On the day of writing this, I spent the morning with our Dental Front Desk and Dental Billing team. Now I probably know just about as much about Dental as the Average Joe: cleanings twice per year, hopefully no cavities, and that goopy tray they use in your mouth for retainer molds is no fun.
For our dental office specifically, I know there are many misconceptions and that it can be hard to make an appointment sometimes, due to the HUGE need for Dental services, especially those with KanCare, across the entire state. As the person charged with marketing our services, Dental has always been a challenge. How do you talk about a service that’s already in such high demand? So, I went to Dental with the mission of figuring out how I can best help, answering patients’ common questions and such.
The first thing that is apparent to me, when walking into our Dental office is the camaraderie. You get the feeling that the Dental Front Desk & Billing teams really enjoy working together. Between the phone calls and patient check ins, there were always laughs. Plus, they had bagels. I’m always down for a bagel.
I took a seat with the team to observe and ask questions. Usually my first question is, “How can I help?” or “Do you have any common questions you get that I can help get word out about?” I thought that we’d immediately talk about creating messaging to patients about policies, but instead the team asked if I could help with things that would increase the patients’ comfort in the office, like adding content to the Lobby TV. Once we got through the requests for patients and the morning rush had subsided, we got to the questions they answer regularly. I hope that you read this and gain some understanding about questions you may have in relation to our Dental services.
Question & Answer
Is this a free clinic? / How does the Discount Card Work?
Salina Family is not a free clinic. In the past, we have participated in events where a variety of free dental work was performed, but the clinic services are not free. However, we do have a Discount Card available for qualifying patients. If you’d like to see if you qualify, please call 785-825-7251 and ask for Financial Screening. They’ll walk you through the whole process! The Discount Card is also available to use on our other healthcare services.
Why can’t I schedule appointments out more than two weeks?
Unfortunately, when we’ve booked out more than two weeks the percentage of patients who do not show up for their appointments increases dramatically. With such a high need for dental services, we want to make sure we can see as many patients per day as we can.
Why didn’t I get a new patient appointment when I called?
In the photo below, the darkest blue represents a shortage of dental services. We do our best to provide quality, personalized dental care to as many people as we can. Between the overall shortage of dental services and the lack of dental providers who accept KanCare, we are working to serve patients not just in Saline County, but from places as far away as Garden City and Goodland. We are one of very few dental offices in Saline County that accepts KanCare. On the day I shadowed our Dental Front Desk, they were expecting 50+ appointments from patients with all types of insurances. If you call and no appointments are available, ask if the receptionist can add you to the list in case of a cancellation.
I have Private Insurance. Can I come to your office?
Yes! SFHC lives by extraordinary care for all, no exceptions. You are able to receive any of our services regardless of insurance status, income, race, gender, age… well, any way you may describe yourself, you are welcome!
After spending the morning with this team, I learned so much about state and regional dental services, insurance, and how much work it takes to make something that seems simple, like a regular cleaning, work. I was impressed with the care and attention given to each patient, whether they were 5, 25, or more experienced. I hope this blog post can answer some questions you may have and also showcase how hard our dental team works to fill the huge need for high quality dental services here in our home state.