Content about Staff

For any small business, including medical offices, the decision about when it’s appropriate to hire additional staff can be a perplexing one. On the one hand, more staff tends to suggest increased opportunities to get things done, or to positively impact service. On the other hand, particularly in service-oriented industries like healthcare, more staff means higher costs of service. Finding the right balance can be tricky and the “right” decisions are often counter-intuitive.

While the use of clinical interns is commonplace in medical practices, many may not be taking advantage of other, non-clinical, opportunities to use interns as a source of staffing to help drive productivity. Universities, technical colleges – and even high schools – can be good sources of energetic, enthusiastic and low-cost/no-cost assistance for medical practices. For medical practices, internships provide two key benefits: access to a pool of talent that can bring enthusiasm and fresh perspectives at low cost and on a temporary basis and a link to the academic community and the opportunity to support student learning.

Can you recall the last time your practice updated its anti-harassment policies or had an employee relations attorney review them? If you’re like most medical practices, you took steps to create them, and once that task was completed, you forgot about the policies. That’s a big mistake, experts warn, and one that could cost your practice.

In the business environment, as in life, you may like some people better than others. In your personal life, being nice to and doing favors for those with whom you get along makes perfect sense, but the rules are different at work, where you must treat employees equally and fairly. You may not want to give some employees as many perks, atta-boys or rewards as others – even if they are deserved – and you may not want to discipline an employee you truly like, but if you play favorites, your staff will notice. And it could hurt you and your practice.

Physician assistants (PAs) and nurse practitioners (NPs) are increasingly commonplace in medical practices across the nation. Practices that employ these professionals, known as physician extenders for their ability to reduce pressure on physicians and extend quality patient care, have seen their revenues increase, along with patient satisfaction. As practices adapt to healthcare reform, they should ask themselves, “Is there a place for PAs and NPs in my practice”? Here, MOT helps you answer that question.

Due diligence has been done, the documents have been signed and the money has changed hands. Now what? With an increasing number of mergers and acquisitions occurring in the healthcare industry, and more anticipated, many are finding that the legal and financial issues are just the beginning of the potential angst and challenges involved. It’s what happens after the formalities have been taken care of that can make or break a successful union.

Pay and perks often top the list of considerations that draw employees to an organization and make them stay. Healthcare, in particular, is a competitive hiring environment, and medical practices and other healthcare organizations need to put together benefit packages that help them stand out. Here, MOT discusses both common and popular employee perks.

Regardless of the size of your medical practice, it’s important to know the legal requirements and most cost-effective steps in following laws and providing/administering workers’ compensation coverage to your employees. Understanding your insurance options and picking the right medical providers or networks can be the best way for both small and large practices to save money and quicken the time to get employees back to work.

Nine-to-five. Those working hours are so ubiquitous that they spawned a movie and a song – both of which have become classics. Is your practice one that follows this strict schedule, opening at 9 a.m. sharp and going dark at 5 p.m.? If so, how’s that working for you? Are you wondering whether your practice would attract more patients and reap more profit if extended or weekend hours were instituted? MOT spoke with healthcare professionals to get the real skinny on extended and weekend hours.

When you read the title of this article, did you have frightening visions of employees wearing lampshades on their heads or yawning with boredom? These are the two extremes of bad office parties. The good news is, you don’t have to get stuck in either extreme. Your medical office can have wonderful holiday office parties where everyone enjoys themselves – but not too much.

Shadow coaching, also known as observational coaching, is finding its way into medical practices and other healthcare organizations as patient satisfaction becomes more important. This type of coaching, where an expert “shadows” a professional to observe interactions with clients and colleagues, is common in corporate America, but somewhat new to healthcare. While many healthcare professionals mistakenly believe that shadow coaching is appropriate only when there’s something wrong in their organizations, coaching experts contend that shadow coaching is useful in helping medical practices excel and grow their business.

Does Halloween seem to hit your office at times of the year other than the month of October? Have you had staff members morph from perfectly productive employees into witches and warlocks, performing poorly and becoming essentially unrecognizable from their former cheerful and efficient selves? October or not, you shouldn’t accept this unwelcome metamorphosis as inevitable, and you should not let it go unchecked.