With so many management tasks to complete at a practice day to day, feeling overwhelmed is understandable, but there are positive steps you can take to change that.
There are ways of empowering your team while also improving medical practice staff performance. We’ve compiled some actionable steps to keep your staff motivated, through focusing on empowering, equipping and encouraging.
The truth is, ensuring employees’ job satisfaction is the essential starting point for practice managers wondering how to improve your medical practice — research shows that “a large number of factors influence employee performance such as satisfaction from the profession, work environment, compensation policies” and more. When staff feel they’re leaving a real positive impact on patients’ lives, it’s extremely motivating.
Empower staff to do their job better
Map out workflows
The first step to empowering staff is by helping them do their job better — map out the core workflows in your practice and identify the best practices as well as the inefficiencies. While the drive to provide high quality care might be present in all your staff, unnecessary administrative burdens and confusing systems can become discouragement for staff, and a waste of precious time that could be spent elsewhere.
When evaluating processes, you should focus on who’s in charge of each stage and what steps go into each area:
- Managing appointments, including how patients check in, check out and book in follow ups.
- Managing the billing cycle, including payment methods, reimbursement processes and billing documentation
By clearly documenting specific processes that go into the everyday routines of your practice, you’re better equipped to identify areas of improvement and make staff onboarding faster and more effective. Furthermore, this will also help make sure no tasks slip through the cracks.
Encourage delegating
On average, practitioners are some of the most overworked. Unfortunately, there are only so many hours in a day, so delegating is an essential of effective leadership. Delegating the more administrative tasks to your able team members takes unnecessary stress away and lets your team give 110% to the job before them. An overwhelming workload and an unreasonable to do list will only serve to demotivate your team. If you’re noticing any staff members displaying signs of burnout, it’s crucial to act fast — your practice is only as good as the people.
Equip your staff
Invest in the right technology
The next essential for improving medical practice staff performance requires equipping your team with the tools to provide the best patient care — this includes both the right technology and the right know how.
Transitioning from paper to digital is just step one of ensuring your technology supports your staff in all the rights way if you dont already have a digital system. Many more practices use cloud based software, that offers scalable, paperless management — accessible from any location, 24/7. When your staff are equipped, your team can also:
- Reduce time making follow up phone calls, using a digital appointment system
- Provide better patient care by creating a single platform for managing patient and practitioner relationship. For example, a patient portal allows your staff to deliver test results, organise appointment times and supply administrative information.
- Have efficient management of finances, using tools that integrate with Medicare and accounting software such as Xero
Invest in the necessary training
Whether it’s bringing on a new software or trying out a different workflow, the learning curve of trying something can be a challenge. That’s why investing in your team is just as important as investing in technology. Clear documentation around workflows will ensure new staff are across all the basics faster while training initiatives will help your staff leverage new software features and keep everyone up to date with best practice. Many providers of EHR software also often offer training modules and opportunities for practice — make the most of what’s available.
Encourage your staff
Build a team environment
At the end of the day, everyone likes to come to a workplace that makes them feel good — building a supportive team environment will keep your medical staff motivated. Cultivating the right environment isn’t an overnight activity; rather, it takes months and years as you invest in your team. Consider:
- Hosting regular social events, such as morning teas, drinks or mini golf.
- Initiating community outreach, through encouraging the team to volunteer at a local community event or charity work of their choosing.
- Setting up onboarding practices that ensure every new staff member feels welcomed and gets to know every part of the team.
Celebrate the wins
Everyone plays a unique role in your team, so it’s essential to celebrate wins in every area — feeling appreciated is a great motivator. Your staff is working hard and acknowledging those achievements through touching base regularly with each team member is crucial.
Over to you
With so many things on your to do list, great practice management is understandably a difficult task — having your whole team onboard and giving their 110% is a must! How do you keep your medical staff motivated?
We’ve collaborated with so many emerging and established medical practices around the country and interviewed them on the essentials of a thriving practice — and we’ve walked away with some key insights. If you’ve got your eyes set on improving medical practice staff performance and providing the best patient care around, check out our free guide to setting up your practice for success.
Clinic to Cloud does not provide tax, legal or accounting advice. This material is for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for independent professional advice. You should consult your own tax, legal and accounting advisors before engaging in any transaction. See the Clinic to Cloud Disclaimer for further information.
