We're so glad that you could be here today to learn powerful techniques for transforming your front office staff into performance-driven ambassadors for your practice. Your moderators for today are me, Ted Annis, Senior Marketing Specialist. And me, Fran Vincent, Marketing and Membership Manager. Our expert presenter today is Michelle Smith. Michelle began her career at Barnett Banks in credit card software before going to work for AT&T in 2000. In 2004, Michelle founded Source One, combining her business expertise and call center experience to fulfill a need in the hearing services industry. We're very excited to have Michelle as our presenter today. But before we get started, we have just a few housekeeping items. Please note that we're recording today's presentation so that we may offer it on demand through the IHS website in the future. This webinar is available for one continuing education credit through the International Hearing Society. You can find out more about receiving continuing education credit at our website, IHSinfo.org. Click on the webinar banner on the homepage or choose webinars from the professional development menu on the left side of the page. There you will find the IHS CE quiz. Also on the webinar page on the IHS website, you'll find the slides from today's presentation. To help gather the information you'll need for the CE quiz, if you haven't already downloaded the PDF, feel free to do so now. You will receive an email with a link to a survey on this webinar. It is brief and your feedback will help us create valuable content for you moving forward. Today we'll be covering the following topics, how to find the right person to represent you and your practice, defining training and continuing education, effective communication in PCC messaging, and capping off with confirmation. At the end of the presentation, we'll move on to a Q&A session. You can send us a question for Michelle at any time by entering your question in the question box on the webinar dashboard, usually located to the right of the webinar screen. We'll take as many questions as we can in the time we have available. Now I'm going to turn it over to Michelle who will guide you through today's presentation. Take it away, Michelle. Well, thank you, Ted, so much. I'm very happy to be here today. And just for everyone that is attending, just so you know a little bit more about SourceOne, we provide inbound and outbound calling. So what I'm going to be showing you and sharing with you today are the principles that we believe are important to a patient care coordinator. And I think the thing that we need to remember is that this person, whatever you call them, whether it's a patient care coordinator or a front office manager, this is the first person that your prospective patients speak to and see, and it's also the last person that they see as well. So it's a very important position for you there. So who do you want this person to be? Do you want them to be an administrator or an ambassador? An administrator, of course, we know is very task focused. An ambassador, however, is focused on the patients getting the tasks done with the patient in mind. So it's not only what they do, but how they do it. And you absolutely can turn an administrator into an ambassador by defining their duties to suit their purpose. For example, answering questions on the phone in a different way. For example, when someone calls in to be taken off of a mailing list, you want to certainly accommodate that caller and help them with their objective, but then you also want to engage them in a way that allows the patient coordinator to say, now that we have that taken care of for you, let me also reinforce that you are absolutely entitled to take advantage of the free evaluation. We would love to have you come in, and this is such an important part of your preventative health program anyway, I'd be happy to help you get set up for that and help coordinate your getting in. So what we're talking about are building skills that you need to identify in the individual that you hire, so that when you're looking for your new patient care coordinator, these really are the essential skills that you're looking for. The communication skills, the problem solving skills, listening skills, and also empathy skills as well. These other key traits are important as well. You want to make sure the person that you're looking at for your patient care coordinator is someone that interacts very well with you personally. They bring a presence to your office with a sense of responsibility. They have demonstrated through other employment that they are dependable, that they can be counted on, they're cheerful, they're invested, and they also have a very genuine desire to just do great for you. Job descriptions should help your patient care coordinator understand their role for performance with objectives and also achievable, measurable goals. Some examples of this would be converting price shoppers to appointments, converting take-off-the-list requests into appointments, increasing third-party attendance, or following up on appointments that are perhaps no-shows, following up on those immediately. You will need to determine what's important to you and then define those roles in terms of a job description so that the patient care coordinator accomplishes what your goals are as well. For training, motivating, coaching, and ongoing training, you want to have a plan, not only for training, but also for motivating your patient care coordinator for coaching and then the ongoing training as well. Some people think that once the initial training is done, that's it, but we all know that that's just really not the case. So let's talk about after the hire. Let's talk about training first. Have a plan, and that should include materials with examples. For example, scripts for inbound calls, the types of callers that your patient care coordinator is going to get, general questions, price shoppers, why they need to bring their third party. So have a list of things that they need to be prepared for and have a plan that includes examples with those. You also want to have a list of examples for materials that they're going to be working with. You want to have examples of what they're going to be doing. For example, entering appointments into your online scheduler so that you're talking to them about what they're going to be doing, but they have a chance to look at it and relate to the actual process. You really also want to set up a schedule for your patient care coordinator. This provides structure so that you can hold them accountable, and it's also an easy way to confirm what needs to be done actually gets done. Because don't forget, they are responsible to you and they are also part of the face of your practice. They're absolutely always on stage. As you work with your patient care coordinator, you want to be looking for the opportunities to cross-train them in different areas for your practice. You want to prepare for the evolving needs that your practice has. For example, are you planning on expanding your offices? Are you planning on expanding into areas where you may need bilingual skills? Do you need to be prepared for certain cultural needs in different areas? Are you looking at additional skills that could be required as you embark on new media marketing such as websites or Facebook or email? Are you considering sign language capabilities for folks that have severe loss? These are the kind of things that you can be looking at in terms of new skills development as your practice grows and as it evolves. The most important thing here is that as you do develop skills, you want to recognize and always look for the things that the patient care coordinators are doing correct. Celebrate landmarks, including company anniversaries, their anniversaries, birthdays, review dates are very important, and individual success where they have achieved remarkable success in specific areas that help you grow your practice. Celebrate an improved third party attendance. Celebrate the ability to diffuse a caller that calls in and is upset because they just received a mailing for their mother that just died a month ago. Celebrate those victories for them so that your patient care coordinator feels appreciated and also respected. In terms of coaching, you also want them to see themselves as you see them and that's helping them see their areas of success and opportunity. As you do the coaching, you're listening to the calls, you're listening to the calls individually, but also with your patient care coordinator. You want to stop at these areas for improvement. You want to also talk about the things that are excelling out and role play with your patient care coordinator so that they become more and more comfortable with what they're doing. Create an action plan for the additional things that need to be done. Look at your own staff. Look at your own staff. One person may not be able to accomplish everything that you are looking for. You may have a situation right now where you don't think you have a good fit with your patient care coordinator. Some considerations you want to think about are would additional coaching sessions help make them more comfortable? For example, use your scripting with a take me off the list request. Discuss it with them so that they become more comfortable in taking care of difficult situations. In looking at your own staff, once you look at additional coaching, you want to see are there some duties that you can swap, where you can swap roles or share duties. If any additional coaching doesn't work, then have the courage to have the conversation with your patient care coordinator so that you can determine what you need to do next. Effective communication and patient care coordinator messaging really is the heart of what we're here to talk about today because this is the key to turning your administrator into an ambassador. So let's get out of the way some common misconceptions. The first would be the more information you provide to the caller, the more potentially that you can confuse them. An example here would be when a caller asks, for example, how much are the hearing aids? The natural tendency of the patient care coordinator is to say, well, the hearing aids that we advertised are this amount of money and then these other hearing aids start at this price. Perhaps a better way to say that is when the patient care coordinator talks about the value of the evaluation. The value of the evaluation is going to determine absolutely what the prospect needs and of course that's going to determine the pricing of the hearing instruments, but all of that is information that the specialist will be providing for the caller or the prospect when they come in. It is information, it's just information, but of course the prospect will have exactly what they need to know, what their options are, and that's one of the great benefits of coming in as well as being able to take care of something that is a very important part of their preventative health program, which is having their hearing checked as well. The other misconception is once something is said, the message is always understood. We just know that this is just not the case, especially with the patients that we work with because they all have hearing loss. An example of this would be a confirmation call where you simply call and say, hi, we're just calling to confirm our appointment with you for Tuesday at 3 p.m. What is actually far more effective is the repetition that's involved in making the call to confirm the appointment, but repeating the day and the time and where the appointment is, where you would say to Mrs. Jones, Mrs. Jones, we are just calling to confirm your appointment for Tuesday at 3 p.m. We wanted to make sure that if you needed our address or directions, we had an opportunity to provide that for you tomorrow. Then we just wanted to let you know we're looking forward to seeing you on Tuesday at 3 p.m. and we just hope you have a wonderful day in the meantime. The repetition there is something that really will offset one of the other common misconceptions that once you've said something once that the person you're speaking to, they have it. The other things that you want to look at in effective communication are the other areas that represent your practice, your voicemail greeting and prompts. You want to listen for environmental noise. You want to listen for tone. You want to listen for the greeting. Prepare this before you record so that you're not only recording what you want the caller to hear, but then once you record that, listen to the message, listen for the tone and make sure that it says exactly what you want the caller to hear. In the office, the other effective communications that you want to prepare for are priorities within the office, patients in the office versus new phone calls that are coming in. It's not only how to do this, but it's also about making sure that both understand how important they are to you. What you want to do is perform both of these functions, taking care of callers as well as people that are standing in front of you in a way that makes both of them feel equally as important. You have calls coming in with someone standing in front of you and you want your patient care coordinator to have the poise and the confidence to be able to say to the caller, Mrs. Jones, we are delighted to hear from you and I will help you get scheduled in just one moment. I am just saying goodbye to someone, so let me take care of that so that I can spend the time with you that you deserve and you need. So if you will bear with me for just one moment, I will be right back. This ensures the caller isn't going to voicemail, they're also going to spend the time on the phone with the patient care coordinator so that you can get the information on this prospect that you need. Your patient care coordinator is then able to go to the person standing in front of them and thanking them for their patience at letting them take the call, but also telling the patient or the prospective patient standing in front of them, let me take care of you now and let's get you taken care of so that you're all set. Getting that done and then being able to come back to the caller. Both patients or prospective patients feel that they've been treated with equal importance and they know they're important to you. Your message may be the only reason that the caller comes in to your office or purchases from your office, so you don't want to shoot the hip because your message may be the only reason this takes place. Your patient care coordinator is the one that delivers that handshake over the phone. You want your callers to feel like they've really genuinely just met their new, next best friend. When the calls come in, for example, you want your prospects to hear, well, good morning. You've reached your hearing center here in your city. This is Mary. How can I help you? And Mrs. Jones, well, wonderful. We would love to have you come in. You want your callers to be glad they called. You want them to hear that kind of uplifting message that really is an incentive for them to come in because, again, it reinforces that message that this is the place that is interested in them and this is the place that is concerned for them. When you're preparing your patient care coordinator for being that ambassador, acting out of focus on the patient, you want to also have a list of empathy statements and you want to be able to practice them with your patient care coordinator. This is what helps deliver that message for your patients and prospects that you are concerned for them. An example of this would be a caller that calls in and talks about how frustrated they are with their current hearing aids. They may be looking at new hearing aids. They may not be sure what they'd like to do. Your patient care coordinator, when they say things like, you know, I understand how frustrating that absolutely must be, let's do this. Let's get you in here. Let's take a look at it and let's see what we can do to help take care of that for you. As opposed to, okay, let me see what I have available. I have Monday at 2 o'clock and Tuesday at 4. Very different messages that those two things deliver. So let's talk about effective messaging. The three things that we need to keep in mind for true effective messaging is the intention, what is the message, the credibility and who is giving that message, and then the delivery, how the message is actually delivered. So what effect do you want the message to have? An example here might be someone that calls in their price shopping. You certainly want to help them with some information, but you also want to get them in. So you help the caller by saying, you know, let me describe for you what you're going to see when you come in, and you describe the video otoscope, you describe the familiar voice test, you describe all of the things that go into a comprehensive hearing evaluation, and then you talk about all of those things combined will result in the type of hearing instrument that you need, and we just don't know what that is right now. But you know, this is going to be great information, again, it's only information, and what you do with the information is entirely up to you, but it will tell you very specifically what options you have, and really and truly, that's what the caller wants anyway. The speaker provides credibility when they're cheerful and when they're confident. They speak clearly and they're also interesting to listen to. They don't stutter, they don't trip over their words, and they also understand that communication is absolutely a two-way street. So let's talk about what ultimately determines the speaker's credibility, whether the caller understands the message. For example, scheduling someone for Tuesday, but the caller heard Thursday. She comes in on Tuesday, she's upset because the office doesn't have her on the schedule. The office is upset now because they're already full, they have no way to squeeze her in, and so now you have bad feelings. So what you're also going to say to enhance your credibility is when you're scheduling with that person for Tuesday, you're going to say, you're going to help your patient care coordinator learn that they want to say, now we're scheduling you for Tuesday, which is August 4th. Let's go ahead and grab your calendar, and let's circle that on your calendar. That gives the caller the opportunity to say, oh, Tuesday, that's the 3rd, I thought you said Thursday. So it really does give you the opportunity to make sure that the credibility of the message was understood, and this becomes your practice's credibility. The person is coming in on the right day and the right time, and that enhances your relationship with that caller. Celebrity translates into making someone believe that you are just glad they called and you are the one that's there to help them. Again, you are just their newest best friend, and it only takes 30 seconds to develop that trust. We talked about the confidence and the cheerful message, but also the appropriate message as well. And you want to reinforce with your patient care coordinator that she smiles when she's talking to these folks, whether it's in person or whether it's over the phone. All of your callers can hear your patient care coordinator smile over the phone, make no mistake about it. So the appropriate message is for the appropriate person to accomplish your goal. So you want to adjust your message to the person that you're interacting with, remembering that the prospect has their own perspective, their own knowledge, their own motive, and their own intentions as well. So some examples of someone that comes to the practice with their own perspective and knowledge. They may have never been tested before. They may be gradually admitting that they have hearing loss, that they may or may not want to do something about it, but they've never been tested before. This is their perspective and knowledge base. So what the patient care coordinator can do to build confidence in the prospect and credibility for the practice is talk to them about what to expect when they come in. And they can say to the caller, Mrs. Jones, when you come in, this is exactly what you're going to see. And it helps the caller be better prepared and more confident in what's going to take place. Another example of a caller, let's take an example of motive and intent. The caller may be calling simply to get, for example, a free gift card versus someone that knows that they have hearing loss, they need hearing aids, they're coming in to look at that. So the person that's calling in that wants that free gift card, you of course need to decide what you want so that you can provide your patient care coordinator with the proper guidance and coaching. Because again, the end result here is to help you build your practice and you want to do that with tests that are qualified tests and you script for that. So you teach your patient care coordinator what you want. And an example of an end result there would be something like your patient care coordinator saying to the caller, Mrs. Jones, that's wonderful. Yes, we do have the free gift cards. When you come in, let me tell you how you become eligible for that. When you come in, we'll be providing you with a full comprehensive hearing evaluation that will include this, this, and this. And of course, then we're going to provide you with a demonstration of the latest state-of-the-art technology and answer any questions that you might have about how that might help you. And since you're married, we do also want you and your husband to come together. We know that they're the person that you have the most communication with and so we want to involve them in the process from the very beginning as well. And of course, once all of that is completed, you'll have wonderful information as well as your free gift card and we look forward to seeing you. Let's see what we have available so that we can coordinate that for the best time for you. So that you can clearly state your message, help your patient care coordinators practice that message so that they can deliver that with confidence so that you accomplish your goals in building your practice. So confirmations, we all know how important confirmations are and we know that confirmations are of course a reminder of when the prospects are coming in, why they're coming, and of course where they're going. This is important. If you have a variety of offices, for example, you want to provide not only the address but you want to provide landmarks. You want the patient care coordinator to also provide parking information, handicapped information. Another way that your patient care coordinator can deliver that message on your behalf is if someone is handicapped or asks about handicapped parking, you can certainly consider having your patient care coordinator tell this caller, you know, Mrs. Jones, our office is right across from the bank and once you reach our office, the handicapped parking is right up front next to the front door and listen, if you will bring your cell phone, call us when you get here. I would be more than happy to come out and assist you, help you get out of the car if that's something that would help you. We find in our case when we do this, so very often the callers will say, oh, you know, that's not necessary, but it's just so sweet. But it's just one more way that, again, you've delivered the information that you're concerned for them and that this is the practice that is going to take care of them. It tells your caller that you appreciate them and you appreciate this opportunity to see them. So, confirmations are not just administratively something you knock out to make sure everybody said, yep, I'm coming, but you use it as a strategic advantage to help promote the practice one more way. What confirmations should also accomplish for you, of course, increase the probability that the patient will show. It should increase the third-party attendance, but it should also build confidence in the practice. It gives your caller a chance to clarify any questions they might have, and it also gives the patient care coordinator the opportunity to help the caller or the prospect recommit to coming. Because certainly if there have been more than a few days that have passed, the prospect has had an opportunity to think about this and question whether maybe they're really ready to do this. We're not asking the prospect to purchase hearing aids. We're simply asking them to come in to have their hearing evaluated as a part of their preventative health program. They have their eyes checked once a year, and this is equally as important in taking care of themselves. So you have a chance to also reinforce and refresh your message in your patient's mind. And finally, you have the opportunity to maximize the investment and how much your practice has already paid for each one of these appointments. We all know that the price of an appointment can be anywhere from $300 to $600, and we also know, depending on what the average price is that you sell your hearing instruments for, we know the value and the price that each appointment represents as well. So you're maximizing what you've paid for each lead, you're also maximizing what each appointment represents, and with the type of training that we're talking about, it really does allow you to improve the conversion of calls to appointments, and that's what's so critical. You want to improve taking the call, converting it into a qualified appointment for your practice so that you have your time up at bat. Some other thoughts in doing the confirmation process, we actually recommend that there should be three passes for the patient care coordinator. First pass, first part of the day. Second pass, we recommend early afternoon, 1 to 2, and then we do recommend a final pass late in the day, right around 5 o'clock. Now, we know that you're leaving messages, however, we absolutely believe that when you speak to someone, your odds of that appointment coming in increase dramatically. So you make your first pass at 9 a.m., and certainly while you may be leaving a message, we still recommend the other additional passes to increase the probability of talking to someone and accomplishing the other things we've just finished talking about. So do the additional passes when you speak to someone. The other benefit that you get is that you may speak to the person that didn't schedule the appointment. The appointment is for the wife, but the husband answers the phone, so you've had a broader reach there. When you leave messages for your confirmations, repetition is absolutely critical. You want to, on the confirmation call, clearly state who you are and when the appointment is for and where the appointment is taking place. We always complete the message by saying, once again, Mrs. Jones, we are just really looking forward to seeing you, and that's on Tuesday at 2 o'clock. So repetition is very, very important. Again, you want to listen for the tone of the message, that it's cheerful and just really up. Some other thoughts are that you also have an opportunity with confirmations with people that choose to cancel their appointment. An important thing to remember is that this is actually not the end of your relationship with this prospect. If you've done all of these things right, the prospect may very well open up about why they're concerned about coming in or why they've just decided that they're not ready yet. It could be something just as simple as they have a friend that has had a bad experience with hearing aids and they just don't think they're ready yet. When you have the ability to search things like this out, you also have the ability to have a conversation with the prospect about it. This will help you determine how you market to this prospect in the future and how you communicate with them in the future as well. But this is absolutely not the end of your relationship with this patient and you should view that as just another opportunity to talk to them in a different way. Here are the top five things that you can do right now, that you need to do now. Look at your entire staff and see if there's anyone that fits this role. If there is, create a plan. If there is, then create a plan for moving them into this role. If not, start the search. Create a hiring, training, and continuing education plan. Create scripting for all of your individual messaging. It's the intent, the credibility, and the delivery is important. Write your messages out for, again, all of your messaging, whether it's accepting calls or whether it's initiating calls, making outbound calls, whether it's your voicemail messaging, and also your confirmations. Also write out messaging for how to respond to problems when callers have questions or they have objections. Have some written statements that help your patient care coordinators understand how to respond to challenge. This will give them the confidence that they're doing the right thing and it gives them the knowledge that they have your blessing for doing it. Also, listen to your voicemail prompts. This is an important part of your practice. People are not always calling during business hours, so they're listening to your voicemail. Create a script and rerecord until it's absolutely right. And then finally, set a confirmation schedule and practice, practice, practice. Confirmations are more important, I think, than a practice. Understand sometimes and believe sometimes, and there are some very important things that can be accomplished with confirmations. Ensuring success. Acknowledge your organization's strengths and weaknesses as it relates to your messaging, and also acknowledge your own personal strengths and weaknesses as well. Understand how that fits into your training. Engage outside resources to assist you in your training. For example, if you are not particularly someone that is well-versed in your online scheduler, then engage the company that you're working with. You would be surprised, there are some wonderful training, some online training that is provided by a number of companies where they are happy to do that, and it really does help your patient care coordinator not only get a better understanding of what they're supposed to do, but ask questions with people that can answer their questions very specifically. So engage outside resources. If you have a patient care coordinator, for example, that is not particularly prepared for some of the new media marketing that you are getting ready to embark on, consider a class, sending them to a training class or a computer class, but absolutely engage as many resources as you need to to assist in your training and to assist your patient care coordinator with their success. Monitor how well your patient care coordinator is implementing what they learn. Practice, practice, practice, and all of these things will work very well together to ensure your success in developing the kind of patient care coordinator that is not just an administrator, but also an ambassador. So now, I guess really and truly, I would be very happy to engage some questions. I'd be happy to take questions. We certainly hope that we've addressed not only skills that are required for what the patient care coordinator is doing, but also how they do it. Thanks, Michelle. We're so excited that over 250 attendees have joined us today on this webinar. We do have some time for questions. If you have a question for Michelle, please enter it in the question box on your webinar dashboard. Michelle, our first question is for Mary, and Mary asks, are there any resources you would recommend for front office staff to further develop their communication and listening skills? There are companies out there that do this where they actually have scripting available for you. So they provide scripting and then they also will monitor calls and evaluate the calls where the patient care coordinator is using the scripting. So there are companies out there that do that. The other thing that you can do, Mary, is you can record your calls and you can listen to them yourself. Not only listen to them yourself, but listen to them with your patient care coordinator so that you can talk about what went well on the call. Was there a lot of confidence? Did they stumble when answering questions? Did they give enough information? So yes, there are companies out there that do this. The second company that comes to mind is Von Hansen. There are other companies that in doing the tracking for your marketing, they also record calls and that gives you another way of listening to your calls as well. So I hope that helps. Great, thanks Michelle. Michelle, our next question is from another Michelle and she asks, do you have or know of any sample scripts or videos that are geared towards PCCs? Well, again, there are companies out there that do this. I think the biggest objective with your patient care coordinators is to define the scripts that they need. The scripts for answering specific caller questions or specific caller objectives, having an answer for those. Also, again, there are companies out there that do this. So you can certainly enlist that if you have a... And another alternative is to outsource that with companies that can do that for you and then you can learn from them as well. Our next question is from Roseanne. And Roseanne asks, for busy clinic owners that see quite a bit of patients, do you have any advice for monitoring your PCCs? Sure, you are busy, absolutely, no doubt about it. You're doing a lot of different things in addition to testing. However, I will tell you that you can, when you have a call that's come in to your patient care coordinator, if you really just take the five minutes to step aside and listen to the call, it gives you an opportunity to at least check the progress to see how comfortable they are with callers, how comfortable they are with questions. And the other thing too is that in role-playing, the questions that you hear them fielding, these are also the questions that you should practice offline. The other resource that you could potentially use is someone else there in the practice that has a very good feel for the kind of calls that are gonna be coming in, or the kind of questions that prospects have once they're in the office. Utilize your own staff as well. Let them be involved in the process because they probably have great insight into what the patient care coordinator will experience. Great, thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our next question is from Chris. And Chris asks, what are your thoughts on the importance of professional appearance for your PCC staff? I think actually, I think the appearance is very important. I think there should be a dress code in the office and your patient care coordinator should have a business casual dress. So I actually think it's very important. We actually do that here in the office because we find that it improves people's performance here. There's actual research out there about how dress affects performance. But what we know is that the more professional a person is dressed, the more professional they're likely to behave. So I think it's actually very important. And I think business casual is just the perfect way to do that. Great, thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our next question is from Mallory. And Mallory asks, do you have any advice on putting cameras in the office to watch your front office staff? Well, I think cameras are a good idea for a wide variety of reasons. It could very well just be a standard practice in a hearing center. But I think it's actually a very, very good idea. It helps you accomplish a lot of different things and certainly, you know, we talked earlier about patient care coordinators need to understand that they are absolutely always on stage. They are there to represent you. And it's important that they understand they're always on stage. It's not only what they say, not only what they do, but what they say and how they do it. So I think cameras are a very good idea. Great, thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our next question is from Melissa. And this goes along the lines with the attire question. But she asks, what are your thoughts about front office staff wearing lab coats along with the audiologists? Oh gosh, I, you know, I think as long as the patient care coordinator looks professional, I think that's the most important thing, not only in the way they dress, but, and I think lab coats are fine. I, you know, I don't have any, I don't have a significant opinion one way or the other. I think if that's the way you represent your practice, I think that that's, I think that's absolutely appropriate. Great, thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our next question is from Steve. And Steve says, my front office staff is older and not very technically savvy. And I feel that it's hurting customer relationships. Do you have any advice for Steve? You know, technology is something that really is becoming a more important part of our world today. And these skills are important. I think, you know, looking at your existing staff, seeing if there's someone else on the staff where you can maybe swap some duties or swap roles. I think that's one of the things to consider. But if they are older, the other, you know, the other concern is how they communicate with everyone that's calling. They, you want them to be able to communicate with them. You want to be able, that you want them to be able to, to be able to work with the new media that you may be embarking on as well. So you've got several different ways you can go. You can look at your existing staff to look if there's someone else that might be able to do that more effectively. You can look at doing some training, some computer training, you know, or you may just need to look at moving them into a different role and looking for a new person to fulfill that spot. But those really are the options. The person that is older and has trouble with technology, typically they're, the biggest challenge there is that they're not comfortable with the technology. And so you would also need to know if that's a barrier that they're going to be able to get past. And if not, it is an important part of the practice because you're working with online schedulers, you know, you're sending emails. There's just a lot of different opportunities that require a certain proficiency with computer skills. Great, thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our next question is from Thomas. And Thomas asks, do you recommend that telephone greetings be a certain length? And if so, what is that length? You know, you want to be able to save all of, you want to be able to deliver all of the information that the caller needs. So in terms of the greetings, is the question really about when the patient care coordinator answers the call? Is that the question? Or voicemail, yes. Okay, all right. So when they're answering the call, the key elements that you want in answering the call are first to identify the practice and thank the caller for calling. Thank you for calling your hearing center here in your city. And then you want to identify yourself so that the caller makes that connection and you have the opportunity to build that rapport within that first 30 seconds. So this is Mary, how can I help you today? So you want to make sure that those are the key components for the caller that's calling in. For the voicemail message, the key components there are again, just identifying your practice, letting them know that you are sorry that you're not available to take their call. However, their call is important to you. And if they will leave their name and number, including area code, you will return that call promptly and you look forward to seeing them at your practice. So those are the key components that you want to make sure are a part of your voicemail messaging. Great, thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our next question is from Susan. And Susan asks, is it important that a patient care coordinator come from a customer service background to be successful in their role? You know, it's really not. What you want to do is assess the individual. You want to look for those qualities that really give you a strong assurance of success. You want to look for a certain maturity level in this individual. You want to look for interpersonal skills. You want to make sure that they're not shy or that they're inhibited in the way that they interact with people. And the best way to do that is when you meet with them yourself initially. Assess how well they interact with you. You want to look at their demeanor. Are they retiring or are they cheerful and bold? Take a look at what their overall demeanor is. We talked about the computer skills. Those are important. But the flexibility is important as well. Are they there to tell you that they're going to work nine to four and they're leaving at four and regardless of what happens, that's the way it's going to be? Or are they there as someone that says to you, look, I'm here to do a great job for you and I'm going to do whatever I have to do to get the job done. So I think those are probably the key traits that you want to look for in terms of the person. Great advice, Michelle, thanks. Michelle, our next question is from Mary. And Mary asks, how would you handle a patient care coordinator who is a great administrator but is lacking in critical issues such as empathy, cheerfulness, et cetera? How do you know when it's time to rehire someone lacking in these areas? Well, you know, I think probably the best thing to do is to talk to them, just have a, once you've taken a look at some additional coaching to see how well they take on the additional coaching and then if they're able to implement that, if they're just not able to implement that, I think that it just really does require a frank, just a frank conversation that these are things that are part of the job description, they're part of the job. And just ask them very openly to talk to the specialist about how comfortable they are with those things. Because if they're not comfortable with them, you know, they're not going to be good at their job and they're not going to help you build your practice. It's just not going to be something that will happen. And I think it just requires that kind of, you know, frank conversation. Ask them to talk with you honestly about how comfortable they are with that. And if they're not, then put together a plan, either move them into a different area of the practice where maybe they can do billing for you or some other duties, or talk openly about just an exit strategy that helps them find something they're going to be better at and also helps you find someone that really is a better fit. But again, if you help them and tell them, look, if this is not the best fit, then let's put together a plan for what will help you. And if that includes an exit strategy, the fact that you're helping work with them on this will better ensure that it's going to go well. Thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our next question is for Randy. And Randy says, is it better to have a dedicated person answering the phone or should you train the entire front office staff? You know, it really does depend on the volume of calls that you get. I think if you have peaks and valleys where you have campaigns, you have mailing campaigns out there, or you have open house events taking place, then you may very well want to have more than one person prepared to answer those phones for you. It just really does depend on the volume. And it also depends on the availability. If you have someone working for you part-time, then you want to make sure that that backup is equally as prepared and ready to do what your patient care coordinator is there to do as well. Great, thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our next question is for Thea. Thea asks, what are the guidelines on leaving messages when confirming appointments in regard to HIPAA and how much information can be left with a patient care coordinator? I'm sorry, say that one more time if you would. I didn't get the last half. Oh, I'm sorry. Thea asks, what are the guidelines on leaving messages when confirming appointments in regard to HIPAA and how much information can be left? Okay, all right. Well, you want to leave the message for the person that has the appointment, and you want to leave the practice name and then also the number and the time for the appointment. You don't, yeah, I was just going to say, I'm sorry. You don't say what they're coming in for, but you do include all of the rest of that information. Michelle, our next question is from Chris, and Chris asks, what rewards or incentives do you recommend for patient care coordinators to be incentivized? Sure, well, let's take a baseline of where they're at. What you want to do is define their duties and take some things that very specifically contribute to new business. For example, third-party attendance. You can certainly put some incentives out there for third-party attendance. Where someone is married, if they come in with their husband or wife, then a certain reward for that. If they are not married, they're widowed, or they're a widower, if they have a son or daughter in the area, if they come in with their son or daughter, additional rewards there as well. And so you want to be looking at all of the things that specifically contribute to your ability to develop new business and then reward those things specifically. Thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our next question is from Quentin, and Quentin says, what are some common conversation killers? Conversation killers with respect to people that are calling in or once they're actually in the office. Well, I guess both. What has the potential to derail a conversation between a patient care coordinator and a client? Okay. Well, I think when you're getting into things that are personal, like politics and religion, I think those are potentially very dangerous. It really is all about the patient. Let them talk with you, and if they're having a tough time with their hearing aids, say all, rather than bad-mouthing the competitor's hearing aids, you want to say, gosh, I'm just, I'm so sorry to hear that. Let's see what we can do about that. So you want the patient care coordinator, again, as that ambassador, to be a positive force in your office, and you want to stay away from some of the more sensitive things like that. But also you want to help them see your practice differently than perhaps they view other practices or what they've heard about other practices. Thanks, Michelle. Michelle, our last question comes from Roseanne, and Roseanne asks, how long should it take for front office staff to become good in their role, and when is it too early to move a new candidate up into the ranks? Well, they should be able to be fairly good at their role very quickly. Certainly no more than a week. If you've done your job properly, which is you've done the sit-down, you've done the coaching, you've provided them with scripting, and you've helped them practice, you've helped them practice in a way that allows them to make their mistakes, get them out of the way, and then really refine what they're doing so that they're doing it well and correctly and with confidence, they should be, really and truly, within the first week, they should be well-practiced and really delivering very, very good results for you. How soon it would be to move someone into that role? If you believe that they have the maturity to do this type of work, then move them into the role. If they have the skills to do it, then be bold and be eager and let them show you how well they can do. Great, thank you, Michelle. Michelle, we want to thank you for such an excellent presentation today, and we want to thank everyone for joining us today on the IHS webinar, How to Transform Front Office Staff into True Patient Care Coordinators. If you'd like to get in contact with Michelle, you may email her at michelle at source, the number one specialty.com. For more information about receiving continuing education credit for this webinar, please visit the IHS website at ihsinfo.org. Click on the webinar banner or find more information on the webinar tab under professional development. IHS members receive a substantial discount on IHS CE credits. So if you're not already an IHS member, you will find more information at ihsinfo.org. Please keep an eye out for the feedback survey you'll receive tomorrow via email. We ask that you take just a moment to answer a few brief questions about the quality of today's presentation. Thank you again for being with us today, and we will see you at the next IHS webinar.

webinar

Michelle Smith

patient care coordinator

PCC

hearing practice

ambassador

communication

training

development