Hell hath no fury like a dental patient scorned.
One recent news flash:
A woman in Lincoln County accused of slashing tires on 18 vehicles outside a dentist’s office has been arrested and charged, Lincolnton Police confirmed with Queen City News on Tuesday.
Officers responded to calls regarding the incident Monday morning, July 29, outside Lincolnton Family Dentist on East Sycamore Street. An initial investigation stated that Ashlen Beatty, 37, slashed 60 tires on 18 cars with some of the cars having all four tires slashed.
The damaged cars were parked at both the dentist’s office and along the street, officers said.
Investigators said they do not yet have a motive, however, Beatty had called the office the day of at 8:03 a.m. asking for an appointment and was denied.
Not sure how that phone conversation went. And it’s possible that the patient was not a good candidate for dental care. Or that she did not have the resources or insurance to pay the anticipated bill.
And it’s possible someone who might slash 60 tires did not make a good first impression on the phone.
Or it’s possible the person who was tasked with scheduling the appointment was not part of “the A team.”
Many practices believe the person answering the phone can be the lowest paid, least trained employee.
I beg to differ. Such an individual is the face and voice of the office.
They should be trained and have great people skills.
Not everyone who works up front should be there. Some are better back-office people.
Since we’re talking about tires, here’s a vignette related to tires, but entirely unrelated to the medical-legal world. Although, arguably, it could be related to a pre-med class.
Introductory Chemistry at Duke has been taught for about a zillion years by Professor Bonk (really), and his course is semi-affectionately known as ‘Bonkistry’. He has been around forever, so I wouldn’t put it past him to come up with something like this. Anyway, one year there were these two guys who were taking Chemistry and who did pretty well on all of the quizzes and the midterms and labs, etc., such that going into the final, they had a solid A.
These two friends were so confident going into the final that the weekend before finals week (even though the Chem final was on Monday), they decided to go up to U Virginia and party with some friends up there. So they did this and had a great time. However, with their hangovers and everything, they overslept all day Sunday and didn’t make it back to Duke until early Monday morning.
Rather than taking the final then, what they did was to find Professor Bonk after the final and explain to him why they missed the final. They told him that they went up to UVa for the weekend, and had planned to come back in time to study, but that they had a flat tire on the way back and didn’t have a spare and couldn’t get help for a long time and so were late getting back to campus. Bonk thought this over and then agreed that they could make up the final on the following day. The two guys were elated and relieved.
So, they studied that night and went in the next day at the time that Bonk had told them. He placed them in separate rooms and handed each of them a test booklet and told them to begin. They looked at the first problem, which was something simple about molarity and solutions and was worth 5 points. “Cool” they thought, “this is going to be easy.” They did that problem and then turned the page. They were unprepared, however, for what they saw on the next page.
It said:
(95 points) Which tire?
What do you think?
Thanks Jeff, the anecdote was a fun finish to my week.
I agree that the skill and compassion of the front office team is critical to practice success…but this is the team often afforded the fewest opportunities to learn about, and hone their craft.
If you’ll indulge me a bit of well intentioned self promotion, we’re hosting a webinar NEXT WEEK (9/26/2024) that is free and targeted exactly to front office staff. It focuses on essential phone skills for the elective practice front office, and features some heavy hitting consultants sharing their best advice in difficult real-world call scenarios.
https://etnainteractive.zoom.us/webinar/register/5517247123533/WN_doEbNn7uSHK3Pap5qBFgIg#/registration
Wishing you and your team a great weekend!
Ryan
I am not sure what the denied office visit had to do with the slashed tires.
With 60 tires slashed, that would suggest that this patient had some extreme mood disorder, perhaps she was on drugs and anything, could have triggered this.
On the point of front office person answering the phones, yes they must be polite. Yes they must know office policy. But an absolute critical element is that they must know what is an emergency that needs to get into the office immediately. Many front office people do not get trained in what is an emergency that needs to get in, that day.
If this patient had some type of emergency, and was turned down for an appointment, that could have made her mad. But if she was belligerent on the phone, then it would be appropriate for the office staff to keep her out of the office, perhaps. In these cases if the office person is not certain, the best thing to do, is to get them in front of the physician and let the physician make the call with their superior training.
A chemist friend of mine used to photocopy all the blue books after grading them. I asked him why he did that. One time a kid came in to complain about how a question had been graded. He had the right answer in his blue book. Jules asked him to wait a moment while he retrieved the photocopy, which showed the wrong answer. He then told him that he was getting a zero for the entire exam, but if he thought that was unfair, he could certainly discuss it with the chairman. He didn’t.