Business Exchange

Donald Burr, the founder and president of People Express Airlines, one of the discount airlines from the 1980s, made this comment. He said, “Coffee stains on the fold-down trays means bad maintenance in the airplanes.” Well, think of that thought the next time you walk up to your practice. Walk through the front door. What’s the kind of impression which people have the first time they come to your practice? Does the office look professional? Does it have the sign out front with your name and your practice and most importantly the names of the physicians who work there? People very often will know the name of the physician but not necessarily the formal name of your practice or organization.

There should be a clear approach to the reception desk. And I call this a reception desk rather than a check-in station because what we want to do is receive people. This isn’t a waiting room. This is a reception room. The clear approach shouldn’t have much signage. There shouldn’t be chairs, plants or other obstacles in the way. Many times, of course, you have elderly folks who may have some difficulty walking, may have some difficulty seeing.

Acknowledge everybody properly. Even if your person is involved with another patient or some other issue, try to at least acknowledge that you’ve seen them and that you’ll be with them momentarily.

The last thing I want to emphasize is telephone calls. It’s one of my pet peeves, I’ll have to admit. All calls must be answered. Now, if the person can’t answer it individually, if someone else in the group can’t answer it while it’s ringing, it should roll over to an automatic answering which enables if somebody is calling in to also get to the reception desk right away. In other words, if you’re having something that’s truly urgent, that they should be able to press perhaps key 0 and go right to the reception desk right away because it’s an emergency call. Physicians and pharmacies should have their own number or bypass of some sort because those calls do need to take priority many times. If you need to put somebody on hold, there should be music or some sort of noise but what I’d really like is if you could record some 1-minute patient-education messages which you could easily do yourself or in a small sound studio, and that gives a tie between why the patient is there and coming into your practice and the kind of physician you are and the kind of work you do.