offices across America are realizing not every job requires someone there in physical form – and for answering phones especially, it’s only about having the correct information with accurate input needed when callers reach out.