Ep. 119: The Office Manager’s Daily Routine, Part 2
This week we wrap up our series on the Office Manager’s daily duties and routine to keep their practice running efficiently and productively.
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Questions From This Episode
What should the office manager be tracking throughout the day beyond just total dollar value closed?
Both the dollar value of what's presented versus closed, and separately, the raw number of treatment plans presented versus the number actually accepted. A single large case closing can make a day look financially strong on paper while masking that most of the smaller opportunities presented that same day went nowhere, a pattern worth catching and addressing directly rather than being satisfied by one good number.
How quickly should an implant funnel or web form lead actually be contacted, and why does it matter so much?
Within about 30 minutes, ideally faster, since that person is typically still sitting at their computer or phone when the inquiry comes in. These leads, including direct messages and comments on social media, are easy to overlook since business social accounts don't get checked with the same instinct as a personal one, but a delayed response on a lead the practice already paid real marketing dollars to generate quietly wastes that spend.
Why is contact with existing patients one of the first things that quietly falls off, and why does that matter?
Because it's invisible until the effects show up later, when a practice gets busy, outbound calls and messages to existing patients are usually the first thing to get dropped, since there's no immediate visible consequence. But that contact volume directly affects income proportionally, since most revenue should come from the existing patient base, and letting it lapse quietly sets up the kind of empty schedule and income slump that shows up weeks later with no obvious single cause.
What's the actual danger in leaving a large cash or check deposit sitting in the office overnight?
It's simply a real theft risk, and one that's avoidable. Smaller day-to-day deposits can reasonably be pooled securely and taken to the bank weekly, but a genuinely large deposit, an $8,000 cash payment or a $28,000 cashier's check, warrants an immediate trip to the bank the same day it's collected rather than sitting in the office until the next scheduled deposit run.
What are the core weekly duties an office manager should never skip, regardless of practice size?
A genuine, uninterrupted weekly meeting with the practice owner, ideally away from the office entirely so it isn't broken up by patients, staff, or the phone, reviewing any patient credit balances so nobody who's prepaid for phased treatment gets lost track of, reviewing and approving payroll with an eye on actual return on that spend, and listening to at least a sample of new patient calls each week to catch conversion issues before they compound.
Episode Transcript
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Jeff: This is part two of a two part series on the daily and weekly duties of a dental office manager. If you haven't listened to part one from last week, I'd genuinely recommend going back to it first, or you may lose the thread here. I'm joined again this week by Sabri Blumberg, our Deputy Chief Operating Officer.
Jeff: Sabri, we're all set?
Sabri: Ready to go.
Jeff: Great. Last week we covered the morning meeting and how it sets up the day's action plan, and you'd started getting into how the office manager jumps in with staff who are behind target for the week, then checks in throughout the day on progress against that plan. So what's next on the checklist?
Sabri: The next thing, and this is genuinely something they do continuously throughout the day, not once, is tracking exactly where sales stand. And I know sales sometimes gets treated like an uncomfortable word in dentistry, but if we don't sell, we don't make money, and in healthcare specifically, if we don't sell, patients don't get healthy. Case acceptance is really just a nicer sounding word for the same thing.
Jeff: Like calling an extra large a venti.
Sabri: Exactly, branding. So tracking sales throughout the day means more than just noting we closed a 4,000 dollar case, now we're at 6,000. It's really about the fact that the morning meeting laid out a full action plan, who was supposed to see which patient, get them to what point, and hand them off to whom. Someone has to actually run that plan throughout the day and make sure it's genuinely being executed, and get it back on track the moment something starts slipping.
Jeff: So being an office manager really isn't a desk job.
Sabri: Not at all, it's a working job, you're actively moving through the practice, engaging with the team to make sure things are actually happening, not just sitting at a computer.
Sabri: Worth mentioning for smaller practices specifically, if you don't have dedicated staff for every one of these functions, that doesn't mean you skip them, it just means you shortcut them. Whether it's a formal report or the doctor and office manager simply going over it together daily, the function itself still needs to happen. Even an office manager who's also filing insurance or working the front desk still needs to periodically step back and check that all of this is genuinely happening, since they're the one ultimately responsible for it.
Sabri: So throughout the day: coordinate the staff, make sure sales are actually happening, keep the morning's action plan on track, and if cases aren't closing, make sure that's being logged so it can be followed up on. That means tracking both the number of presentations versus number closed, and separately, the dollar value presented versus dollar value closed.
Jeff: Why both?
Sabri: Because say we hit 10,000 dollars for the day, a genuinely strong number. But if ten treatment plans were presented that morning and only one closed, and it happened to be the 10,000 dollar case, that's worth digging into as a manager. Why did the other nine not close? The dollar figure alone can hide a real pattern, maybe only large cases are closing and plenty of smaller ones are quietly slipping through.
Jeff: That makes sense.
Sabri: From there, the next thing is making sure all promotional leads are actually converting and landing on the schedule, incoming calls specifically, listening to make sure they're handled well, checking the new patient log to confirm inquiries are actually scheduling, and tracking that conversion rate. And for anything like implant funnels or other form-based marketing, making sure those leads get followed up on properly and promptly so the marketing spend behind them isn't wasted.
Jeff: Let's dig into that. If we're tracking incoming calls and inquiries throughout the day using that new patient log, would you recommend checking it on a set schedule, morning, midday, afternoon, something routine?
Sabri: Absolutely, routinely is exactly the point. If you're only checking that log once a week, the ship has already sailed. Checking regularly means you can catch and fix a problem the same day, before it compounds across the whole week.
Jeff: This is genuinely important, and we've covered it in other episodes too, the national conversion rate on these calls is around 23 percent.
Sabri: Which means roughly three out of every four people calling in, asking about a crown, a cleaning, whether you take their insurance, are being lost. That's absolutely worth close, ongoing attention.
Jeff: What about form leads and social media specifically? A lot of implant funnel and pay-per-click landing pages now include a form, and plenty of practices get direct messages straight through Instagram or Facebook, even just comments on a post asking about pricing.
Sabri: Right, and those often don't get checked as consistently as they should.
Jeff: How quickly should an implant funnel lead specifically be contacted?
Sabri: Within about 30 minutes, honestly, sooner if possible.
Jeff: Given you're likely paying real money for those leads.
Sabri: Exactly, and that person is typically still sitting right there at their computer or phone when the inquiry comes in. Faster is always better, essentially instantaneous would be ideal.
Jeff: Part of the challenge is how differently people treat a personal social account versus a business one. Nobody's sitting there checking their business Facebook constantly the way they might scroll their own feed for entertainment.
Sabri: Exactly, personal use is for entertainment, business use exists specifically to generate new patient leads, and needs to be checked with that in mind.
Jeff: One thing worth highlighting in everything you've laid out so far, the real emphasis is on team coordination toward two specific things, getting patients to accept treatment and onto the schedule, and keeping new patient lines wide open. When both of those are working, income follows directly. And when income and production are healthy, that actually buys you time to fix everything else, an inefficiency here, a staff member whose performance is inconsistent, whatever it is.
Sabri: Exactly right, you could have a perfectly organized, happy team and still be broke, and that doesn't work in a business. So the priority has to be, first, do what the business actually exists to do, bring in new patients and deliver the treatment, then you have the room to work on training and refinement.
Jeff: Which makes sense, if collections are struggling, that's where your attention has to go immediately, not toward, say, correcting how an assistant sets up a room.
Sabri: Right, once collections and new patients are under control, you've bought yourself the time to actually train and develop the team properly.
Sabri: Next on the list, and this assumes some baseline management training, is making sure there's adequate ongoing contact with existing patients, keeping the patient base genuinely active rather than quietly letting people go inactive. You'd check this by looking at the volume of letters, calls, and texts going out to existing patients daily, and you want that volume consistently high.
Jeff: Since that's where most revenue is supposed to come from, as we covered last episode.
Sabri: Exactly, and that contact volume directly affects income in direct proportion. This is usually the very first thing that quietly falls off when a practice gets busy, there's simply no time to make those calls, and before long the schedule empties out and income slumps.
Jeff: Which is exactly what we covered in the Cycle of Booms and Depressions episode, definitely worth revisiting if you haven't heard it, it explains precisely this pattern.
Sabri: Right, it's vitally important.
Sabri: Then we move into scheduling specifically. First, confirming every patient for the following day, and confirmed genuinely means confirmed, not just a message left.
Jeff: By what time would you want to know the full schedule for tomorrow is confirmed?
Sabri: By three o'clock at the latest, a couple hours before close.
Jeff: And presumably some confirmations carry more weight than others.
Sabri: Absolutely, there's a real priority order, anything high production, anything involving starting a procedure or a sales opportunity, gets confirmed first. But ideally the system is strong enough that confirmation is never really a problem, or a matter of picking and choosing, most of it should already be locked in well before that day even arrives.
Sabri: I was talking with a client recently whose hygiene schedule kept falling apart, and their solution was to start double-booking hygiene.
Jeff: What happens when two patients show up at the same time?
Sabri: Their answer was, we just figure it out. Which is solving the wrong problem entirely. If I show up for my scheduled appointment and now have to wait because someone else was double-booked against me, that's genuinely upsetting as a patient, and meanwhile your provider is sometimes sitting idle at other points in the day. The real question is why confirmations aren't happening reliably, and why whoever's responsible for that isn't able to pull it off, that's either a skill gap or a process gap, but it's an internal problem worth actually solving.
Sabri: Also make sure there are no unexpected openings in hygiene, and that there are enough real sales opportunities on the schedule looking a few days ahead, not just today. If a day is running short on things to actually sell, that's simply poor planning on the front end, and it's the scheduler's job to keep sales and production reasonably balanced, adding more consults if needed.
Sabri: Then, checking the doctor's schedule for upcoming days to confirm there's enough time built in for both the production already planned and genuine patient education, so patients actually understand and buy the treatment they need to get healthy.
Jeff: Last episode we covered the morning meeting focused on today specifically. I'd imagine this extends that same thinking forward, to tomorrow, the day after.
Sabri: Exactly. Say today Mr. Smith is in hygiene at two o'clock with six crowns he declined last visit, and the doctor's going to talk to him again. As the doctor, and the treatment coordinator too, you should already be thinking about what openings exist over the next couple of days, since whatever gets sold needs to actually get delivered promptly.
Jeff: So if there are two hours open Thursday morning and three hours open Monday morning, that's where you're mentally slotting today's presentations as you go.
Sabri: Right, you'd naturally try to fit someone into Thursday first.
Jeff: And I'd imagine the office manager following up on that production is really an extension of the morning meeting itself, checking whether that Thursday opening actually got filled, and making sure patients who've committed to treatment aren't getting pushed too far out.
Sabri: Exactly, because the entire point of selling the treatment is so the patient actually gets healthy, which means it has to be delivered. We're not selling for the sake of selling, we're doing it so the treatment actually happens.
Sabri: One more small thing worth including: making sure everyone's lunch is actually planned. In some offices this becomes a genuine mess, phones left uncovered, staff not eating until three o'clock and getting cranky, there's no reason for that, just plan it out properly, assuming the office doesn't fully close for lunch.
Sabri: That covers the main daily actions. Now, end of day: review tomorrow's sales opportunities to confirm everything's complete and correct, then review the day sheet.
Jeff: Since I run our finance seminar, I'll ask directly, how often do people actually review their day sheet against what was genuinely collected?
Sabri: Honestly, not nearly enough. And here's something worth knowing: you could eliminate close to 99.9 percent of embezzlement risk simply by reviewing your day sheet consistently.
Jeff: Worth mentioning too, a growing number of insurance companies have started paying via debit card instead of check or direct deposit.
Sabri: Right, and that's worth pushing back on directly. Beyond the fact that you're paying a merchant fee on money you've already earned, which is genuinely silly, we've seen real embezzlement occur through those debit card payments too, even with an NPI number theoretically required to process them. Insurance companies will switch to direct deposit or a standard check if you simply ask, it's not usually offered proactively, but they'll generally do it.
Jeff: So unless you enjoy paying an extra fee on money you're often already underpaid on through a PPO, it's worth making that call.
Sabri: Exactly, someone benefits from that arrangement, and it's typically not the dentist.
Sabri: So, reviewing the day sheet means confirming everything produced is actually entered correctly, nothing missed or mis-logged. Then review the deposit slip for the day to confirm it matches the day sheet exactly. These aren't new recommendations, they've simply been standard financial practice for a long time, for good reason, and skipping them is exactly how embezzlement goes unnoticed.
Sabri: If the office still uses a cash box, that needs to be reconciled too. And once the day sheet and deposit slip match up, that should be reviewed by the doctor directly, whether the office manager or the doctor physically handles the deposit doesn't matter much, but the doctor should be looking at it personally as part of their role as owner.
Jeff: One question that comes up in the finance seminar, with more patients paying through financing companies or credit cards these days, if today's actual cash deposit is small, say 112 dollars, do you really need to run to the bank for that?
Sabri: Not necessarily, night deposit drops still exist if you want to use one, though a lot of offices haven't used one in years at this point. For smaller amounts, it's fine to hold them securely and deposit weekly, but it's smart to keep them on separate deposit slips by day, that makes reconciling against the day sheet, and against your monthly bank statement later, much easier.
Jeff: But if a genuinely large deposit comes in, say a patient pays 8,000 dollars cash, or you receive a 28,000 dollar cashier's check.
Sabri: That's a different situation entirely, the office manager should get in the car and go to the bank immediately, not wait for the next scheduled run. We've seen cases where a large deposit like that sat in the office and was stolen. These are simply lessons learned the hard way so other people don't have to repeat them.
Sabri: Beyond that, there are other duties that come up as needed rather than daily, hiring, scheduling interviews, and training, both new hires and ongoing training for existing staff. Take that new patient conversion rate we discussed earlier, when it's low, it's often not that someone is fundamentally the wrong fit for the role, more often they simply haven't been trained well enough to handle patient questions and actually get them scheduled. There's almost always room to improve there, we'd like to see that closer to 75 percent, which tells you how much headroom most practices genuinely have.
Sabri: The office manager should also spend some real time on team building, recognizing standout production, organizing a lunch, a dinner, gift cards. I know you're a strong believer in this.
Jeff: Genuinely, even something small, 200 dollars on Chipotle for the whole team, or closing for a couple hours to take everyone bowling if that's their thing, goes a remarkably long way. We're often quick to point out what needs correcting and forget that the team is doing an excellent job the large majority of the time, that deserves real acknowledgment too, individually and as a group.
Sabri: Completely agree.
Sabri: That brings us to the weekly functions. First, hold a weekly staff meeting.
Jeff: Which reminds me, we should do a dedicated episode specifically on staff meeting format at some point.
Sabri: Already on the content calendar, I believe.
Sabri: Second, the office manager should meet with the practice owner once a week specifically, and I know we've likely covered how that meeting should run in an earlier episode. What I see fall short most often is practices skipping this entirely, when I ask whether they're meeting regularly to coordinate, the answer is usually, well, we talk throughout the day. That's genuinely not the same thing. You need real, uninterrupted time to actually go through statistics, financial matters, and anything that needs to be hashed out properly.
Sabri: I'd genuinely recommend taking this outside the practice entirely, a breakfast or lunch meeting, since staying in the building almost always means getting pulled into patient questions, staff issues, or the phone ringing, and the meeting quietly falls apart. This doesn't need to be long, even 20 focused minutes is enough if it's genuinely uninterrupted.
Sabri: Also weekly: review any patient credit balances. This becomes especially relevant once you're pre-selling treatment, since your accounts receivable essentially flips, you end up owing patients treatment rather than the other way around, particularly for larger cases done in phases. It's worth keeping close track here, since the entire reason a patient paid in the first place was to actually receive that treatment, and nobody should get lost in the shuffle.
Jeff: Worth noting, that's typically part of the broader weekly executive meeting too, alongside the statistics and planning for the week ahead, obviously more involved for an established MGE client specifically, though we won't get into every detail of that here.
Sabri: Right, exactly. Next, weekly review and approval of payroll and any commissions. This matters because the office manager's own performance is ultimately judged on practice profitability, and payroll is typically the largest expense. So it's not just confirming hours are accurate, it's genuinely asking, am I getting a real return on this spend, the same way you'd evaluate a marketing budget.
Sabri: And the last core weekly item: listen to new patient calls at least once a week. There's more on the fuller MGE checklist beyond this, but this really represents the irreducible minimum I'd expect from any office manager, trained or not.
Sabri: What I genuinely like about this whole framework is that an office manager consistently doing these things produces a practice with real, consistent activity and productivity, and you're never caught off guard by a suddenly chaotic schedule the following week, because you're always looking a bit ahead while still handling today. That's ultimately how sustainable growth happens, and things get noticeably smoother over time.
Jeff: And what I like about it is that even done a bit imperfectly, not exactly the way we'd ideally want, or below the polish we might hope for, the practice still genuinely takes off. It's forgiving in that sense, but these are the specific things someone needs to own and stay accountable for.
Sabri: Exactly right.
Jeff: Sabri, this was great, thank you again.
Sabri: Happy to be here.
Jeff: As a reminder, links to the Office Manager Checklist, the new patient call log mentioned earlier, the MGE Power Program where the full office manager training lives, and DDS Success for training videos for the doctor and staff, are all on the episode page. This episode is airing around the holidays, so happy holidays to everyone listening. If you want to learn more about MGE, call 800-640-1140 or find us online at mgeonline.com. Have a great week, and we'll see you at the next episode.