HCD Headlines 9-24-2025

Rachael
Sep 24, 2025
5 min read

Cybersecurity Training

It's that time again for us to do online training for Cybersecurity Awareness. The training is available on our employee webpage HERE. Make sure you have enough time to finish your webinar as there have been issues logging in at the exact place you left off.

Please complete all the webinars below by 10/10/2025. As this is required training, clock-in when you complete these trainings. Preferably you do them in-office during your down time.

Cybersecurity Awareness Training
Malware Prevention Training
Ransomware Avoidance Training
Phishing Identification Training

Next Team Meeting

Our next team meeting will be Thursday, October 2nd. At this meeting, our hygiene team will present information on the products we have at HCD which includes our toothbrushes and floss options. We're excited to hear from you all!

Appearance & Uniforms

Quick review on our policy for appearance and uniforms as a reminder for our veteran team members and new team members.

These guidelines go for men and women, front and back. They fall in line with OSHA regulations and the professional standards with which we want to present as "Committed Professionals" in dentistry.

Hairstyles: clean, well-trimmed and well-groomed. For hair that goes beyond shoulder-length, clinicians must have it tied back in a ponytail or other hairstyle.
Jewelry: light jewelry is permitted. No ornamental piercings. Small nose/nostril piercings are permitted. No rings in the clinic that will tear gloves.
Shoes: No open-toed shoes are permitted. For clinicians, no open-heeled shoes are permitted. It is also strongly recommended to wear shoes that are made of real or synthetic leather. Any shoes worn in the clinic must remain on-site and not worn out of the practice.
Nails: Manicured and the length must not interfere with the execution of duties.
Scents: Perfumes and scented lotions, etc., are not permitted due to severe sensitivities with our team members and patients.
Personal Hygiene: "Close contact with patients necessitates meticulous attention to personal and oral hygiene."
Clinician Uniforms: All dirty uniforms must stay on-site to be laundered by our vendor. If these items are taken home, they must be placed in a bag with a visible bio-hazard label and be washed separately per OSHA regulations.
- If you are one that prefers to take your uniforms home, please leave the dirty ones here and take a clean one home with you to dress for the next day. This will help you avoid falling into the necessity of following these OSHA regulations.
Front Desk Uniforms: Many of the team help cover the front desk from time to time. When doing so, please remember the uniform or dress code is business casual. Jeans, even nicer ones, are no longer allowed at the front. The admin team has vests and jackets that are recommended to be worn daily. When covering for the front, you can wear one of these jackets or a scrub jacket if you so desire.
- If there are any questions regarding business casual, please let me know. So far, from what I've seen, our team is in line with this requirement. The only change is not wearing nicer jeans.
- Here are some samples of business casual for both men and women.

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding these policies. Again, it's not brought forward because we're having issues per se. It's a reminder to keep us all on the same page with newer team members coming on board.

Scheduling Large Appointments

As you know, statistics show that it's best to schedule appointments in the back as there is a bond of trust between the clinician and patient that is hard to replicate at the front desk. Some of the reasons for that disparity are the clinician's ability to focus on one patient in a quiet area and their ability to answer questions without being rushed.

With that being said, we must remember that large appointments require a deposit in order to schedule. Our new appointment agreement states:

There are some treatments that require more than half of the provider’s day in order to complete the recommended treatment. In these cases, patients that are scheduled for more than four hours will need to pay a deposit of half their estimated patient portion at the time of scheduling. If a payment plan is needed, please speak with the front desk at the time of scheduling.

Please make your patient aware of this when scheduling in the back. When you bring them to the front, make that part of your handoff verbiage to the front. This does a few things.

Reminds the patient of their need to pay 1/2 their patient portion since a large appointment was made in the back;
Informs the front desk they have an upcoming large appointment that needs to be paid for; and
Ensures all parties involved (patient, clinician, admin) are on the same page regarding paying in advance to save their time.

If you need coaching on how to present this to the patient when scheduling in the back (or even at the front), we can practice this with role play at our upcoming team meeting.

Share the Health Program

This is our referral program for existing patients that refer their friends. When the person referred completes a comprehensive exam, they and the referee are eligible for a $50 gift card to REI, Moose's Tooth, Natural Pantry, or Fred Meyer. Moving forward, there is no limit to gift cards when patients refer large families. So long as the patient completes a comp exam AND the patient referring them has completed a comp exam, they are eligible for the gift card.

Always enter the procedure code for NP Gift Card along with the referee or referral's name in the notes. This will ensure we do not give out multiple cards in error.

Cleaning the Ultrasonic

Please read this article,"5 most overlooked cleaning guidelines for your ultrasonic bath" regarding our Ultrasonic in the sterilization lab. Assistant Team, please be ready to share what protocol we need to put in place in order to ensure our Ultrasonic is running at its best. Thank you!

Medical Claims

It's been a bit since we've discussed medical claims. Medical insurance is much slower than dental insurance, and the likelihood of coverage from medical insurance to a dental office is small. Because of this, when discussing medical claims or using medical insurance to cover dental treatment, please remember the patient will pay for this treatment in full. If and when insurance pays, we will refund them immediately.

I know this can lead to uncomfortable financial conversations. Let's work on how to present this to patients at the next meeting. Until then, Lauren and myself are always available to have this discussion with your patient.

Communication (Build Up My Team Members)

Continuing with our discussion from the team meeting, this is a great article regarding challenging our own mindset when we're in conflict with another person or people. Read this article from Headspace, "Why people don't care as much as you think they do," and share with your department your main takeaway from your reading. Here's mine:

We all live inside our heads, and we also have a propensity toward irrational thinking. The problem is that we become so accustomed to our internal thoughts that they start to feel unquestionably realistic. “Many psychologists have written about types of errors, or distortions, in the thinking of people who feel vulnerable to the problematic impact of the spotlight effect,” explains Levine. “One common example is ‘mind reading,’ or the tendency to believe that you know what others are thinking, thereby failing to consider other, more likely, possibilities.”

Thank you, everyone, for all that you do to help us achieve our mission of Committed Professionals ~ Healthy Patients. And thanks to Dr. Waddle for finding this article from Headspace!