How Healthy is Your Office?
You are a dental health professional, charged with taking care of and assuring your patients’ oral health. As we move into the new year, however, it might be timely to step back a moment and assess the general health of your dental office and see if it is in as good of shape as it needs to be.
Here are a few questions that can quickly help you assess your dental office’s general health:
• Do your front counters allow for separate check-in and check-out of your patients?
• Is a portion of the check-in & check-out counters lowered to wheelchair height?
• Is sharps disposal separate from other waste?
• Are the lamps in your operatories and lab color corrected?
• Are all bio waste disposal receptacles covered?
• Are treatment, payment, and/or appointment scheduling conducted where other patients can hear the conversation?
• Are the counters in the staff lounge at wheelchair height?
• Is there a convenient place for staff to change out of scrubs prior to leaving the facility?
• Are mirrors adjusted for handicap use?
• Is signage in proper Braille and hung at the appropriate height and
• Will the seating in the Reception Room accommodate 300+ lbs individuals comfortably and without straining?
Your dental office design has a direct bearing on your cancellation rate, referral rate, and overall liability exposure. If you answered “no” to more than a couple of these items, then there is a good chance that your dental office design is having a negative impact on your profitability and increasing your risk exposure and you may want to give it a “check up.” Acting sooner rather than later might just make the difference between an okay 2010 and a great one!
