Wednesday, March 9, 2011

Medical Office Manager Tips

Medical office managers greatly contribute to a smoothly operating office. Various strategies are used by a medical office manager to stream line processes so that doctors can provide comprehensive healthcare effectively. If you're looking to make a career in medical office management, you need to be well aware of all the things that will help you perform this job with utmost effectiveness. Before stepping into the office, here are some medical office manager tips that can prove to be helpful to you.

You must know all the functions of the office

As a medical office manager, you must have a firm grasp of all the processes that happen at the office. These functions could include coding of medical records, making appointments for patients and scheduling surgeries. Understanding the individual functions of the medical office will enable you to segregate the various functions into job descriptions.

Offer training and cross training for the various job descriptions

Now that you've identified the various office functions and separated them into job descriptions, you can start offering the training needed to perform these functions. While training one staff member to perform one task, offer training for a different task as well. This is a wise thing to do. For example, if a certain employee calls in sick or is unavailable for some other reason you can mobilize other members of the staff to perform the function appointed to the missing team member. In other words, cross training gives you back up for other job descriptions.

Use software for financial management

This could be one of the best medical office manager tips you could ever get. Financial management is going to be a major aspect of your job. There are a lot of numbers you're going to have to deal with in this line of work. For instance, the medical practice will have building operations, staff salaries, insurance for medical malpractice, general liability insurance and even utilities.

You will have to manage costs for medical supplies, medications, telephones and other office devices like faxes and copiers. Medical practice rests on two pillars. Using software to manage all these functions greatly reduces the burden on your shoulders and speeds up the financial management process. There are software packages that are not only precise but they are also efficient. On the financial management front, you will oversee accounting and budgeting functions while the physician will deliver healthcare.

Make sure the employees have the right credentials

You need to make sure that all the employees have the appropriate medical licenses and certifications so that agency fines, penalties and lawsuits related to malpractice can be avoided. Keep an eye on the renewal status of employee credentials. You can easily do this by maintaining a detailed list that features employee credentials with expiration dates. You should preserve copies of all employee certifications so that they can be quickly accessed and easily verified.

By internalizing these medical office manager tips, your job will not only be convenient for you, but it will also prove to be beneficial for the staff and the doctor.


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