15 Problems faced by Dentists in scheduling appointments

15 Problems faced by Dentists in scheduling appointments : Dentists find it hard to fix their schedules. There may be staff to fix appointments in reputed big hospitals. Though you have assistance in fixing appointments, it has practical difficulties. Such common difficulties faced by dentists are listed below.

Manual error

As schedules are made manually, there are chances of mistakes. It is not always easy for the staff to note down all the booked appointments. They may miss any appointments. They cannot be blamed for this. Though they note down all the appointments, their memory is limited to remember everything. Hectic work nature is also making this tough. Mistakes are so common in manual schedules.

Clash in appointments

Dentists cannot monitor the staff while fixing appointments. The staff may miss appointment calls. They fail to receive calls. They fix appointments for some sooner, the other later. If there is any clash in appointments, it will be found only at the time of visit. It will become a mess. Neither the staff nor the schedule fixed is trusted.

Expenses

Assisting a staff to fix appointments is also difficult. Reputed hospitals may gain handsome revenue to pay as many staff as they want. But practicing Dentists cannot afford paying a staff to fix appointments. He/she already has to pay for other staff. Though you pay staff for this specific purpose, it is not effective and reliable.

Hectic schedule

Dentists have a busy schedule always. Scheduling is done manually and there is no balance in schedule. Once the staff fixes appointments, then the patients must visit the dentists. The booked appointments are often not equally scheduled. So, the dentist finds it hard to handle so many patients in a day.

The day will be very hectic that the dentists cannot relax throughout the day. The day will be tiresome and long for the doctors. This is one main problem in scheduling.

Communication

Usually, patients contact the clinic or hospital through phone calls. In many occasions, patient books for a dentist appointment; then he/she will not visit the hospital at the day of appoint. You cannot contact them again. They may not answer the calls made by the staff. If they attend the call, then they will be asking for another appointment.

If two or more patients approaching the clinic at the same time, obviously the calls may be missed. This communication gap is the biggest problem. Patients will be out of reach at sometimes.

Missing appointments

Patients call the clinic to fix appointments alone. They actually never bother if they unable visit the hospital at the time of appointments. Dentist will be waiting for the patients throughout the day. Imagine the difficulty of the dentist when he/she has no single patients turned up for the appointment.

Entire day will be spoiled and spent on waiting. This might affect the schedule of the dentists. If all the patients are out of reach in a day, then the day will be wasted.

Unable to cancel appointments

Neither the patients nor the dentists can cancel the once fixed appointments. Though there is relaxation for the patients to skip sessions, the dentists must be available at the hospital for all the appointments.

The dentist may want to take a leave on a particular working day. He may have his own personal reasons to take leave. But for that he cannot cancel the already booked appointments with his patients. This will be really worst that the dentist neither involve in his work nor with his personal work. The hospital or clinic finds it blame against the reputation to inform the patients about cancelled sessions.

Unable to send notifications

There is little chance to notify the patients about the upcoming treatment sessions. The patients give their contact number as they are booking for appointment. In return when the hospital or clinic tries to communicate with the patients, it becomes complex. The given contact number is not reliable.

Most of the times, the given contact number is not of the patient’s number. Or else, the text messages can be sent by the hospital. But it is not sure that the patients notice the message and remind about the appointment. Finally, the patients forget their appointment and they have to ask for another appointment.

Availability

Dentist must be available at the clinic for all times. He/she gives appointment for the working hours of the clinic. It is not happening as scheduled in every time. This will be quite hard for the dentist to make him/her available for all days. In that case, the dentist cannot blame the staff for the chaos and he/she cannot leave without attending patients.

Thus they should be there in clinic more than the framed working hours and fixed appointments. It must be agitating to the dentist to work all the while.

Rescheduling

Once the fixed appointment is cancelled, then the patient demands for the next appointment. It will be like doing the job twice. Though the mistake lies on the side of patients, the clinic is responsible for the appointment. The staff should contact the patient again.

They should check the availability of the patient as well as the dentist schedule. This process is tedious to cross check the schedules. It is not sure that the patient will turn up to visit the dentist atleast for the re-fixed schedule.

Non-reliable staff

Though the hospital or clinic can afford paying staff to fix appointments, they are not reliable. They may fail to attend the calls to take appointment. They are not so reliable in appointment scheduling. They may be having no previous experience in that job. Then there must be a chaos. Sometimes, the experienced staff may tend to miss appointments as they find it so hectic.

They deliberately avoid calls to fix appointments. The dentists cannot overlook this scheduling. They neither are vigilant on noticing the duties of the staff. This is one main problem in fixing appointments.

Time consuming

Scheduling is done manually so far. It is highly time consuming than treating patients. Gathering the working hours and the previous schedules is also necessary to schedule appointments. Asking the patients about their availability for the treatment session is also necessary to consider. By having all this at hand, the staff should schedule appointments.

Still there is no fixed schedule made. It will be kept on changing based on the rescheduling process. Thus scheduling is time consuming and problematic.

Fixing sessions

If the dentist is having a regularly visiting patient, there again comes a problem. Patient undergoing oral surgery and regular treatment will be given appointments in a regular time interval. This may be not noticed while scheduling. So, there grows longer gap between the sessions.

There the dentist lacks keep tracking the oral health of the patient due to the schedules. This session sitting needs a dedicated schedule for regularly patients. This gain becomes challenging.

Lacks tracking appointments

Neither the clinic nor the dentist can keep in touch with patients. Especially regarding appointments, they lacks in tacking the fixed appointments. If there is an immediate appointment, then there is no need to track appointments. But when the appointment is fixed within a gap interval, the patients need to be reminded about their appointment. It is sometimes difficult to reach the patients. Thus, patients cannot turn up for their appointments.

Confusion

As schedules done manually, there may be repetitive appointments. They may miss certain appointments. When the patient visits the hospital and finds there is no such appoint as fixed, they may feel irritated. Thus it highly affects the reputation of the clinic. Dentist also feels it quite confusing as he follows the schedule given by the staff.

Thus, the dentist finds appointment fixing as tedious and hard. They can find an alternate by switching to digital appointment fixing apps. With the help of these apps, they can do scheduling tension free and error free. It is economical than appointing a staff to fix schedules.

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