Front Desk Team Spotlight

The first faces anyone sees when they enter any of our clinics is that of our front desk team. This wonderful team is full of the bright faces that greet and check every patient in and are there to end your visit here at Puget Sound Orthopaedics. Working full circle on every appointment is no easy task. They check in roughly over 60,000 patients a year or 300 patients a day; that’s a lot of smiles. The role of this very comprehensive team ranges greatly because being the first point of contact involves a lot of details.

The work for this team begins far before the actual appointment. When an appointment is made our Simple Admit representatives are tasked with reaching out to the new patient to make sure their preregistration work is done. At the same time our referral coordinators are checking their insurances and referrals. Then finally the work comes to our receptionists who are here to greet you. The scope of their work goes beyond just patient interaction at the front desk; these wonderful ladies spend a lot of time behind the scenes ensuring that appointments can run smoothly.

This team includes 20 people which is a large department here at PSO and that can amplify the challenges they face. This includes trying to create uniform processes, making sure they all stay in communication with one another, and playing phone tag with insurance companies to get all the correct information before the visit occurs. One of the most overlooked duties is how early staff start working on an upcoming appointment. Days before a visit they are collecting preregistration and insurance information. All that information being processed can be tough especially when coupled with the daily duty of checking in some 300 patients.

In all that hard work, though, there are a lot of rewards that bear fruit afterwards. The satisfaction of a patient leaving with a smile can turn into recognition through Heart of PSO cards. Our physicians express gratitude when their schedules run smoothly because their patients’ paperwork was all filled out. And most importantly team members support each other to accomplish the work. There are five front desks with receptionists across all of our locations. There are staff who work from home and those who work on different floors from each other and they are all able to stick together and know they are surrounded by employees they can count on. Not to be cliché but “teamwork makes the dream work” and a smoothly run clinic where all who enter leave happy is the dream.

With such a large crew their after work lives are incredibly different. There are dog moms and human grandmas, bowlers and disc golfers, jewelry makers and campers. The individual interests and talents of these ladies not only add to the great atmosphere at PSO but also in their duties as well. Having a mother’s patience, the athlete’s determination to take on new challenges, and many more incredible traits make them all great individuals and a great team. Their leads, Jalene and Leslie, have both complimented their strengths and agree that their teamwork is incredible. The way they communicate and count on each other and so effortlessly back each other up is amazing.

Thank you, receptionists, referral coordinators and Simple Admit representatives, for everything that you do!