By Roger P. Levin, DDS

One of the topics that does not get enough attention in practice management is the training of an office manager. Most dental office managers have very limited management education, experience or training. Levin Group has reviewed the performance of hundreds of office managers over the last 39 years and determined that many would benefit tremendously from understanding the real role of an office manager — starting with their job description.

We always recommend that for every position in the office there is a clear, detailed job description that also includes a list of responsibilities. Job descriptions force the practice to think through exactly what they want the job to be. Some job descriptions are more straightforward than others. For example, it is easier to document what you want the front desk person and the assistant or hygienist to do. These are relatively clear and easy to outline. It is not as easy when you are talking about an office manager because the set of responsibilities varies widely from practice to practice.

Let’s look, for example, at three different types of dental office managers. In one practice, we found the office manager was strictly in charge of the front desk area and also participated in answering phones, scheduling patients, collecting money and other typical day-to-day front desk responsibilities. In another office, we found the office manager, overall, knew the financial aspects of the office but had no role in employee management. In a third office, we found the office manager had full responsibility for all day-to-day operations, oversaw human resources (including hiring and terminations) and was responsible for day-to-day performance of the practice. These three scenarios — and there are others — represent the wide variation in office manager responsibilities and why job descriptions become essential.

What Should an Office Manager Really Do?

In the ideal practice business model, the office manager literally manages the office. This means complete responsibility for day-to-day operations, human resources and any other factor that is a normal part of creating excellent practice performance. This version of an office manager is more like example No. 3 above.

Having said that, what I’ve observed over the past four decades is that the majority of dental office managers have no manage- ment education and have never managed a business before their current position. It is no wonder that so many office managers struggle to succeed. As an example, a manager of a McDonald’s (which is not a simple business) understands exactly what is to be done, how it is to be done, what the targets are, how to work with McDonald’s regional management, etc. The job is not only clearly documented, but McDonald’s managers receive extensive training on how to do the job effectively. This is why McDonald’s can reproduce the same level of performance in restaurants all over the world, day after day.

Dental practices would benefit from a higher level of training and experience of office managers. But how do they gain this?

It’s All About Systems

The most viable and effective training for dental office managers is to implement proven step-by-step systems into the practice. A system is a step-by-step process to be followed by each team member in order to achieve a specific result. Examples include maximizing insurance benefits through proper coding and submission, establishing a daily production goal for the practice, scheduling in a manner that is designed to achieve a goal, and so on. Systems work extraordinarily well when properly designed and followed. Systems are designed specifically to achieve targets and help each team member know exactly what to do, when to do it and how to do it. This makes the job of the office manager far easier and more effective in that the manager can identify exactly what is working or not relative to the steps in the systems. The best thing any practice can do to help an office manager excel is to implement proven systems.

But Is It Worth It?

Dentists excel at dentistry. Most dentists would like to spend their days treating patients, providing excellent clinical care, and creating satisfaction for both themselves and their patients.

So how do we create a scenario for dentists where the bulk of their time each day is spent facilitating patient care and not involved in other practice management scenarios, questions or decisions that are distracting and fatiguing, not to mention taking away from practice production? The answer is an extremely well-trained office manager. The office manager, in an ideal situation, should be responsible for all day-to-day operations. The staff should already be trained in the systems and know exactly what to do. If measurements or targets are missed, the office manager should step in, evaluate the reasons, and, in a positive way, work with the team member or members to achieve the right results. Dentists should be practicing dentistry while all this is happening. This is the key to practice success and enjoyment. If this sounds too good to be true, it is not. Many practices have office managers who are not experienced, educated or trained in management. Like McDonald’s, when systems go into place and are followed, you will have the same result time and time again.

Summary

Office managers can be extremely valuable but are usually underutilized relative to their potential. Most do not have a management background, and their jobs are a bit variable. The best scenario is when an office manager runs all day-to-day operations in the practice. In order to make this work, practices should implement systems for all operating areas of the practice, and the office manager’s role becomes implementing the systems, measuring results and making course corrections. A highly trained office manager allows a dentist to focus most of his or her time on dentistry, and practice production will rise.

Roger P. Levin, DDS, is the founder and CEO of Levin Group, a dental management consulting firm. To comment on this article, email impact@agd.org.