Why it matters
Opening failures cascade for the rest of the day: a phone system still on night mode, a schedule nobody reviewed, a provider absence discovered at 9:05. Each costs more the later it is found.
Daily
Front Desk Opening Checklist
What has to be true before the first patient arrives.
What has to be true before the first patient arrives.
Opening failures cascade for the rest of the day: a phone system still on night mode, a schedule nobody reviewed, a provider absence discovered at 9:05. Each costs more the later it is found.
The checklist
Written to be used and adapted. Take it, change the parts that do not fit your practice, and put a name against each line.
- Phones switched out of after-hours mode and tested
- Overnight messages and voicemails triaged
- Today's schedule reviewed for conflicts and absences
- Same-day capacity confirmed
- Waiting room and check-in ready
- Yesterday's unresolved items picked up
What is worth automating
The overnight triage step is the one worth automating first — if calls were handled overnight, this becomes a review rather than a backlog.
Rollout checklist
- Assign an owner to each line.
- Decide where this document lives so it is findable.
- Review it on a set cadence rather than after a failure.
- Train new staff against it rather than by shadowing alone.
Frequently asked questions
Can we adapt this?
Yes — it is written to be edited. The value is having one version everyone follows, not this exact wording.
Which parts should we automate?
The overnight triage step is the one worth automating first — if calls were handled overnight, this becomes a review rather than a backlog.
Keep going on MedReception.ai
MedFrontDesk.ai is the playbook library. MedReception.ai is the platform that runs it.