Training for dental office secretaries: how to do it?

The secretary is one of the most important professionals of any dental clinic. After all, she is the patient's first contact with your brand, and is responsible for managing several key issues such as: the agenda, suppliers and other health professionals. Nevertheless, not all professionals know how to provide good secretary training and why it is so important.

For your professional to be as competent as possible, it is essential to provide the means for her to perform her role well. These demands include training courses, refresher courses and specific guidance. Want to know more about the topic? Keep reading this article and see the important tips we have separated!

Tip #1: Hire the right person

It all starts with a good recruitment and selection process; after all, if you don't hire a suitable person, there is no training that will help. So it is important to look for a professional who has skills that are complementary to yours (you will work together and need help).

Also make sure she has experience in customer service and enjoys this type of relationship, as situations will not always be easy and it takes a “waist game” to please everyone. And of course, be organized, well educated, have a good writing and understand the intricacies of health.

Tip #2: Standardize Routines and Procedures

Internal processes are very important to most clinics and you can't expect each secretary to decide how to perform the routines, so create very specific processes such as: pre-consultation and waiting room, organizing desk desks, forms of perform telephone answering, agenda management, personal attendance, what to do in cases of urgency and emergency, among others. The idea is to make a script that the secretary can use to become more comfortable with the environment and ways of doing your business. Remember that the more she knows and understands her specialty and routine, the easier it will be to make processes dynamic and agile, so seek to educate the professional on the basics of her specialty, the cases she most often serves, the procedures and more usual exams and other particulars about their patients.

Tip #3: Provide conflict training

The more autonomy your secretary has to resolve conflicts, the better off you will be (after all she won't have to bother you whenever something out of the ordinary occurs), but for that she needs some basic knowledge such as: the values ​​of your company , the ways to deal with these situations defined by your clinic, emotional control, among other things. And how to offer this autonomy and knowledge to the professional? Good training for secretaries!

The first step is to make sure she knows the profile of her patients, doctors, providers and other agents who interact with your clinic. Then explain in detail what are the processes and activities performed in the office. And lastly, when she feels safe from her routines and ways of doing, offer training and support that teach her how to deal with intelligence and emotional control - indispensable for serving the public and for finding creative solutions to problems.

Tip #4: Teach Criticism

Criticisms are items that are part of the routine of those who work with the public. And it is important to provide training for secretaries in this regard so that she knows how to behave in troubled times.

It is essential to change the way of facing criticism. That is, to come to understand it as a possibility to do your job even better. After all, if the patient were totally dissatisfied, he would hardly bother to criticize and express his opinion. Therefore, encourage your secretaries to seek patient feedback and to listen naturally to criticism and objections. Remind them of the importance of these comments in finding unnoticed flaws that could ultimately decrease their rate of return and even treatment adherence.

Then create a protocol to follow in these situations. For example, directing the secretary to always apologize for what happened, learning to put herself in the patient's shoes and listen empathetically. And, of course, offer subsidies so she can come up with ways to compensate the injured patient for the situation. If you are not sure about leaving too many decisions for your secretaries, stipulate what types of "compensations" they can negotiate with patients and which ones need your intervention.

Tip #5: Adopt a standard of care for your clinic

How do you want your clinic to be remembered in the memory of your patients? Much of this perception basically depends on the work of their secretaries. They are the ones who work at the “front line”, maintaining direct contact with patients, so adopt a standard of care, with well-defined processes. This is an excellent way to reduce the margin of error and behavioral deviations. Always focus on attitudes that develop professional empathy. This is because it is of the utmost importance that she can put herself in the patient's shoes in order to resolve situations as best as possible. You could, for example, create a “conduct guide” for each type of care.

In personal care, there are some guidelines that help in training for secretaries, such as:
- always answer whatever is asked and avoid answering one question with another question;
- feels in an appropriate position and indicates that she is interested in helping and solving the patient's problem;
- keep the table in order;
- pay attention to what the person is asking of you;
- be proactive and seek appropriate solutions;
- can control the audience by setting a service order and organizing the queue.

Regarding telephone answering, you can also create an orientation roadmap for your secretary training. For example:
- define how the secretary should answer the telephone (“Dr.X's office”, “dental clinic X”, etc.);
- stipulate the forms of use of the professionals' agendas (which days and times can be scheduled certain appointments, how long each type of procedure takes, etc.);
- indicate which standard questions should be asked to the patient (private consultations or via health insurance, arriving in advance, preparation of exams, offering tips and guidance to reach the office);
- Call ahead to confirm appointments;
- Aftercare with patients to reinforce certain indications and treatments or to monitor the level of satisfaction;
- indicate ways to deal with appointment cancellations and rescheduling;
- Explain how the clinic policy works for delays or missed appointments.

Conclusion

As you have seen, there are several ways to provide training for secretaries. Also, these guidelines are of paramount importance for the professional to perform her work in the best way possible and have a posture aligned with the image and values ​​of her clinic.

Source: Cloudia. Available at: https://www.cloudia.com.br/treinamento-para-secretarias/. Access on: 11/08/2019.