I can’t stress enough the importance of implementing proper, well written job descriptions and office policies into your practices. As few doctors are trained in practice management or management and executive skills while in professional school, most doctors have to fly by the seat of their pants when it comes to running the business side of a practice. That’s why we often write about how and why to implement office policies and job descriptions in order to make the office run more smoothly.
This begs the question: what should be included in a job description?
Here are the key points that we include in a job description:
• The purpose of that position. For example, what is the purpose of the receptionist of a practice? It might be: “to keep the appointment book full, rescheduled appointments to a minimum and the patient flow smooth and efficient”.
• The product or outcome of that position – i.e. what are they suppose to produce? For a receptionist it could be, “A full appointment book with maximum productivity for the doctor and a correctly routed flow of patients and communication within the office”.
• Statistics for the position. You need some sort of metrics to accurately measure the productivity of any job. For a receptionist it might be “percent of patients kept to schedule” or “percent of schedule book filled”, etc.
• The various job duties the position is to perform. You can simply list them out, making sure you have the most important duties covered.
• Write-ups of how to do the various job duties you’ve listed. These write-ups should be written by people who have successfully performed the duties of the job and should be continually updated.
These are the key points that we find make a good job description that will help anyone put a new employee on the job and make any transition from one employee to another much easier.