Rick Lau's - Business Mentorship For Clinic Owners

Good vs Bad Front Desk

Your front desk is the biggest part of your marketing funnel. Most clinics are leaking new patients every week.

Here are the 3 things that separate a good front desk from a bad one.

1). Answer the phone.

Call centers. Press 1. Press 2. Hold forever.

Patients are starved for a real human voice. You control that.

Good front desks answer 95% of calls.

In a world of AI, being human is your edge.

2). Make them feel they called the right place.

Your front desk should book 8 out of every 10 callers.

Most clinics sound transactional. Great front desks show empathy.

Patients don't always book because of price. They book because they feel understood.

3). Call patients back who didn't book.

Most owners think a didn't-book patient is gone. They're not.

Bad ones say "call us back" and hope. Good ones follow up every time.

"I'll add you to my call list and follow up in a few days."

Train them. Coach them. Track them.

That's how you fill your schedule and book more new patients.

Want a phone system that does all three?

Switch your phone system to

Top 10 Front Desk Mistakes Killing Your Clinic, Ranked

Number 10 is bad. Number 1 is costing you thousands.

1). Not following up with patients who don't book
2). Ending calls without offering an appointment time
3). Giving prices without value
4). Not knowing your services
5). Never asking their name
6). Phone rings 3+ times
7). On hold for 30 seconds
8). Not texting your patients
9). Not tracking call metrics like booking rates
10). Telling patients to book online

Most of these cost you nothing to fix. You just need the right system and the right people on the phone.

Answers calls, texts patients, faxes, and books more patients. All in one place.

→ Phone, Text, Fax, and Google Reviews
→ Auto Missed Call Text Back
→ See who's calling before you pick up
→ Connects with your EMR
→ AI Call Intelligence and call metrics

Switch your phone system to

Your Doctors Do Not Outrank Your Front Desk.

I'll say it louder for the practices in the back.

Somewhere along the way, your team got the idea there's a pecking order.

That the clinicians sit at the top and the front desk sits below them, waiting to be told what to do.

That is not how a practice works.

Your clinical team and your front desk are two separate departments that rely on each other. Not stacked. Not ranked. Equal.

Here's what that silent hierarchy actually costs you:

The doctor walks up front to ask about a patient. Your front desk is short, dismissive, "too busy."

So what does that doctor do next time? She stops coming up front. She stops communicating.

And now the two people who need to be tightest in your entire practice aren't talking.

That's not a personality problem.

That's a respect problem. And it's costing you patients.

The fix isn't complicated:

→ Two-way respect, not one-way deference
→ Respect is not the same as communication — you need both
→ Nobody "answers to" the clinicians. You're a team.

Common sense? Sure. But common sense isn't common practice. If you don't define it, feelings get hurt and good people leave.

Save this for your next staff meeting.

Then say it out loud to your whole team.

Follow for daily front desk tips.

Nothing will kill a great employee faster than watching you tolerate a bad one

Why is the front desk the most important position at the clinic?

Your front desk is the only person who talks to every patient before they ever walk in.

Your clinician or doctor doesn't meet them until the first visit.

So the person you pay the least is deciding who books, who cancels, and who no-shows on you every week.

Then owners look at a schedule full of gaps and blame the marketing.

Your front desk isn't admin. It's the first sales conversation in your clinic.

Pay them like it. Train them like it.

Follow for daily front desk tips.

Stop Trying To Build a Million Dollar Practice

High revenue doesn't mean profit.

I've seen $2 million clinics where the owner takes home $40K.

Here's what's actually working in 2026 👇

The smartest solopreneurs aren't building big clinics. They're renting a room in a gym, working 20-25 hours, running a split shift with one other practitioner.

12 months later? $250K. No front desk. No big lease. No massive overhead.

30% of their patients come straight from the gym. The other 70% come from community and marketing.

It's not exceptional. It's just the right strategy.

If you're a clinician or solopreneur thinking about your next move, stop planning the million dollar build and start with one room.

Follow for clinic business tips. I post daily.

Stop saying these 3 front desk phrases at your clinic

1️⃣ Stop asking: “What time works for you?”
👉 Instead, say: “I have [time A] or [time B], which works best?”

2️⃣ Stop asking: “Would you like to reschedule?”
👉 Instead, say: “Let’s get you rescheduled. I have [day], at [time A] or [time B], which works best?”

3️⃣ Stop saying: “Call us when you know your schedule”
👉 Instead, say: I'm going to follow up with you tomorrow at noon to see if you were able to check your schedule. What's a good time frame between 12 and 4 for me to call you tomorrow?

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Why Paying My Front Desk Makes Me More

How many calls does your practice get per day?

If the average patient is worth $800, then 6 missed calls = $4,800 lost per day.

That’s not a marketing problem. That’s a front desk conversion problem.

So how do you fix it?

1️⃣ Incentivize the front desk.
Keep the hourly pay. But add a bonus for every booked consultation.

2️⃣ Track performance
Use an AI phone system like See who answered, who booked, and who didn’t.

Then follow up with callers who didn’t book.
Use this follow-up script:

“Hi, this is Kylie calling from Alpine Clinic. I saw you gave us a call yesterday but didn’t get a chance to book. Just wanted to check in and see how you’re feeling.”

3️⃣ Follow up with leads

Follow up every two days. Most practices never do this. That’s why they lose money.

If you want to pay your front desk more, make them worth more

Switch your phone system to today

Stop answering patient questions on the first call says the

Here’s why: The moment you answer their question, you lose the call. They say “thanks, I’ll call back,” and hang up.

Instead, say this:
💬 “I’d be more than happy to help. I just have a few quick questions to better assist you.”

Then ask these 5 questions:

1. What specific body part are you currently having a problem with?
2. Are you currently in pain?
If not, when do you have pain?
3. How long have you been suffering with this problem?
4. What activities does your pain or problem keep you from doing or enjoying?
5. Have you seen someone for this before?
What else have you tried?

The goal is to build trust and get them talking about their problem before you try to book them.

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The best feeling :)