The front desk of any healthcare setting holds a key role in its success. This is also true of doctors’ offices where the front desk is primarily used to ensure smooth operations of the doctors’ offices.
Front desk staff is hired to handle the volume of patients coming in by providing appropriate information and scheduling appointments.
Working in an extremely fast-paced environment, front desk personnel in a medical environment greet patients as they arrive, take patient and insurance information, and register patients in the facility database.
They also take appointments over the telephone and provide information to callers as far as the facility and its services are concerned.
Some medical facilities require front desk staff to handle billing and coding duties as well – for which a certain amount of training is required.
Front desk managers in a medical facility also take payments for services rendered and keep records of payments and patient information.
The following list of duties of a front desk manager at a doctor’s office will provide you with a more profound picture of what a person working in this position is required to do.
Doctors Front Desk Duties and Responsibilities
- Greet patients and visitors as they arrive and inquire about the purpose of the visit.
- Handle appointment scheduling tasks by coordinating doctors’ availability and patients’ requirement.
- Take patients’ personal information such as full name, address, and contact numbers for record purposes.
- Input patient information in the facility’s database.
- Take and verify patients’ insurance information for billing purposes.
- Answer telephone calls and provide information over the phone and also handle telephonic appointments.
- Assist patients with filling out registration and insurance forms.
- Organize paperwork by filing it properly and making sure that all information is punched into the database.
- Schedule patients’ diagnostic tests on getting instructions from the doctors.
- Transfer calls to the doctor.
- Ensure that the front desk is clean and maintained at all times.
- Perform medical billing and coding activities when instructed specifically by the doctor.
- Handle light bookkeeping activities and handle payments for services rendered.
- Maintain liaison with insurance companies to determine claim statuses.
- Inform patients in the event of insurance authorization and referral requirements.
- Issue system generated receipts to the patients in exchange for payments received.
- Close the cash counter at the end of the day and prepare cash reports for the doctors.
- Call patients to remind them of their appointments.
- Handle appointment cancellations and reschedule appointments as deemed appropriate.
- Manage inventory of office and medical supplies.