In an environment as important as a medical office, every employee has an essential role to play – both in terms of the growth of that practice and with regards to the essential and potentially lifesaving care that you’re providing to patients on a daily basis. But at the same time, these roles and responsibilities must always be properly defined for maximum success. Not only does this help your staff understand what is required of them and what your expectations are, but it also guarantees that everyone is on the same page and is moving forward at all times.
The Problem With a Lack of Definition
When a practice doesn’t have written procedures about what specific employees are supposed to do on a daily, weekly or even monthly basis, this often creates a significant level of confusion that permeates throughout the entire culture. People know that a job must be done – but they don’t really know who is supposed to do it or how it fits in the grand scheme of the owner’s overarching vision. Tasks can also get missed or forgotten about, which leads to frustration in management and with patients as well.
Running Your Medical Practice Like a Business
The key to making sure that your own practice doesn’t fall into this type of trap involves having a written process for each and every job role, regardless of position. Likewise, employees need to be trained on the actual duties and responsibilities of that role, giving them the best chance at performing to the best of their ability.
This doesn’t just go for new hires, either. All existing employees need to be able to refer to this documentation as an outline of what they’re supposed to do and, more importantly, why they’re supposed to be doing it. This training should also happen on a regular basis, which will not only help keep people up to date on all of the best practices and procedures within the industry but will also act as a way to regularly define how they fit into the “bigger picture” as well.
At the end of the day, it’s important to remember that if you want to have an effective team and you want to scale your practice, taking the time to define roles and responsibilities today is no longer a recommendation – it is officially a requirement. These are things that are far too important to leave to chance and if you want to continue to build towards the practice you always hoped you’d one day be running, this is how you do it.
