For immediate release: December 15, 2003
For more information, contact Susan Griffith at 216-368-1004 or susan.griffith@case.edu

CLEVELAND— Control center for making appointments and taking calls in the dental office is the receptionist's desk. Learning to work with a receptionist for most dental students doesn't come until they start their practices or is gained from videos or textbooks during practice management courses.

photo by Susan Griffith Patient care coordinators work with a mini group practice within the larger dental clinic that serves campus and the general public.

Students at the Case Western Reserve University School of Dental Medicine will be a step ahead of many of their professional peers as the school recently reorganized its clinical experience around nine new patient care coordinators, who will function in their jobs much like the receptionists in private practices.

Each patient care coordinator works with a mini group practice within the larger dental clinic that serves campus and the general public and is located on the ground floor of the school on Emergency Drive.

Leading the restructuring was Robert Hirsch, associate professor of dentistry and assistant dean for clinical education.

He said this is the future for dental school clinics. The restructuring of the clinical experience responds to changes in dental education where students are no longer required to complete a certain number of procedures, but now provide sequenced comprehensive care for their patients and demonstrate their clinical competence by successfully passing a battery of clinic exams.

"I asked what I could do that would set us on the road to what we see as our future at the dental school," stated Hirsch. Looking around he was able to see how he could streamline operations and move people from various jobs in the school into these new coordinator positions.

Restructuring preceptor, students and patients into mini practices also starts a multi-million-dollar vision at the dental school toward redesigning the dental clinic into mini group practices with their own office settings and reception area, according Dr. Jerold Goldberg, the school's dean.

The current mini practices at the clinic are organized around rows of dental cubicles in two large and open clinical areas.

Student entering dental school will be assigned to a practice that is color coded and named after a familiar campus site such as Bellflower, Mather and Ford. They will have opportunities to work with some of the same patients throughout their four years of dental school and learn to develop those patient-doctor relationships and the interpersonal skills needed to manage a practice with its receptionist and hygienist, said Hirsch.

Each patient coordinator is part of a preceptor team that includes a faculty, who oversees and monitors the dental procedures by Case students in the clinic; 15 students; and 700 patients.

In a private dental practice, the receptionist makes approximately 20-30 patient appointments per day for 2,000 patients. At Case, the coordinators will book approximately 45 patients a day for each group. Among the other duties of the coordinators are maintaining and filing patient charts, coordinating the patient recall system, monitoring patient treatment plans, following the progress of dental lab cases and acting as a patient advocate.

The main difference from an office receptionist and the clinic coordinator is that the cashier at the clinic will continue to handle the billing and insurance duties.

"It is a dental student heaven," recently remarked one graduate upon hearing about the changes, said Bonnie Marks, the dental school's director of alumni and development.

It's not just "heaven" for students, according to Hirsch, "The patient benefits, too." Patients, who make up the 55,000 annual visits to the dental clinic, many times had difficulty reaching their student dentists through the main switch board that fielded all calls. Patients are being given new information cards and can call their mini practice's patient care coordinator, who has a direct line and a computer setup with students' schedules and appointments. The coordinator's desk is also physically nearby the dental students' work areas for convenient access to the dental team.

New patients to the clinic will continue to call 216-368-3200 for setting up their first appointment.
The coordinator also has the task of keeping the patients flowing through the clinic by booking appointments for students, whose patients may have canceled or have an opening.

About Case Western Reserve University

Case is among the nation's leading research institutions. Founded in 1826 and shaped by the unique merger of the Case Institute of Technology and Western Reserve University, Case is distinguished by its strengths in education, research, and service. Located in Cleveland, Case offers nationally recognized programs in the Arts and Sciences, Dentistry, Engineering, Law, Management, Medicine, Nursing, and Social Sciences. http://www.case.edu.

 

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