Your front office employees can dramatically influence patients’ overall experience at your hearing clinic. When your front office employees are kind, friendly, compassionate, and professional, patients are likely to have a positive experience at your hearing practice – and are more likely to return and recommend your clinic to others. And, of course, the opposite is also true. If your front office team is rude or dismissive, patients – especially new patients – are more likely to be dissatisfied with your audiology practice overall. 

To provide a best care experience throughout each patient’s entire journey, your staff should start by providing exceptional care from the beginning. Since most patients’ journeys begin by interacting with your clinic’s front office staff, these employees play an essential role in the patient experience.  

Whether patients are calling to make an appointment or coming into your hearing practice after booking an appointment online, their first in-person interaction with your employees should be positive and welcoming! The employees at the front desk should greet each patient warmly, and should be friendly, professional, helpful, and courteous from that initial touchpoint. 

The receptionist should immediately welcome each patient, ask for their name, and sort out any paperwork that needs to be completed. (Ideally, any registration forms and/or patient records should have been completed online before the patient even arrives onsite.)  Your clinic should be using Practice Management Software (PMS) to optimize operations, maximize efficiency, and streamline scheduling, ensuring there’s minimal wait time between each patient’s arrival and when they see the hearing care provider for their appointment. 

Front-office employees play a critical role in turning new patients into returning patients. Retention is important, especially when you consider that it can cost as much as $300-800 per patient to obtain a new lead. 

The patient experience is impacted by the entire hearing clinic team, not just the audiologist, so everyone in the practice should go “above and beyond” for the patients during each phase of the patient journey.  Every patient interaction with the front office staff should be extraordinary, starting from the time the patients call the front desk or walk through the front door. 

Recognize that patients may feel anxious or uncomfortable when they arrive at your hearing clinic, so it’s important for your front office team to do everything they can to put patients at ease.  And that starts by creating a comfortable environment from the moment the patient steps into the clinic. 

The waiting area should be clean and inviting, with comfortable places to sit.  The receptionists should immediately acknowledge each patient’s arrival, smile and make eye contact, then offer to check them in and get them settled. The front office staff should be trained to communicate effectively with individuals with hearing loss.  

The receptionist should show patients where they can hang their coats, where the restrooms are, and where they can help themselves to refreshments, like coffee or water. They should also indicate where patients and their loved ones can find reading materials, such as newspapers and magazines to enjoy while they wai.

Your front office staff should maintain the waiting area, keeping it clean and organized. Part of their responsibility should be to continually monitor the area and throw away coffee cups and other trash, and straighten up the magazines and newspapers. Patients that come in midday should experience a fresh, clean reception area, just like the first patients of the day. 

The front office employees are also each patient’s last point of contact after their hearing exams, and should ensure that the last touchpoint is as pleasant and stress-free as possible.  The receptionist should ask if everything went well, and perhaps compliment the patient’s new hearing aids.

At the end of each visit (or phone call), the front desk staff should book the next appointment, as necessary, ask patients if they need additional assistance, thank them, reiterate how much the practice appreciates them, and say a warm goodbye.  

As the clinic’s staff builds relationships with the patients, the receptionist should reference notes in the patient records section of the PMS to mention things like the patient’s family, hobbies, recent trips, or other items of note. Building a rapport with patients over time – and remembering details about their grandson’s passion for soccer or their love of knitting or golf – can help patients feel valued and appreciated.

These seemingly small details can have a huge impact on patient satisfaction and retention, and help contribute to the Best Care Experience that you’re working to provide every day, with every patient. 

You recognize that the front office staff – and environment – play a pivotal role in the patient experience. Now, learn how to increase patient retention, enhance the patient journey, and improve interactions with your own front-office team by implementing these nine tips: 

Your clinic’s receptionist is more than just a person answering a phone.The way your receptionist answers these questions contributes directly to patient retention, which represents an astonishing 50-70% of audiology practice revenues.

The other 30-50% of incoming phone calls to an audiology practice are typically new or potential patients, which are absolutely essential for the continued growth of a practice. This illustrates how important it is that the person answering the phone be professional, polite, well-trained, knowledgeable, and comfortable with your practice’s systems, processes, scheduling, and key messages. 

Your front office staff should always get complete and accurate information from patients, both on the phone and in person. Any inaccuracies can cause errors in patients’ records and complicate billing and reimbursement.

Even “small mistakes” can delay reimbursement for months, which could anger patients and decrease their confidence in your staff (and your practice). It’s also critical that your administrative employees are careful and accurate when scheduling (or rescheduling) and relaying appointment times to patients, to ensure that patients show up on the right day and time, at the correct clinic location. 

Here’s the conundrum in many hearing clinics: you want your audiologists to concentrate on providing clinical care, so you delegate more tasks to your administrative staff. But you don’t want to overwhelm your administrative team with too much work because they’re busy handling important responsibilities like scheduling, billing, confirming appointments, greeting patients, etc. So, what should you do? One helpful tip is to leverage your employees’ special skills, interests, and superpowers, allowing them to do what they like – and what your clinic needs.

For instance, if one of your front office employees is amazing with social media, put them in charge of managing your clinic’s social media platforms. If your receptionist loves to decorate, ask them to spearhead the holiday and seasonal décor to keep your clinic looking festive all throughout the year. If another admin employee does photography as a hobby, ask them to update the staff headshots for the website, and take photos of your audiologists at community events for your social media posts. Delegating tasks based on employees’ interests allows them to do things they love, which increases their job satisfaction.