This week we are thinking about the professional and hourly staff that we plan to have in our office. Don't forget to take into consideration any outside contractors you plan to use. You will want to keep in mind the hours and days of the week you plan to be open. The template - Page 8, has 3 employees listed but feel free to insert other columns. You will need to change the headings: Employee 1 to a position name - example: front desk am. Your goal is to have your narrative as well as your spreadsheet completed.
"Odd" Teams comment by August 15th.
This week's topics to comment on are:
- what are three interview questions you would use when hiring a front desk person
- what type of services might you use an outside contractor for and
- what are the pros and cons of using an outside contractor - be specific
- what are the pros and cons of using a temp agency.
-First, we would want to know what the applicant knows/thinks about chiropractic?
ReplyDelete-Secondly, we are curious why the applicant wants to work in our office?
-Thirdly, we want to know if the applicant has any experience in chiropractic/medical office setting?
We know it is not that likely that we will find a natural proponent of chiropractic, however it is important to find someone who is not a contradiction to what we are about. Finding an employee with prior chiropractic/medical experience that could handle billing and would not have to be completely trained would be a huge plus in the application process as well.
Types of services that we might hire an outside contractor for would include massage therapy and insurance billing.
The main pro to having an outside contractor such as a massage therapist is the extra income, also since they are not an employee no benefits have to be provided. One major con is that the massage therapist could give your practice a bad image if fail to provide a positive experience to their/your patients.
If your front desk person's responsibilities don't include billing using a billing contractor could be less expensive than employing someone in your office just for that purpose. The big con with an outside billing source is that you are still responsible for everything the billing contractor submits.
A temp agency seems like a good route to go because of their large resource of qualified candidates for your job. Along with that they can have the position filled much quicker, easier, and cheaper than you can. If a temp doesn't work out they can send in a new one the next day. The major con is paying for their services.
(Group 21)
ReplyDeleteRuss has some very good preliminary questions to ask. I think to add on that and from what I've been told by some of the chiropractors I've been working with is that you want to ask them about their ability to keep personal problems away from their work. A question such as "Are you able to put outside distractions aside while you are at work?" I've had multiple doctors talk to me about the importance of your front desk person to be friendly and be without a lot of personal issues that affect their work.
Another question would be about their availability. "Are you available to work mornings and weekends?" If you have a practice that opens early in the morning and they aren't a morning person or if you happen to be open on Saturday's and they can't work weekends, it's probably not a good fit.
Multitasking is a must. If you only have one front desk person that answers phones, does appointments, and does the billing, that is a lot to handle for one or even two people, depending on the size of your practice. I think women are way better at multitasking than men so I think there is a correlation there with front desk people being mostly women.
Examples of outside contractors that I've seen are physical therapists and massage therapists. Some chiropractors also contract out their billing.
A big pro to outside contractors is definitely additional income for you but then you also have watch what they say to their patients about chiropractic. Also Russ hit availability on the head. The doctor I'm working with has a massage therapist in his office that only works Tuesday mornings and one Saturday a month. So they have been selling massage packages with which the patients should be able to come in to get adjusted and get a massage but it isn't working out like they had planned and patients are getting irritated. It doesn't help that the therapist is very unreliable.
Using a temp agency would be good in the fact that you don't really have to go out and find your own employee but you also run the risk of having to go through a few different people before you find the right person. Patient generally like to have a routine and if there's a different person at the front desk every week they may get put off by the number of different people in your office that they aren't used to seeing. Another con maybe that you don't really get to interview the person and get to know if they will be a good fit for your office before they start working. But then again you may not want to do that part either.
Group 3:
ReplyDelete1.) How much do you know about Chiropractic?
2.) Are you familiar with a healthcare setting?
3.) What do you consider to be your strengths and weaknesses?
Outside contractors would include possible insurance and billing agencies.
Having outside contractors would allow you to exchange business agreements and clients with each other and both benefit. They could serve as an extra marketing strategy without being expensive. They also may refer you to their own clients that are currently not one of your patients. A possible con would be that you do not know exactly
what they are doing or saying so they could be potentially hurting your office name or business opportunities.
Having a temp agency would allow you to not have to worry about the position being filled and all the details required with that. A problem with that is that you are not actually hiring who you feel would be the right person for the position. It is nice because a temp agency allows you to focus on other aspects of your business, but it may also backfire on you for not being involved enough.
Group 5:
ReplyDelete1. What do you think you could bring to this office that others cannot?
2. What is your availability?
3. What is 20% of 100-66 without using a calculator?
( If this employee will be handling money then they should be able to handle simple math)
I might hire an inexperienced chiropractor as an independent contractor. Pros would include: decreasing the overhead for both of us, added income (especially if they are successful), boosting the reputation of your clinic, and having the pleasure of helping the reputation of our profession by coaching a fellow chiropractor.
Cons would include: using time that could be with patients to coach the independent contractor, inexperienced chiropractors could possibly hurt the reputation of the clinic if not coached properly, and lack of experience could burn out your staff.
Using a temp agency would save you the trouble of having multiple interviews hoping for the right person to walk through the door. The downside to using a temp agency is that it will change the flow of your office. Having a different face at the front desk every other day could cause patients to feel uneasy. Flow is important, change is not always for the best.
Group 15:
ReplyDeleteHiring the correct front desk person is crucial to any medical practice. This is the first person the patient comes in contact with and is the last person the patient will talk to before departure. We think it is very important that the CA’s are very welcoming, so when a patient walks into the office they will feel like they are at home. One of our team members is thinking of hiring a mother or a woman of older age to control everything in the front of the office.
Chances are we would not use a temp agency. It is very important that the doctor or manager that does the hiring interview the individuals. If the interview goes well, there could be a potential second interview. The one on one interview is very important and allows the interviewer to get a glimpse of the personality of a potential future employee. These are the individuals that have the most contact with patients after the doctor is finished treating them.
Some questions to ask would be: 1. What are your strengths and weakness? 2. How will you be an asset to our clinic? 3. Are you a people person? Experience working in a chiropractic office is not necessary because we are willing to train the right individual.
The CA’s and front desk staff requires a few capabilities to be successful on the job. The most important attribute that we are looking for is if they are a social individual. They should feel comfortable being around people, be genuine and a need to want to take care of them. That’s why we would like to hire an older woman or mother. We will be looking for someone mature, has good work experience, is reliable, embodies professionalism and an excellent communicator.
Group 13
ReplyDeleteQuestions
1) What type of experience do you have working in a health care environment?
2) What are your strengths and weaknesses in communication?
3) What unique qualities do you bring to this position?
An outside contractor could be for billing, cleaning, massage therapist, and/or physical therapist.
Pros
billing service - keep billing questions, issues and problems outside of the office so you as a doctor and staff members can focus more on the patient
cleaning- you don't have to spend extra time cleaning where you could be working on paperwork and patient files
massage/physical therapist - additional income and opens up more time for in schedule for more patients (if D.C. was doing trigger point and additional therapies before hire)
Cons
billing service - pay company percentage of what doctor makes (ends up being about the same amount you would pay for a billing person in office)
cleaning - may use wrong cleaning products on equipment in office
massage/physical therapist - wrong image as others above me have mentioned, negative publicity,
Using a temp agency:
Pros - good if need someone for a short period of time to fill a position that does not require much training
Cons - person is using a temp agency most likely because they are having trouble getting a job so probably not the best person to have in the office
Group 1
ReplyDeleteHiring a front desk person:
After talking to a few different doctors about how to hire the right front desk person I think holding a group interview would be the best way. If you get a group of 5 - 10 people in a room, have them introduce themselves to each other, then hold a little discussion about chiropractic, your best candidates will quickly show up. Follow the group interview by one-on-one interviews with your top choices, and you'll probably make a good choice.
Some questions that I would ask are whether or not they have any experience with chiropractic as they will be the first person that your patients see so you want to make sure that they can advocate the importance of chiropractic for you. Also, whether or not they have any experience with dealing with insurance companies. Lastly, I would ask what their strengths and weaknesses are. Other questions would be: 1. Are they reward driven or self driven? 2. Are they willing to go be specific rules and protocols? 3. Are they willing to keep a professional boundary between themselves and the patients?
Outside Contractor:
Using an outside contractor could include getting a massage therapist or a physical therapist in the office or someone to do the insurance or billing for you. Pros would be that you don’t have to worry about spending your own time on billing and calling on chiropractic benefits for every person’s insurance. A con for an outside contractor for a massage therapist is (this just happened this week in the office I’m precepting at) is that the massage therapist could get upset because people are being too loud outside the door while a massage is going on. She could come out and get mad at the mom with the loud kids (who happens to be a new patient in the office who has never experienced chiropractic before). The mom decides to leave and says she won’t be coming back because of the massage therapist. Here you have a potential whole family who has never experienced chiropractic before who now has a bad image of not only your office but possibly of the whole profession because of a massage therapist that you hired.
Temp agencies:
Using a temp agency at first may be a good idea if your having a difficult time finding the right person for the job. With a temp agency you can let the agency let somebody go without personally laying them off. I recently talked to an acquaintance whose job was to staff medical offices with people. The employees worked for his outside company and received benefits through them as well. Although this is probably a more expensive route for the doctor (a con to a temp agency), it relieves him of providing benefits for his employees, and makes it so they can focus on being a doctor and not just running a business.
Group 11
ReplyDeleteWhen interviewing a front desk person we find it important that they are friendly and very self driven.
So we would want to know what computer skills they possess, and programs they have handled?
An example of how they have been a people person in the past?
If they have had any previous experience of being self driven? and an example of how?
We had discussed bringing in a massage therapist on contract. This would allow us to have a good referral source that would be a benefit to our patients. This would definitely be a positive aspect for the growing business, and some of the massage therapist's clientele would benefit from chiropractic services, creating a nice referral service back and forth. We also discussed hiring an associate on contract. This would allow us to see more patients and help more people; however, we would have to worry about the possibility of our patients following the associate to a new location. Another disadvantage of hiring out on contract is that the massage therapist would have to have a personality and an attitude that would beneficial to chiropractic care. If they do not have the same personal philosophies the massage therapist could be damaging to the practice.
Our group has decided that we would not want to use a temp agency. First of all, we would want to do the hiring because the atmosphere of the office is essential to the comfort and flow for our patients. This would also allow us to get a better idea of how the person's personality would match with our own. A benefit of not using a temp agency allows us to know who we are working with better, and less likely to have to retrain an employee every few months if the temp did not work out. We want consistency in our office so when the patient arrives they know the office staff as well as they know us. The biggest downfall of not using a temp agency is that we would have to do all the interviewing. For this we would have certain criteria that we would have on our job application to allow us to rule out certain applicants.
GROUP 17
ReplyDeletewhat are three interview questions you would use when hiring a front desk person?
1) what is your past work experience?
2) how do you handle conflict or confrontation?
3) what do you know about chiropractic?
what type of services might you use an outside contractor for and
what are the pros and cons of using an outside contractor
Massage therapist, PT, acupuncture: Pro - bring more traffic and additional income. Con - more people to manage.
Cleaning, maintenance, lawn care, snow removal: Pro - less stuff to worry about and it gets done by professionals, Con - cost money and people would have access to PT files
what are the pros and cons of using a temp agency.
Pro - they weed out unqualified applicants
Con - they employee might be unmotivated bc they are only temp, you are limited to people in their system
What are three interview questions you would use when hiring a front desk person
ReplyDelete-How have you, in the past, managed the demand of multiple tasks?
-Tell a story about your best and worst customer service experiences.
-What do you understand to be the most important task of the position?
What type of services might you use an outside contractor for?
Massage therapy, cleaning, maintence, mass media ad campaigns, web design
What are the pros and cons of using an outside contractor - be specific?
The pros are that there are no employee taxes, no benefits paid to contractors, the burden of providing a consitent salery is elminated, no worries of paying for unemployment after contract is complete / terminated, can switch contractors very easliy if one is not fulfulling the needs of the company, bring new eperiences and perspectives to the business.
The cons are that they may not be as reliable/ consistent/ well trained/ dedicated/ long term as an employee, they are much less likely to refer friends and family to the business for care, (low PVI personl vested Interest) in business. May need the assistence of a full time employee to complete the project, therefore in some ways they are less efficient long term. There is a possibility of coporate espionage - sharing trade secrets with competitors. They typically cost more money per hour than an employee.
What are the pros and cons of using a temp agency?
Pros are that they pre screen all candidates and supply a "best match" for the position. They can save time / money / effort invested in recruiting and training. There is a much larger pool of candidates to pull from than open interviews or ongoing hiring so it's much faster to fulfill an open position. There is no long term comitment to the employee, no benefits need to be paid.
Cons are that they are a high cost option for finding cadidates (referal fee, higher pay rates, temp to hire fee, some charge a monthly 'retainer' for access to possible candidates.). Temp agencies have incentive to place candidates even if they are not the best for the position. Candidtaes may be under trained or unfamiliar with the chiropractic setting, possible transient population would require orientation and support from an employee of the company
Interview questions:
ReplyDeleteOn a scale of 1 to 10, how loyal would you rate yourself?
What do you think about chiropractors?
What do you think makes you a good fit for this position?
what type of services might you use an outside contractor for:
Massage therapist, physical therapist, cleaning, marketing, webmaster.
what are the pros and cons of using an outside contractor
The pros and cons to the use of an outside contractor are numerous, but as with most business related things it comes down to money. The right outside contractor will bring people in your doors who would not usually do so and provide extra income. It would allow you to create a more comprehensive care plan for patients that would also be easier for the patient to follow through with since you have created a sort of "one-stop-shop". These outside contractors would also bring their own expertise to the table that other lower qualified employees would likely not possess. Some cons would include an increased likelihood that the contractor would bolt for greener pastures since they aren't as committed to you as an employee would be. Not being in total control of the contractor as you would be with an employee could also yield a less efficient use of time and could be a bit of a financial burden if they are not properly trained.
what are the pros and cons of using a temp agency?
Some temp agency pros would be that you would have the position filled much sooner and if things don't work out you have no obligations to the employee so they could be disposed of with ease.
Cons would include the associated temp agency fees, the amount of qualification the temp would have could range from excellent to very poor and the temp's knowledge of chiropractic could be limited or even non-existent.
Group 19
ReplyDeleteJosh Morter
3 questions for potential employees:
As said before, the first question of any potential employee has to be directed at their understanding of chiropractic. Many misconceptions and half truths circulate in the public's mind and our employees need to be our biggest proponents in practice.
A second question we like is asking the candidate their understanding of what this job involves. What do they see themselves doing during their time here? This question provides insight to their work ethic and understanding of the job requirements.
The third question would be focused on their future goals. Where are they headed in life? We do not want to hire someone who plans to move or leave in a few months. We also want a person with goals and vision.
Outside contractors:
Outside contractors could include your cleaning crew, billing/clearinghouse, other therapists and professionals, marketing, etc. The advantages include a professional already trained to offer that service, usually at a lower price than you could hire an individual. The major downside is you may have to enter a contract and loose some control over the task. Contractors also have other customers and may not be as focused on your practice compared to a employee.
Pros/Cons of Temp. agency?
Using temp staffing allows the new practice to quickly fill the position without interviews. You also have more flexibility in scheduling. If you only wish to have a person for 2 hours in the am and 2 in the pm while you build patient volume a temp agency could fill that request. Finding a employee to meet those needs could be difficult. You also get your practice exposed to potential new patients and they may spread the word about your practice. The new doctor also avoids the task of firing a employee that is not working out. However, you may or may not get the same person on a regular basis. You loose control of who they send to a large degree. You also don't have any idea what their chiropractic experience may have been.
-How much do you know about chiropractic?
ReplyDelete-Why do you want to work in our clinic?
-what are your strengths and weaknesses?
I probably use outside contractor for billing/insurance stuffs. The pro for using outside contractor is that we can save some time so we can focus more on our patients. The con will be that we have to pay them some percentage of how much we make.
Also the pro for using temp agency is that they are available to work quickly for the clinic. The con will be that they have less motivation to work in the clinic since they are not going to work for long period of time.
Our response (Group 23) is a little late, as we were off a week with our response.
ReplyDeleteThe three questions we would ask the employee to be are as followed:
1.) What do you know about this chiropractic clinic and more importantly what do you know about chiropractic in general?
2.) What are some of your strengths and weaknesses that will be used to benefit this office?
3.) What is one interpersonal attribute that puts you ahead of other potential employees when it comes to handling difficult situation.
When it come to the use of an outside contractor for billing/insurance, maintenance, and massage therapy.
The Pro's for a billing/insurance outside contractor would be that they are able to deal with problems and issues that arise both inside and outside of the office as well as answer any questions regarding billing and insurance which gives your staff a better opportunity to work with patients directly. The downfall or con to having a billing outside contractor is that you will have to pay them the same if not more than what you would pay a full-time employee.
The pro's of a maintenance crew is that you the doctor do not have to spend time working on things in the office and running errands throughout the day when something breaks. When this happens you are taking away from your patient care and the last thing you want to do is make the patient wait. The con of a maintenance crew would be that they do not properly know how to fix, clean and service chiropractic equipment and they can end up costing you more money in the long run if they destroy valuable pieces of equipment.
The pro's for massage would be that it is another source of income for you and the massage therapist can work more in depth on an area of injury while you are caring for others.
A con for a massage therapist would be if there is negativity toward the person and if they are practicing in a different mindset or manner than that of the D.C.
The pro of using a temp agency is that they are immediately available to do the work and more than likely they specialize in certain areas of work. The con to having a temp agency would be that they are hired for a short period of time and the work that they do in that period of time many reflect poorly on you or your business and may not be to the standards of certain agencies or organizations which you are trying to work with.