Dental front desk daily tasks: a printable checklist

A front desk day is not one list. It is five short ones, each tied to a time, and each protecting a number the owner will ask about on Friday. Here is the day the way it runs in a general practice with two doctors and two hygienists.

Before the first patient (7:30 to 8:00)

1. Print or open today’s schedule. Mark every unconfirmed appointment. The number of unconfirmed visits is the first number of the day; each one is a possible open chair.
2. Check balances. For each patient today, look at the account. Note who has a balance to collect at check-in and what the copay or estimated portion is.
3. Look at tomorrow. Count the open units. If hygiene has a hole tomorrow, the recall list gets worked in the midday gap.
4. Huddle. Five minutes with the clinical team. Who is new, who has a balance, who has treatment planned but not booked, who has benefits that expire soon. One sheet, four columns.
5. Count the drawer. Write the opening float on the day sheet.

Morning (8:00 to 12:00)

• Check-in. Verify the phone number and insurance on file. Collect the copay before the patient goes back, not after. A copay collected at check-in is money; the same copay after the visit is a statement.
• Phones. Every call that is a new patient gets booked, not called back. Write the source of the call on the appointment.
• Check-out. Book the next visit before the patient leaves. For hygiene, that is the six month recall, booked today. For treatment, that is the planned procedure, booked today. A patient who leaves without a next appointment is on tomorrow’s unscheduled list.
• Post as you go. Procedures and payments posted at check-out, not at 4:30 PM in a batch. The end of day only reconciles if the ledger was kept up through the day.

Midday (12:00 to 1:30)

The gap is when the lists get worked.

1. Confirm tomorrow. Call or text every unconfirmed appointment for tomorrow. Note the result on the appointment.
2. Fill tomorrow’s holes. Open the recall list filtered to overdue with no appointment. Call the oldest due dates first. Then the unscheduled treatment list sorted by amount.
3. Insurance. Verify eligibility for the next two days’ new patients and anyone whose plan changed.
4. Post insurance payments. Work the EOB pile for twenty minutes. An EOB left unposted becomes a wrong statement at month end.

Afternoon (1:30 to 5:00)

Same as the morning, with two additions.

• Broken appointments. When a patient cancels, do not just remove the appointment. Move it to the unscheduled list so it can be rebooked, and try to fill the slot from the short-notice list.
• Claims. Send the day’s claims before closing. A claim sent today is paid in two to three weeks. A claim sent Friday for Monday’s work is a week of aging for nothing.

Closing (5:00 to 5:30)

1. Run the day sheet.
2. Count cash and checks, settle the card batch, compare the three with the day sheet by method. Resolve any difference before leaving.
3. Check every appointment today is marked complete with procedures posted.
4. Read the adjustments and anything deleted after posting.
5. Sign and date the day sheet. Prepare the deposit.

The full closing routine with a worked example is in the dental end of day report checklist.

The numbers each block protects

Block	Number
Before the first patient	Unconfirmed visits today
Morning and afternoon	Patients leaving without a next appointment; copays collected at check-in
Midday	Open units tomorrow; EOBs unposted
Closing	Day sheet versus deposit

A worked example of one of them. A practice tracks patients who leave without a next appointment. In a week with 142 visits, 23 left without one. At an average visit of $210, that is $4,830 of production with no date attached. Half of those will get booked by a recall call later. The other half are why the unscheduled list grows.

What Calibic adds

Daily Huddle and Front Desk and End of Day are LIVE for Open Dental and Dentrix, with Eaglesoft coverage partial. Calibic reads the schedule, ledger and treatment plan tables read-only and builds the morning sheet itself: today’s patients with a balance due, unconfirmed visits, planned treatment not booked, benefits expiring. At close, the day’s payments by method and any change made after posting are on one screen, with the evidence kept.

Calibic does not confirm appointments, send texts or post anything to the practice software. Texting and campaigns are coming and are marked ROADMAP.

See the morning list on the Daily Huddle product page. The office manager page shows how the daily routine feeds the weekly report.