Getting to Know Romeoville Dental Center Front Desk Receptionist Leslie
Time to get to know the Romeoville Dental Center Front Desk Receptionist Leslie! We sat down with Leslie to hear how she found her way to Romeoville Dental Center and lots of other little details.
Q&A with Romeoville Dental Center Front Desk Receptionist Leslie
Q. What is your job?
As front desk receptionist, I do a little bit of everything! I’m usually the first person patients see when they come in the door, and often the first person they meet from the office. So needless to say, patient interaction is job number one!
Q. When you were a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I always loved math and science growing up, so I knew that I wanted to go into the medical field, and imagined myself in a clinical setting, but had a hard time pinning down exactly what I wanted to do. I had even wanted to be a doctor or a surgeon at one point, probably because of Gray’s Anatomy!
Q. How did you get into your job at the Dental Office?
It’s all about who you know! I was working with ultrasound before I came here about two and a half years ago. My good friend Yesenia, who has been working here as a dental assistant for 10 years, let me know there was an opening. I was originally supposed to be a dental assistant too, but I jumped into the front desk role and it just worked.
Q. What are your main duties at the office?
As I said, it truly is a little bit of everything! It’s all about our patients though. That includes in-person interactions like greeting, check-in, and check-out. It also includes a lot of phone interactions for reminders, answering questions, and following up post-procedure. There’s even some back-office type work like insurance coding, claims, and appeals, and patient treatment planning and financing plans.
One thing that changed for a while but is starting to change back is the patient check-in process. For a while, in-person check-ins involved temperature screenings because of COVID, but I’m happy to say we don’t need to do that anymore. That’s partly because the guidelines have changed, and also, some tooth problems can cause a fever, so we don’t want to screen out the people who we really need to treat! We still do require masks in our waiting room.
Q. What’s your favorite thing about your job?
Being able to help my community is very special. We have a large Spanish-speaking population here in Romeoville, and as a Mexican-American, I am fluent in Spanish as well as English. That helps make those patients feel more comfortable coming in for treatment when they might otherwise avoid it for themselves even if they still bring their children in. All of our front desk staff speak Spanish, and we can feel in an instant what a difference it makes when we greet patients in their own language.
Q. What is it about you that makes you great at your job? (What’s your superpower?)
I think it’s that I’m a perfectionist. I really enjoy having things done well and accurately. We have lots happening at once here, and we need to keep things straight and organized while multitasking. Even if I miss something at first, my detail orientation means I usually catch it.
Q. Can you think of a memorable experience at the office you’d like to share?
After Yesenia brought me in, I brought in another friend, so I get to work with two really good friends. There’s always something happening and everyone gets along really well (even beyond the three of us, including all the dentists, who are genuinely so warm, friendly, and super sweet). That means most days are really good days!
Q. What are some of your favorite things to do outside of work?
It’s great to live near Chicago with so much to do like events and new restaurants, but I also love to take road trips to new places like Nashville and Michigan. My latest trip was to Cincinnati for the Mexico versus USA World Cup Qualifier. I’m a big fan of live events too, like sports and concerts. The last concert I attended was a personal favorite, Ramón Ayala. He’s a regional Mexican Country musician. Check him out [on Spotify]! And of course, I do love to cook, especially Mexican and Korean cuisine.
Want to Know More?
To come in and meet Romeoville Front Desk Receptionist Leslie and see the rest of the Romeoville Dental Center staff, give us a call at 815-886-0875 or complete our contact form.
