6 Tips Toward Better Medical Office Management

Medical office management can have its difficulties. Not being a physician nor a part of the non clinical staff, the manager is completely set apart. Medical office management has the necessary tasks of keeping the day to day activities of the practice running smoothly and the communication between personnel open. Between the constant rings of the telephone to the backlog of patient files, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and forget how to best implement medical office management.

5 Ways to Improve Medical Office Management

Whether your managerial skills need a refresher or your medical office is looking to hire someone new to the position, here are six helpful tips toward better medical office management:

1. Common Courtesy – Return phone calls and emails promptly. Are there other staff members who can do this? Yes. But by helping out a little bit each day, you are doing a courtesy both to the office staff and the patients. It’s a small effort to increase office morale and customer satisfaction.
2. Leave the Desk – Medical office management is often thought of as a desk job. While you can accomplish a great number of things solely from your office, you can’t really gauge what is going on without observing and interacting with physicians, staff, and patients. A healthy medical office starts with the engagement and investment of its medical office management.
3. Experience Other Positions – For best medical office management, you should be able to perform every other job in the clinic (aside from the physician’s tasks). But even some of the non clinical patient interaction such as taking blood pressure should be experienced. That way you can better understand every job and how the whole operation runs, not to mention that your staff will respect you for getting your hands dirty, so-to-speak.
4. Meet with Representatives – Never use the excuse of being too busy to speak with representatives and look over proposals. Even setting aside one 20-minute time slot during the week to listen might produce an opportunity to increase revenue.
5. Set a Good Example – Work diligently. Respect everyone. Don’t gossip. Act with kindness and gratitude. Dress professionally and be on time. If you carry yourself in this way and embody these attributes, your staff will understand the expectation and do likewise. This makes sense; after all, medical office management is about leading.
6. Market – Network with others involved in medical office management. This will allow you to share ideas, find what is working well for them, and market physicians and services better.

You might have built a solid foundation for your medical office management, but these tips are a great reminder of the little things that make a difference in staff morale, efficiency, and patient satisfaction. If you put aside the perception of being too busy, you can accomplish more than you would otherwise think and have the opportunity to make worthwhile decisions that affect the entire clinic. One decision you might consider is outsourcing the often stressful, complicated, and time-consuming task of medical billing. The experts at Billing Advantage can manage your medical billing needs with highly affordable services.