As a dental office manager, common daily tasks include scheduling appointments, restocking supplies, managing staff, helping patients and more.
With so much to do, it can be difficult to stay organized and ensure that every task is completed before the work day ends.
That’s where a dental office manager daily checklist comes in handy.
We’ll share what you should include in your daily checklist as an office manager at a dental practice, cover key benefits of maintain a checklist and provide a free template you can download and fill out.
Plus, we’ll explain how to simplify your dental office daily task sheet by taking advantage of digital forms, so you can modify, save and upload reports and documents at your desk or on the go.
Your dental office manager daily checklist should include:
- Assigning tasks to your staff
- Responding to patient questions and concerns
- Answering phone calls
- Guiding new employees
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What Is A Dental Office Manager Daily Checklist?
A dental office manager daily checklist is a document that contains a list of tasks that must be completed throughout the day, whether the dental manager completes each task, or whether they delegate the tasks to dental staff.
The checklist outlines key responsibilities, including administrative tasks supervising new employees and responding to patient inquiries.
Once a task is completed, the dental office manager or employee places a checkmark or writes their initials next to the task to signify that it’s done.
A dental office manager is typically responsible for training new employees and managing the dental clinic’s financial budget
What Should Your Dental Office Task Sheet Include?
Here’s what your dental office task sheet should include:
Dental Office Opening Checklist
- Arrive at the dental clinic at least 30 minutes before opening
- Turn off the security alarm
- Switch on the lights, including carpule warmers
- Make sure your surveillance cameras are working
- Ensure the thermostat is between 68 and 76°F
- Ensure trash bins are empty
- Prepare personal protection equipment (PPE) including long-sleeved disposable gowns, surgical face masks, caps, gloves and protective eye wear for dentists and dental assistants
- Inspect the cash drawer and count the available cash
- Empty the autoclave
- Turn on the water and processor in the X-ray room
- Lower blinds in the operatory
- Set up the operatory for the first few patients
- Empty the side of the dental chair and restock supplies such as dental bibs, needles, floss, and prophy cups and paste
- Put away clean instruments
- Make sure the dental staff clocks-in for their shift
- Collect patient charts for the morning huddle, including progress notes, lab results and prescriptions
- Ensure the receptionist has a complete report of the day’s appointments
- Host the morning meeting to keep the entire staff in the loop about the day’s schedule
Dental Office Daily Checklist
- Review dental appointments for the day
- Greet patients and let them take their seat in the waiting room
- Review the patient charts and medical history when needed
- Track employee hours
- Manage payroll and paid time off
- Meet with the accounts manager to review the accounts receivable and follow up on due accounts
- Manage the office’s finances, including budgets and financial statements, expense approvals and accrual accounts
- Contact dental insurance providers to discuss patient balances
- Organize paperwork such as treatment notes and patient medical history
- Update patient records, if necessary
- Respond to patient questions and concerns
- Fill out progress report details and secure the dentist’s signature when needed
- Fill out the routing slip to specify all procedures that were performed, including details about the patient’s next visit and prescriptions needed
- Give the patient chart, lab slip and routing slip to the receptionist before discharging the patient
- Clean and disinfect the operatory after each patient
- Check in with the dentist to record new equipment that needs to be ordered
- Manage and delegate tasks to your staff
- Meet with each employee during the day to check in, and follow up again at the end of the day
- If there’s a new employee, train and supervise them
- Check inventory to take note of the supplies that are running low and need to be ordered
- Sterilize dental instruments such as pliers, excavators, intraoral suctions and retraction equipment after each use
- Insert x-rays in patient charts
- Hang lab coats
Dental Office End Of Day Checklist
- Make sure all operatories are clean and ready for the patients scheduled for the next day
- Open and pull up operatory blinds
- Switch off cleaning instruments
- Sterilize dental instruments
- Turn off all dental equipment such as water valves, autoclaves, dental lasers and the x-ray machine
- Drain ultrasonic scalers
- Turn off oxygen tanks
- Turn off the thermostat
- Give the lab cases to the receptionist so they are ready for pick-up
- Ensure all lab cases for upcoming patients are ready for the next day
- Consolidate patient charts, progress notes and routing slips for the patients that are scheduled for the next day
- Put away new inventory
- Switch off the lights in the office, operatory and darkroom
- Turn on the security alarm
- Lock the doors
Create a digital dental office checklist.
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Key Benefits Of A Dental Office Manager Daily Checklist
From ensuring security and optimal patient care to keeping processes organized throughout the day, a daily dental office checklist allows you to:
1. Provide Excellent Service
A daily checklist allows your staff to provide the best possible care for your patients.
From ensuring dental equipment is clean and sterilized to answering patient questions and concerns, following a detailed checklist helps your office run smoothly from open to close.
2. Ensure Processes Are Streamlined
Whether it’s managing staff schedules or greeting patients once they arrive, a dental office manager has a full plate each day.
A daily checklist provides a structured approach to processes to ensure each task is completed.
3. Increase Safety
Utilizing a daily checklist can serve as a reminder to lock up the practice at night and set the alarm — tasks that can easily be forgotten after a long day.
Locking up each night ensures that your equipment, inventory, employees and patient records are safe and secure.
4. Improve Communication Between Dental Office Manager And Staff
A daily checklist reminds your staff to monitor any issues that may arise, including daily issues to concerns.
Whether inventory is running low, a chart is missing or there’s an issue with a patient, an organized checklist reminds dental staff to document and report daily activities, so they can be properly handled.
A daily dental office checklist helps managers stay organized
Simplify Your Dental Office Manager Daily Checklist With doForms
Did you know that the average business spends around $8,000 per year on paper resources?
doForms is a mobile forms solution that transitions your dental operations towards a digital and paperless approach, allowing you to cut costs and get organized in the process.
With more than 30 drag-and-drop features and an intuitive dashboard, our mobile forms solution is an efficient and secure method for creating, modifying, storing and sending checklists and reports for your dental office operations.
As a dental office manager, we know that you have a full plate for the day — that’s why we make things as easy as possible for you. You can choose a form from our extensive library or create your own custom form with our easy-to-use features.
The best part? You can access your checklists, documents and reports with or without WiFi, in the office or on the go.
In addition to streamlining daily checklists, going the digital route allows you to:
- Take images or videos of potential equipment hazards with the automatic capture feature, and attach them to preventive maintenance checklists and near miss reports
- Utilize the secure electronic signatures feature to streamline patient check-in and check-out’s
- Integrate doForms with your current electronic health record system to export completed forms into patient charts and transfer patient data in real-time
- Reduce the risk of sharing financial records and sensitive patient details, such as names, addresses, credit card numbers and more thanks to features such as data encryption through HIPAA compliancy and multi-factor authentication
- Manage inventory, payroll, paid time off, employee schedules and more
- Store all of your documents in one, secure location
Also Read: Caregiver Daily Checklist – Step by Step Guide
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Wrapping Up
A dental office manager daily checklist is a list of tasks that dental office managers or dental staff must complete each day, from the time they arrive at work to the time they close up shop and head home.
By providing a structured approach to daily dental operations, this checklist can help increase productivity, improve organization and allow dental staff to provide quality patient care.
While paper checklists can be messy and costly, switching to doForms can help you improve workflows and streamline operations within your dental office.
Whether you want to build custom forms from scratch or utilize a form from our library of templates, doForms has you covered!
