Start Your FREE Membership NOW
• Discover Proven Ways to Be a Better Medical Office Manager
• Get Our Daily eNewsletter, MOMAlert, and MUCH MORE
• Absolutely NO Risk or Obligation on Your Part -- It's FREE!
EMAIL ADDRESS

Upgrade to Premium Membership NOW for Just $90!
• Get 3 Months of Full Premium Membership Access
• Includes Our Monthly Newsletter, Office Toolbox, Policy Center, and Archives
• Plus, You Get FREE Webinars, and MUCH MORE!
Home » Managing the office
YOUR CAREER

Tick those unpleasant tasks off your to-do list

December 13, 2022 by

Avoiding something unpleasant is the main reason people procrastinate. Try one of these four approaches when you face an unpleasant task: Do it. There’s an adrenaline rush from knowing you’ve completed an unpleasant task. Finishing something you’ve been putting off will energize you for the rest of the day. Don’t do it yet. If you’re not sure what to do, putting off an unpleasant task may be wise. That’s prudent postponement. Perhaps a better approach will surface once you sleep on it. Ditch it. If the task has been hanging over your head for a long time, maybe you don’t really need to do it. Delegate it. Delegation can be a great way to procrastinate less. If you’re someone who feels that you need to do things yourself to get… . . . read more.

Tagged With: , , ,
PRODUCTIVITY

5 ways to make standup meetings work for your medical office

November 26, 2022 by

A daily standup meeting can be a highly effective way to keep your staff motivated and moving on important tasks. This 10-minute meeting, used in a variety of workplaces, provides an opportunity for a quick check-in on the day’s priorities. As the name implies, participants stand up—a posture that discourages long discussion. Here are ways to make the meeting work for your medical office Schedule the meeting at the same time and place deal. The start of the shift, after staff arrives and gets settled for work but before the office opens to patients, is one common time to schedule the regular standup meeting. You can use the time to review ongoing projects such as processing claims. You can remind your team of unfinished job from yesterday, such as loading… . . . read more.

Tagged With: , ,
MANAGING STAFF

5 lessons employers can learn from Elon Musk’s Twitter crises

November 26, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry When multi-billionaire and Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk acquired Twitter on Oct. 27, he assumed leadership of a company that hadn’t earned a profit in eight of its ten years, By Nov. 4, eight days later, 1.3 million users had fled Twitter. Revenue dropped dramatically as advertisers, Twitter’s main revenue source, pulled out. One could feel sorry for Musk—except Twitter’s crises resulted in part from Musk’s own “I wing it” actions. His mistakes provide valuable lessons for other employers. Don’t alienate those you most need to survive Musk’s own tweets and heavy-handed actions alienated Twitter’s employees and stakeholders. In his first eight days, Musk fired massive numbers of Twitter’s full-time workforce, throwing remaining employees into survival mode. Remaining employees heard about the mass layoffs but didn’t learn… . . . read more.

Tagged With: , , ,
MANAGEMENT

Workplaces slow to get well from COVID-19 damage

August 20, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry You’ve heard that “long-haulers,” individuals with long COVID, suffer persistent COVID-19 symptoms that erode their quality of life. Anyone scanning the workplace soon realizes that some employers suffer from “long COVID”. A few refuse employers treatment, expecting to get well on their own. Three symptoms signal an employer suffers “long COVID”. Difficult to fill vacancies and continual turnover Job openings outnumber available workers by 5.46 million. So many potential employees have left the labor market to become self-employed, or gig and contract workers, that employers with vacancies continue to fight talent wars. Desperate to fill their positions, long hauler employers hire hastily, hoping the “best of the worst” will work out. Some new hires don’t last a day. Others leave without notice within their first four months,… . . . read more.

Tagged With: , , ,
ONBOARDING

Don’t forget this crucial first step with your new hires

July 5, 2022 by

 By Lynne Curry It’s a crucial first step many managers fail to take. Swamped by other work, they greet their new hires, introduce them to the employees they’re replacing, and leave to attend to other pressing duties. On the surface, this makes sense. The departing employee can easily explain the work that needs to be done. Beneath the surface, this approach carries with it significant risk. If you’re a new hire’s  manager, you want your new employee’s first experience with you to be “I’m looking forward to working with you. Let’s establish what your priorities are and how we can best work together” and not “hello, see you later.” Although your departing employee may be able to outline your new employee’s job duties, they may also communicate an impression different… . . . read more.

Tagged With: , , , , ,
MANAGING THE OFFICE

4 day workweek: Is it in your future?

June 26, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry If you’re an employee, you’re immediately interested. If you’re an employer, you’re doubtful—yet you keep hearing about this new strategy that might make a significant difference in your company’s ability to survive and thrive. It’s the four-day workweek, though not the compressed 4/10’s workweek that oil patch and similar companies used. Employers adopting this four-day workweek ask each employee to work 8.5 hours four days a week, providing them full salaries for 34 rather than 40 hours weekly. Forty U.S. and Canadian employers are trying out this strategy in a pilot program run by 4 Day Week Global.1 Another 32 U.S. employers have adopted it.2 The concept asks employees to maintain 100% productivity for 100% of their pay while working only 80% of the time. It requires… . . . read more.

Tagged With: , , , ,
HIRING

How to find out if the candidate can actually do the job

June 7, 2022 by

By Karen Zupko Have you ever hired someone whose professed skill levels during the interview turned out to be lower than you were led to believe? It’s difficult to measure skills and abilities through interview questions alone. Unless you assess candidate skills using objective screening tools, you’ll often be disappointed. Here are 4 ways to reduce the disconnect and hire better candidates. 1. Verify keyboard speed and proficiency. Whether you’re hiring front desk, clinical, or billing staff, or a manager or surgery counselor, everyone in a modern practice must have speedy, efficient keyboard skills. Slow typing impacts team productivity, and inaccurate typing increases the risk of denied claims and electronic health record (EHR) data entry mistakes. Every candidate for every role should be asked to take a typing test. You… . . . read more.

Tagged With: , , , ,
PATIENT EXPERIENCE

14 good ways to cut your appointment wait times

June 2, 2022 by

Long patient wait times cause frustration for patients, stress for reception desk staff, loss of confidence in the practice—and, ultimately, loss of revenue. Here are 14 things you can do to reduce patient wait times, courtesy of Stewart Gandolf, Chief Executive Officer of Healthcare Success, a team of specialists who partner with healthcare clients to profitably deliver results through data-driven marketing. 1. Offer digital check-in services that allow patients to submit medical forms before their appointment. 2. Offer hassle-free online appointment scheduling and rescheduling. 3. Integrate virtual care services like telehealth/telemedicine. 4. Stay on schedule by leveraging physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) for routine or non-urgent visits. 5. Develop better new patient lead workflows to improve efficiencies and productivity. 6. Conduct patient surveys. 7. Send patient appointment reminders to lower your risk of no-shows (which… . . . read more.

Tagged With: , , ,
YOUR CAREER

The art of subtle self-promotion

May 29, 2022 by

By Julie Perrine As an administrative professional, you’re used to working behind the scenes. Your job is to make your executive look good in the spotlight, not to shine it on yourself. You may even feel more comfortable behind the curtain than on stage. And that’s OK…most of the time. However, to keep your career moving forward, you need to practice some self-promotion, too. There’s a big difference between bragging and subtle self-promotion. Bragging is implying that you’re somehow better than others. You brag to stoke your own ego. For instance, “I was just promoted to team lead and got a big raise because I’m the best admin ever!” Self-promotion is stating a fact. For example, “After five years with my practice, I finally got the promotion I’ve been working… . . . read more.

Tagged With: ,
YOUR CAREER

Changed jobs: What have I done?

May 12, 2022 by

By Lynne Curry You expect to feel angry when fired from a job you enjoy. You expect to feel scared when laid off from a job at which you felt secure. You don’t expect to feel rotten one week after you intentionally make a career move from a job you’ve outgrown to one that promises to be challenging and rewarding. So why are you so rattled during your first week on this new job? Sudden job change takes you from a job and practice in which you know who’s who and what’s what and throws you into situations you need to navigate without a clear road map. Before you have the chance to learn your new employer’s unwritten rules, including whom to trust and who might take things the wrong… . . . read more.

Tagged With: ,

(-0)