I know the question has asked before, but it’s mostly dentists asking and providing answers. I’m the newest employee in the office (over 2 years now) and work the front with the manager handling insurances, doing secretarial work, managing patient balances, coordinating treatment, etc. Basically most things that aren’t in a mouth.

I don’t know how many times I’ve been yelled at in the past week, or even just Monday morning. Nobody ever speaks up, and I’m definitely not in a position to. Nothing happens even when I speak to the manager. A lot of times, unless the manager has to deal with them, I take heat.

I know, if you meet assholes all day… But it seems like they’re being enabled. We have several active patients with more than ten missed appointments.

There’s a patient that constantly misses her appointments, or otherwise shows up hours late and we always see her. Even after hours the other day. They’re always trouble and yet here we are.

Patients argue often for many minutes at a time. I had to spend thirty minutes one time carefully explaining that just because they have insurance, doesn’t mean they don’t pay anything. As in the concept of coinsurance. And all they did is argue, then yell towards the end.

Someone shows up late, they yell, we see them. Or they argue and push and fight when the soonest availability for a prophy and exam is next week. And so on.

It’s something that was pretty consistent but it’s been more frequent for a while and I’m just tired of taking it all day. How do you guys cope?