The Overlooked “Essential Employee”: Q&A with a Dental Office Manager

“Get Legwork. It will make your life so much easier, and the job so much easier.” -Maggie

Recently Maggie Hinkley, financial coordinator at Koczarski Family and Aesthetic Dentistry , shared with the Legwork team how our dental software has impacted the family dental practice where she works. Legwork Product Marketing Manager, Charlie Van Liew, moderated her conversation with us. Selections shared below, per Maggie’s permission.

Charlie: Please share with us what you do at Dr. Koczarski’s office and how you first connected with Legwork.

Maggie: Hi, I’m Maggie. I’ve been at Dr. Koczarski’s office for a little over 24 years and I had gone through some of the other online systems, so I was very reluctant to start with Legwork, to say the least.

Since that time, we’ve been with you guys close to 10 years. What persuaded me was Korey initially and the willingness and the ability for Legwork to work with us rather than us working with them, which is kind of how some of the others we had looked into, and had actually tried for awhile, worked. I could customize it to what I needed. And in the many years we’ve used it, it’s become something we couldn’t live without!

One time we had somebody come into our computers and hold us for ransom, which is odd, but it happens, and requested money. And it was Legwork that saved us, because in a separate window was our Legwork information, and we were able to request information and access it. So there are things you don’t even think that you need that you are so thankful you have.

We use it every single day. It seems to me that you guys add things often and it’s like, “Oh, now it’s doing something even more for us!” So we wouldn’t leave. At first I didn’t want to start and now we wouldn’t be without you. And it does everything!

Charlie: What’s your favorite thing about working with Legwork? What about Legwork resonates with you the most?

Maggie : It’s the ability to get through to somebody when I need them and the features that you add. When we first started, we didn’t have texting and now we do, which is fundamental. For us to be able to communicate back and forth with our patients via text is huge. And the fact that you guys do listen. When I call, there’s always somebody there, and if they’re not available, they do get right back to me. What your team did for us during COVID–those first two months of closure–was something we wouldn’t have survived without, to be quite honest. You did the email blast–everything that they were sending out at a time when we couldn’t communicate that well with our patients, was enormous for us. I come from Nordstrom so I come from a huge customer service field. I was with them for 20 plus years as well. That is another reason why Legwork works so well for us and for me at our office because the customer service that falls behind what you’re getting, which is huge.

Charlie: What are the top three or four Legwork features that really add to that value you’ve been describing? What are the things that are the game changer for you, feature-wise?

Maggie: I would say the texting, the communication. The automatic confirmations –they’ve taken it out of our hands and it’s in Legwork’s hands now; I can go into an appointment a week out and it’s confirmed, so I’m not having to worry about that anymore. Those two things are the first two things and they’re absolutely huge. The other thing is Legwork sending personal things–our e-blasts and our e-alerts, and I know those come through the website and through [the Legwork] team; those communications are really appreciated, and we have patients comment on them all the time. So those are probably the top three, but I could go on and on. Our website during COVID. I said, “Korey, can you have your team put a button in there for our pre-screening so it downloads immediately?” Boom, it was done in a day. “We need our health history; I don’t want them touching forms here. Can you put that on our web system with just a simple click?” And, boom, it was done in a day. And those are things that are keeping our patients from having to walk into a very scary place for some of them right now during COVID. And realizing “I don’t have to touch anything. I’m not only socially-distanced, and wearing a mask, and there’s minimal everything, I get to go right back to my operatory and I don’t have to fill out any paperwork anymore.” So it seems like anything that comes our way–and the world has sent a lot our way in 2020–we’ve been able to contact Legwork to help us figure this thing out.

Charlie: What’s your next big challenge to tackle?

Maggie: It is still the huge “C” in the room, the huge COVID. We’re struggling with the patients’ apprehension about coming into the office, and Korey, working with Dr. Koczarski has sent out a lot of alerts, blogs, emails updating our patients on what we are doing. That’s our biggest concern right now–keeping our patients feeling safe and secure in our office, and coming into the practice. And that’s going to be a challenge, I would say, for the next six months, is COVID. It’s challenging. We had an unbelievable year in 2020 and it was only Dr. Koczarski and I for two of those months, and it was him just seeing emergencies–basically being closed down for two months. What we did after we opened up has been amazing and a lot of it had to do with sending our patients communications that made them feel safe and think, “Ok, I can come in now.”

Charlie: In addition to your Practice Management Software, what would happen to your practice if Legwork went down? What does that mean for you the day that that happens–if you lose complete access–or what would that mean for that week, for that month? How would that impact your practice?

Maggie: The workload would be tremendous. Legwork does so much that we take for granted now because we’ve had it a long time. We run reports every morning when we get in off of Legwork that tells us who’s confirmed, what’s going on that day, who to contact that day. We would be doing all that the old-fashioned way, which is picking up the telephone. So it would be very time-intensive as far as what it would take us.

To say a month, I honestly can’t even imagine. Like I said, I was reluctant to join, and now I can’t really imagine being without it. And there have been times, I can go on Legwork from Montana, which I did when we were closed during COVID, and contact my patients and call them or text them and give them a number to call me on. When we had snow days, I could go from home and get into Legwork. So again, I’m stuck at home, nobody can get into the office, I can contact our patients, I can text them, say “please call me.” On a daily basis, it would increase our workload tremendously, and I can’t even think about monthly–it would be more.

Charlie: Would it be safe to say that some of the processes that you’d be dusting off, other coworkers of yours aren’t even aware what they would do if that went down because they weren’t raised in it?

Maggie: Oh absolutely! I am only one out of two of the original office staff who were here when we started with Legwork. We depend on Legwork for so much. It’s not just the text messages and the reminders and the calls that they do for us; the whole way we’ve set it up has taken all of that out of our daily routine and we’ve turned it over to Dentrix. Dentrix is like our fifth employee here in the front office, and it would take me a whole other person to hire and have in the front office to do what Legwork does for me through our Dentrix software. So it’s another employee; it’s another person and another team member that I have. Without that, I would truly be having to hire somebody. That’s how much you do for us.

Charlie: You are so kind. Any final words to add?

Maggie: If you’re not with Legwork, I can’t say enough. And, no, I don’t work for them and I don’t get anything for saying this, but I can’t stress enough how much of our workload is taken off of our shoulders and put in a very safe, secure place that I know all communications is as elegant as we want it to be, which is huge.

Charlie: Thank you so much for your time, Maggie. I really appreciate you coming by and talking with us.

Maggie: Absolutely. Like I say, without Legwork, not just my job but the whole team’s jobs would be so much harder. That’s the biggest thing I can say. Get Legwork. It will make your life so much easier, and the job so much easier.

Want to find out how Legwork can save your dental office time and money too? Schedule some time with one of our experts and find out how Legwork can meet the criteria of the best employee you ever hire!