Advice to the Front Desk – Answer phone calls promptly. Allowing patients to wait on the phone creates an immediate impression of the practice—a bad one. Calls that are not answered quickly suggest a poorly run organization and a lack of interest in serving patients. You never know when a new patient or a referring doctor’s office will call. Consequently, the phone must always be answered on the first or second ring. Even when practices and front desk areas are extremely busy, the new patient must be given a positive first impression.