Holiday stress for practice managers can come from a variety of sources. Specific to your medical practice, one source might be too many patients trying to cram in appointments before the end of the year, or too few patients making appearances at all, even for scheduled appointments. The first can result in an overwhelmed and stressed staff, including you, and the second can result in a loss of revenue, creating stress for your physicians and other staff – including you. Regardless of where it’s coming from, here are some tips on how to handle holiday stress.

Summertime can be a hot and slow time of year for many people around the United States.  A lot of businesses slow down in the summer and the heat can make people feel tired and uncomfortable which can lead to short tempers and very little motivation in a lot of us. Being the practice manager, it is your responsibility to try to keep your practice in a light and happy state so your patients will feel relaxed and confident while visiting their doctor.  Many times in a physicians practice we do not realize  the staff’s attitude and how they interact with the patient has the biggest impact on their overall perspective of their visit.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

You have spent years improving office efficiency until your physician’s practice hums like a fine Swiss watch. You have raised the level of patient satisfaction to the point where the doctor is now treating the children of his patient’s children -but now it is time to move on.

Whether you are one of the thousands of the wave of baby boomers about to enter retirement, or just ready for greener pastures, as a professional medical office manager it will likely be your responsibility to help pick and train your replacement. 

Finding the right person to fill your shoes is no easy task. It will likely take time. As long as your leaving is mutual, and on good terms with the practitioners involved, time will be your greatest asset.  In the Practice Manager’s world, “2-weeks notice” just won’t do in most cases. In some larger clinics or multiple-doctor practices, Office Managers make plans to leave months, sometimes even years, in advance.

Handing over the complexities of running a medical office will be difficult at best.  Many Practice Managers pride themselves on having developed office strategies that increased their value to the point of practical indispensability.  It may make you feel very good to know how much you will be missed, but the greatest service you can do your practice and patients, is if they hardly notice the change a few weeks after you are gone.  And that takes a lot of planning.

Even if you are leaving your job because you are taking a ”better position” and do not expect to be that heavily involved in finding and training your replacement – career counselors know there is a right way and a wrong way to move on. No matter what your circumstances your can make your transition as trouble-free for the new Office Manager as possible by:

Leaving a list of all important contact numbers, along with a schedules for inventory and supply orders, financial reports, and a staff calendar

Leave your desk, physical, and computer files as organized as possible.

If you will not have any direct contact with your replacement – be sure someone will be able to bring him or her up to speed on any long-term future plans you may have initiated, such as office renovations, technology or software upgrades, new hires, etc.

Leave instructions on your accounting software, billing, and EMR solution, in case your successor used a different system in his or her last job

And finally, if you are comfortable doing so, and are leaving on good terms – many HR experts suggest you offer your phone number, in case there are any questions or need for advice.

Given the pressures that the typical Office Manager faces, when you know you are leaving, the strains of a certain Johnny Paycheck song may come to mind, and that may be a nice fantasy – but burning bridges is never a good idea, even if you are retiring.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   

“Every now and then, have a little relaxation, for when you come back to your work, your judgment will be surer…the work appears smaller and more of it can be taken in at a glance and a lack of harmony and proportion is more readily seen.” ~ Leonardo da Vinci