Hiring a clinic receptionist: why the desk keeps emptying

The desk that keeps emptying

Hiring a receptionist is not a fix that stays fixed. She resigns, or goes home to her native place for a few weeks, or takes leave in the same festival season your patients do. Each time, the clinic is back to a phone nobody answers, except now mid-year and with the training to do again.

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You are not hiring once, you are hiring repeatedly

The cost that shows up in the accounts is the salary. The cost that does not is the gap: the weeks between one person leaving and the next being useful, during which calls ring out and nobody follows up with anyone.

Front desk roles turn over quickly, and in a single-doctor clinic there is no bench. One person leaving is the entire function leaving.

The leave lands when you can least afford it

A receptionist going home to her native place is often gone for weeks rather than days, and festival leave clusters on exactly the dates patients have time off work to visit a clinic.

So the desk is least staffed in the periods it would have been busiest. That is not bad management, it is what happens when a function depends on one person being physically present.

The person you hire may not want the software

There is a second failure that nobody plans for: the person at the desk is the one who has to use whatever system the clinic buys, and she may simply not want to. We have been told as much, directly, by an assistant who keeps patient files by hand and said she dislikes technology.

A tool that only works if a reluctant user operates it correctly every day is not a solution to a staffing problem. It is another thing that depends on the same person.

What does not resign

Insor answers on the clinic's own number at 9pm, on a Sunday, during festival week and while the desk is unstaffed. It does not take leave, does not resign and does not need retraining when someone new arrives.

It also does not replace her. One receptionist plus Insor covers what would otherwise need a second hire, and keeps covering it during the weeks she is away.

Questions doctors ask, answered

Is this meant to replace our receptionist?+

No. She keeps the counter, the payments and the walk-ins, which all need a person. Insor takes the phone and the follow-ups, which do not. The practical effect is that the clinic does not need a second hire as it grows, and is not left uncovered when she is away.

What happens when our receptionist is on leave?+

Nothing changes on the phone. Calls are answered and follow-ups continue on the clinic's own number for as long as she is away, which is the difference between a quiet few weeks and a few weeks of patients who could not reach you and booked elsewhere.

Our new receptionist is not comfortable with software. Does that matter?+

Less than it would with practice management software, because Insor is not something the front desk has to operate. It runs on the phone line itself. The clinic approves the templates once at setup, and after that nothing at the desk has to be used correctly for it to work.