Ever feel like throwing your hands up? How frustrating is it when you walk into the back office to see your diagnostic tech Rudy googling cheesecake recipes, and Leslie, your scribe snacking while your work-up tech, Kyle is alone working up? Two more patients are just waiting out front while Leslie and Rudy are just chatting away. How about when you walk up front to see three patients waiting at the desk as Sandy, your receptionist is struggling to convince a patient to pay her copay, meanwhile, Lacy and Ollie, your opticians are sitting in the lab watching funny facebook videos?
Before you snap on your staff, think about what led you to this position in the first place. Did you ever push your staff to learn other roles in the office? Did you make them feel confident in their knowledge of other departments? Did you provide adequate training so they could step outside of their own roles?
Patients get stuck waiting sometimes. Sometimes it's just inevitable. Prepare your staff and cut back on long wait times by cross-training. When the receptionist gets backed up checking in patients, it is nice to know your technicians can step in and provide the patients waiting with any clerical forms to sign or collect any co-payments. But your staff should all be capable of the basic duties of each position in the office. Of course your staff should be supportive when someone who does not fill in often makes a mistake or two, or asks a few questions along the way. The important thing is to provide the staff with the basic knowledge in each job performance in case of absences.
Try to ease the staff into feeling comfortable by having them train on a slow day, or blocking the schedule one afternoon to train. Have them practice on you as the mock patient, so you can personally implement the protocol you desire. You can ease them into feeling comfortable by making a rotation and scheduling when an optician will help work up patients and so on and so forth. Try a training schedule for a few weeks.
As you can see, only experienced technicians cross-trained to scribe. There was always an experienced technician in the tech department, and an experienced optician in the optical department. This just assures that there would be enough knowledge in each department to keep flow running smoothly. This might seem overwhelming, but you can start by implementing this training rotation during a slow season, like February/March or June/July. Or simply choose weeks where the schedule is light and only apply the rotation for the slower half of the day.
Training days are stressful. When easing someone into doing a job they aren’t familiar with, provide plenty of support and encouragement. Encourage open communication. Advise your staff to come directly to you when they have any questions about covering another department. Eventually, the support you give when fully staffed will provide your employees with the confidence and ability to step up when you're short.
You should always explain to new applicants that they are interviewing for a position which requires performing all basic job functions in the office. No office has the same employees forever. Eventually, you will have some turn-over. This will allow you to phase in the new process over time if your staff is extremely resistant. Implement some incentives to help motivate your staff to cross-train. Provide employees with bonuses or gift cards after they step up in times of need and keep a good attitude. Recognize cooperative staff in meetings.
You get the idea. Cross-training is the best secret weapon for a smooth-running office. You will get resistance from your staff when you introduce the idea. You will find that some or all of the employees fight the idea. You just have to insist and stick to your guns. You will be grateful you implemented this process when you’re down one or two employees. Put a stop to that early morning dread, the moments when you’re watching your phone to see if any employees call out unexpectedly. Stop worrying about employees using vacation time. Prepare your staff now, and cut back on stress later. Reach out to our SOS Team if you need support implementing these changes. It's 2020 let's make it happen! #CreateTheSolution #SOSTeam #Practicemanagement
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