Advice to the Front Desk – Answer phone calls promptly. Allowing parents 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 (and parents). You never know when a parent of a new patient 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, parents of new patients must be given a positive first impression.