As a practice manager, you have probably noticed that the number of patient appointments – and the accompanying revenues – tends to ebb and flow. Physicians’ offices are not subject to the same cyclical nature as, for example, retail stores, which rely on holiday shopping to make up for the slow times. However, you may well experience slowdowns during summer, when people take vacations, and around the holidays, when they visit family and spend all their available money and time shopping for gifts. Slowdowns do vary by specialty and geographic area; cosmetic dermatologists, for example, may see an increase in appointments as patients prepare themselves for holiday parties, and gastroenterologists may also see more patients after holiday over-indulgences.  

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.

As a medical practice manager, you are largely responsible for determining and implementing the marketing strategy for your practice.  Even if you have limited contact with patients, you have great influence over the culture of your office and the attitude of the physicians and staff.  Many physicians simply don’t take an interest in marketing strategy or realize its importance.  Your staff probably doesn’t have the knowledge to implement marketing strategy; they are also likely to get distracted from it by day-to-day tasks if no one offers regular and consistent direction.  But like it or not, patients make both conscious and unconscious assessments about your practice and make treatment decisions and recommendations to other potential patients based on those assessments.  Having accepted that you do have a large degree of control over what patients think about your practice, how do you develop a medical practice marketing strategy as a practice manager?

Paying attention to patients’ body language is not typically part of medical school curricula, so as a Practice Manager, you probably can’t look to your practice physician(s) for tips.  However, patient body language is important – some studies indicate that as much as 93% of communication is nonverbal.  With that in mind, here are some tips on body language awareness as it pertains to patient care. 

Given the state of the economy, dwindling healthcare reimbursements, escalating malpractice costs, and increasing operating expenses, many medical practice managers are finding that it’s advisable or even essential to cut costs, sometimes drastically.  But how can you reduce overhead without compromising the quality of your practice, either as a workplace or with regard to patient care?  As part of our continuing series on auditing your medical practice, we’ll look at ways to analyze and cut overhead costs with a minimum of difficulty. 

Back in 1992 OSHA enacted the Blood Borne Pathogen (BBP) and Hazard Communication Standards.  At the time Practice Managers became well familiar with the regulations, filled out the appropriate forms and did what was necessary to come into compliance. And then most practices likely forgot about them.

I am working on a “What makes a GREAT Practice Manager” whitepaper.  This will be a collaborative effort of many practice manager contacts to be used for several purposes, including but not limited to: Practice Manager’s teaching a class, Doctors trying to find the perfect fit for a position and a Managers guide to live by.  If any of you have any ideas you would like to contribute to this paper please reply these ideas via this blog.  All ideas used will be credited to you in the white paper when published.  Please also let us know if it is acceptable to have our writer contact you for more information if necessary (interview, or clarification of your idea, etc).

Most Practice Managers do not consider themselves  to be in the power seat of our healthcare system. Most claim to be overworked and underpaid. If you look at job satisfaction indexes,  Practice Managers are not considered a happy lot. There is plenty to make the job difficult; misbehaving employees, excessive red tape, difficult patients, and demanding doctors. However, ask any medical sales rep and they will tell you that the Practice Managers is the one who wields all the power in our healthcare system.  It is the manager who determines who talks to the doctor and what gets purchased, the technology that gets implemented into the office, and the upgrades to administrative processes. Sure, the doctor rants and raves around the office and thinks he or she is in control, but when push comes to shove, most office managers determine what gets done.