Stop walking patients out

A dentist recently asked me whether they should walk patients out to reception at the end of their appointment.

Doing that can seem like good service. It can feel like it tells the patient that they’re valued.

At the start of my career I used to walk patients out but for more than 20 years I haven’t done that.

Interestingly, the change wasn’t originally my idea. My front desk team asked me to stop doing it. After thinking about what happened when I was out at reception, I realised they were right.

The dentist walking patients out makes the practice less efficient and occasionally creates an awkward experience. Here’s why.

Firstly, it uses the dentist’s time poorly. One of my bedrock rules for efficiency is that the dentist shouldn’t perform tasks that can be delegated.

The dentist is the sole person in the practice who can diagnose and provide dental treatment. Every minute they’re not doing that is a minute in which no billable income is being generated.

A dental assistant is perfectly capable of taking a patient to reception, making the handover and ensuring the front desk has everything it needs. The patient is still being well cared for. It doesn’t feel like abandonment to the patient.

Secondly, the dentist walking a patient out creates a bottleneck at reception. Whenever I walked a patient to the front desk, there was a fair chance that one of us would continue the conversation.

Sometimes I would keep chatting. Sometimes the patient would ask another question. Meanwhile, the receptionist would be waiting to arrange payment, schedule the next appointment and explain what was happening next.

A quick conversation doesn’t seem like a lot but if you repeat it multiple times a day, it disrupts two parts of the practice at once. The front desk can’t complete the checkout, and the dentist can’t return to work. This was the main reason my team asked me to stop coming out to reception.

Reception has a rhythm. Phone calls are arriving, patients are checking in, accounts are being managed and appointments are being arranged. Adding a dentist and a lingering conversation to that space turns a smooth handover into a traffic jam.

Thirdly, it can produce an awkward moment. Occasionally, while in reception, I would encounter another patient. They would greet me enthusiastically: “Hello, Mark!” I would reply, “Hello…” while frantically trying to remember their name.

Dentists see a great many people. A patient will remember us instantly because we’re their dentist, but we may need a few moments or the clinical context to remember them. Failing to recall their name in reception can feel quite personal to the patient. It was embarrassing for me and, more importantly, uncomfortable for the patient.

Some dentists will disagree with me. They will say that walking a patient out is courteous and strengthens the relationship.

But I contend that patients do not need the dentist to perform every part of their experience. They need a practice in which team members know what happens next, communication is clear and the handover is effortless.

In my practice, the patient was warmly farewelled by me in the surgery and personally accompanied to reception by a team member. The front desk could then take over without interruption, while I got back to work.

The practice ran better. The team worked more smoothly. The patient was well cared for. Sometimes improving the patient experience means doing more. Sometimes it means having the discipline to step away.

Do you walk your patients to reception? I’d be interested to hear why or why not.