Is it possible to make patients feel welcomed into your practice and collect payment from them at the same time? Can your front desk be a profit center for the practice? Yes, and it all starts with a little attention to that part of the office — and a smile from your front-desk staff.

The front-desk staff's role is critical to the success of any medical group, but typically, practices give the front-desk operations short shrift through a lack of resources and proper staffing. The result? Employee burnout, irritable patients, and a crowded work environment.

But by incorporating customer service standards and strategies to increase collections, your front desk can have a positive effect on the entire practice and increase patient satisfaction. You could expect to see a 5 percent to 10 percent improvement in overall practice collections by having a well-run front desk.

How can you do it? Start by spending some time reviewing what elements are currently working at your front desk, and which ones need improvement. Have the front-desk personnel sit with the billing staff to review denied claims, for example, pointing out instances where the front desk could have provided some additional information or other assistance.

Some of the more common troubles that might be plaguing your front-desk operations are:

• lack of, or inconsistencies in, collecting copays and coinsurance amounts,
• failure to collect patients' previous balances,
• inability to accept credit/debit cards,
• not obtaining current patient information,
• not verifying insurance information electronically or in person,
• not obtaining insurance referrals (when required).

These create significant losses in revenue as well as higher labor expenses if you end up hiring a collection agency to chase money after the fact. And when these situations are handled inconsistently, the patient may come away feeling that the front-desk staff is confused and disorganized —  the opposite of what you'd like them to believe.

First impressions count

The impression your front desk presents to patients is a reflection of your entire practice, and can determine the tone for the rest of the visit. Why not give a front-desk employee the title of "Director of First Impressions" to signify the importance of this function? You might find this simple change enhances her commitment to doing the job well while underscoring her value to the practice.  

Kathie Huttegger, the administrator of St. Louis Pediatric Associates, Inc., asks the staff supporting her 10 physicians to remember a "snappy" catch phrase when greeting patients.
"Snap" stands for 1) Smile, 2) say the Name of the patient, 3) Ask, "May I help you?" and 4) Make a Parting comment.

Such a tool can serve as a reminder and provides a pattern that can be modified and used with almost any patient encounter. In the hectic pace of a front office, we really do need to be reminded sometimes to smile, and everybody loves to be addressed by name.

By establishing rapport with the patient, your staff can more easily collect the necessary pieces for proper claim filing and profitability.

Boosting collections

With today's insurance shifting to higher copay amounts, collecting copays at the time of service is perhaps the front-desk staff's most important task. Failure to do so can significantly cut into the practice's profitability.

Use a system to track how well staff collect these payments, and share that data to set goals for improvement. Certain practice management systems effectively track, by provider and location, the expected copay, versus what was actually collected. Once the baseline is established, encourage and celebrate improvements.

Better collections, of course, increase revenue, reduce the number of patient statements, and lessen phone calls by the business office. You can reward your staff with movie tickets, a free pizza lunch, or paid time off.

Collecting previously owed balances is an area of increased revenue that is often overlooked. I am amazed that some practices don't even attempt this —  because they don't understand the billing system, balances don't print on the encounter form, or they don't trust the accuracy of the balance if it does appear.