Is Your Office Due for Spring Cleaning?

Is your staff commenting about rude, abrupt clients and feeling in the dark about the policies and proce-dures ruling the office? If so, now is the time to sweep old habits out the door and lay the foundation for a great summer for both clients and staff members.

1)Make sure that everyone has a“Who Does What, Here” list, as well as a current phone list with everyone’s extensions. This helps staff members to direct clients to the right person the first time.

2)Don’t let yourstaff get frustrated by equipment. Have frequent technical skills reviewsessions and make sure everyone knowshow to use the time savers built into equip-ment, such as speed dial features on thephone, and collate and staple capabili-ties of the copy machine.

3)Start a “bright ideas” program for the suggestion box. Follow the 24/72rule: every employee suggestion or complaint is followed up by a supervisor within 24 hours, and an answer concerning its disposition is received by the employee within 72 hours. You might want to implement a prize catalog for winning suggestions, which might be as simple as movie tickets, gift cards, etc. This could work for the client suggestion box,as well.

I hope these tips will assist you in your efforts to make the best of your medical practice. They are all tried and true suggestions. Pick and choose the ones that will assist you in your “Spring Cleaning.” Practice Management Institute is headquar-tered in San Antonio, TX. For more informa-tion, please contact Lynn Ballard at 800/259-5562.