Description

Overview

Our hope is that this job description is a helpful tool for you to focus on what matters. It’s no coincidence that the majority of this description is focused on our Team, followed by processes, then setting. That is the order of importance and should be reflected in how you spend your time.

Our Team is the most important part of chasing our Mission. Poor processes frustrate our Team and diminish the patient experience. Our setting is one of our biggest story-telling components that often gets overlooked. Consistent and focused effort in these areas will no doubt continue to lift our practice into something we’re all proud to plugin to!

We’re searching for an Office Manager that can lead and Dazzle our Team. We hope that MEC can Dazzle you in the same way; we’re sure going to try.

Core Responsibilities

Build and Maintain a Cohesive Team

McFarland Eye Care will only ever be as good as its collective Team and our Office Managers are an essential part of building a Dazzling Team. Here are the basic responsibilities:

1. Hire Team members that demonstrate and adhere to MEC’s core values. Our OMs are central to the interview process for their location and will be the primary filter to ensure the Team members we allow into our practice demonstrate our core values.
   1. Knock Their Socks Off. This is our way of saying empathy matters. Our Our Team needs to be able to demonstrate empathy in the interview process through specific questions meant to help bring this out. It also needs to be stressed that our expectation is to knock not only our patients socks off, but our Team’s as well.
   2. Everything Speaks.Everything that our patients interact with while they are here with us at MEC tells them a storywe want that story to be, we are experts, here to listen and help you with your eye care needs. The details of our patients’ experience matter, and we need detail-oriented people minding their experience. Whether it’s making sure we’re getting the right insurance information, documenting our charts correctly, or keeping our entry ways, bathrooms, etc. clean, these details are important and speak to the patient about how we value them and their experience.
   3. Plug In. We want our Team to take ownership of their role here at MEC; work like their name is on the building because, for all intents and purposes, it is. We want our Team to be proud to refer their family and friends to us, and proud to be associated with us. That only comes from everyone caring enough to plug into our mission, patients, and culture.
   4. Play. Pouring energy into our patients takes a lot of energy from our Team. Play is our commitment to pour energy back into them. It also speaks to looking for these qualities in our Team. Are they going to lift their Team with energy or detract from it?
2. Facilitate effective and timely communication among our Team. OMs play a pivotal role in making sure our Team is connected to the information they need and that starts by establishing dependable lines of communication.
   1. Weekly Team meetings. OMs should hold a weekly Team meeting attended by all at their location. The purpose is to: 1) reinforce process updates that are disseminated through the bi-weekly process update, published by our Director of Compliance and Process Improvement, 2) review company updates, and 3) discuss on-going topics specific to their location.
   2. Sit-down conversations. We know that our Team responds well to one-on-one time with their direct manager. Though our Clinic Supervisors can fill this role as well, we believe it is important that each Team member also connects consistently with their OM. And even though there’s likely a lot of collective time for feedback and touch points throughout the week, we believe a casual (but slightly more formal than talking over lunch in the breakroom) meeting no less than once per month is appropriate. OMs should find a setting where there isn’t a desk between them and the Team member, and invite candid feedback, trying to listen more than speaking. Address what matters and tailor each conversation to the Team member in front of you. Consider documenting via a coaching form to keep a record of the things you’re talking about so you both can reference back to them.
   3. Team emails as needed. To vary our communication channels and occasionally provide necessary documentation, emails will of course be a part of that communication mix and should be to the point while also providing relevant context for the info we’re providingdon’t just drop them into a topic, tell them a story!
3. Connect Team with training. OMs should be well versed in using the platforms used by our Team, including Paycom, Nextech, Clearwave, MDIdentity, and the Microsoft Office Suite. Additionally, OMs should be prepared to connect our Team with the training they need on these platforms and other relevant skills, be it direct one-on-one training, coordination with our Clinic Training Manager, or assigning time with another Team member that can provide training.
4. Create a sense of Play. Play is our way of pouring energy back into our Team and for that reason, every location’s sense of play might be a little different. Maybe we encourage nerf guns, blind gummy bear taste tests, play bean-boozled, etc. Find what works for your location and Teammake it a part of your culture!
5. Observe our Team. This seems small, but it is important for our OMs to set aside a minimum of two hours each week to observe one member of our Team continuously. Shadow them and ask questions. Try to dig out the small frustrations in their day so we can fix them. Show them you are interested in them and the things they are concerned about.
6. Accountability, accountability, accountability. Have the conversation you’ve been avoiding but know you need to have and make sure you’re in a mindset of rooting for this Team member’s success when you do it. That energy and mindset will be apparent to the Team member. Listen more than you talk and ask for their feedback on the issue. There are always multiple sides to an issue, and we need to take their perspective into account as part of the conversation.
7. Do not tolerate bad apples, they will spoil the whole bunch.

Reach for Operational Excellence

Our OMs are responsible for creating a honed operational system that is capable of consistently delivering exceptional patient care and experiences, and meets MEC’s expectations of operational performance. What follows are the key areas that require steady attention.

1. Monitor patient feedback and satisfaction. Perform service recovery quickly when necessary. MEC has a couple of tools to help us monitor patient feedback. First, we engage with a platform called MDidentitythat, after an appointment, will ask our patients to leave us a Google review. These will be shared via email so OMs can keep tabs on what patients are saying about their location. The second is from a three-button feedback system called FeedbackNow that simply asks how their visit was. Button pushes will automatically register to a widget dashboard that our OMs should monitor periodically. Also, red button pushes will trigger an immediate email to the OM and others so multiple people are aware of the issue. In addition to those things though, periodically walking through the waiting room is an easy way to pick up on how things are going. Engage with our patients and encourage our Team to engage with them. Direct feedback about their experience with us is invaluable.

When we inevitably fail to live up to our expectations of service, we should jump on the problem quickly. Encourage your Team to do so and back them up when they are uncomfortable. Never underestimate the power of falling on the proverbial sword. It’s disarming and can steal the negative energy away from a patient.

1. Monitor clinic and waiting room flow, mindful of our time tracking goals. In an attempt to Dazzle each and every patient we serve and meet the rising expectations our patients have of timely appointments, MEC has set operational goals with respect to callback times and overall post op visit times. While our OMs will rely on their Clinic Supervisor to create and sustain an efficient clinic flow, they should have a pulse on the rhythm of the day and when/where log jams occur. OMs will have a different and sometimes better vantage point than their Clinic Supervisor and should actively help break up the log jams when they occur.
2. Create schedules that facilitate a Dazzling patient experience and help us achieve our clinic and surgery goals. As OMs work to understand the rhythms of the doctors and day, they (along with their Clinic Supervisor) will be uniquely positioned to build efficient and effective schedules. We want our patients to be called back and seen in a timely manner. We also want to be able to meet our production goals. Building a schedule that can achieve both is allusive at best and always a moving target. It requires working toward consistency in work up times among our Team and across more appointment types, and real data analysis to understand the appropriate spacing needed among various appointment types. We need our OMs constantly on the hunt for a better mouse trap here, reacting to our Team’s capabilities and our patients’ experience.
3. Ensure recall and appointment reminders are sent consistently and in a timely manner. Recalls and reminders are an important part of keeping our schedules full and guarding against no shows. The Patient Help Desk will play a role in these functions, but our OMs should ultimately verify these processes are working as they should for their location by monitoring no shows, upcoming schedules, and the recall and reminder processes themselves.
4. Monitor Clearwave flags and eligibility. Most claim denials can be traced back to eligibility issues that our Team scheduling appointments will be responsible for. This is another area where our Front Office Team will share responsibilities with our PHD, but our Front Office will be our last line of defense to ensure that there are no eligibility issues as patients check in. Our Office Managers will need to monitor Clearwave for eligibility flags and make sure they are addressed before patients are being seen. This will largely be achieved by cultivating a strong Front Office Team by providing adequate training and accountability for processes.
5. Create and execute an effective end of day close process. This is outlined in a separate document and incorporated here by reference.

Curate a Setting That Tells Our Story

As we’ve already said, our setting is a big part of the story we’re telling our patients, and we need to be mindful of the details with constant maintenanceEVERYONE is a maintenance Team member!

1. Maintain facilities and equipment. Our OMs should come through the front door each day, where our patients enter. Be mindful of trash and things in disrepair. Address what you can right then and report what you can’t. We pass by things or have grown accustomed to things in their current state. Try to see them with fresh eyes as our patients do. They will also sit in certain areas for a while, giving them time to scrutinize things more than we do, which is why we need to be very detail oriented.
2. Oversee supply ordering. OMs should ensure that a routine inventory process is in place, alerting us to supply needs with enough time to reorder before we run out. Centralize your supplies where possible and make sure our Clinic Team is taking a good room inventory each day, and centrally documenting inventory counts.

Qualifications

Qualifications, Requirements and Wishlist

• Demonstrate our core values. Notice how this is coming up a lot??
• Prior experience working in a healthcare or medical office setting, preferably with a focus on ophthalmology.
• Proven experience in a managerial or supervisory role, with the ability to lead and motivate our Team!
• Strong organizational and time management skills to efficiently oversee office operations, prioritize tasks, and meet deadlines.
• Demonstrated ability to collaborate and communicate effectively.
• It’s 2023 and we have Microsoft tattooed to us somewhere, so expect to run into the usual suspectsOutlook, Word, Power Point, and the best program ever created, Excel.

Time Allocation

Facility inspection and maintenance 2.5 hrs/week

Team meetings and prep 4-6 hrs/week

One-on-one observation 2-4 hrs/week

Discretionary Remaining time