Resolutions - Improve Staff Relationships

Working in Healthcare, we spend most of our waking time at work instead of at home with our families.  While having employment is a blessing, when you don’t like your co-workers or employees, it can feel like a curse.  Since we must work together, why not try to improve the time we spend together? Having open lines of communication can help subdue negative feelings as well as improve relationships with both employees and patients too.

All staff deserve to be valued equally. I understand that some positions require more education and experience than others, but a happy, profitable office needs all positions to work together.  As I have stated before, your front desk staff is the first contact, and sometimes last contact of your patients.  It is imperative that the person/people in this position is friendly and accommodating to your patients, whether on the phone or in person.  Being the front desk person can be very difficult in a medical office. They need to field all calls and visits. They must determine who really needs to see or talk to the doctor right away or who can be seen later. It is no easy task to tell someone sick or in pain, that they must wait for relief.  Your back office/billing staff are important too. They are the people who turn the actual work of your office into dollars.  When billers ask for clarification in your notes, it is not because they want to bother you. Billers/coders know the insurance is going to want more information, so rather than wait for the request-we are trying to be proactive and get a resolution before it is an issue.  Perhaps we are aware of codes that have changed or been updated, and want to make sure the procedures billed are still correct.  We don’t want to be “know-it-alls,” but the accuracy of our jobs requires us to have the knowledge, or know where to go to get it.  A good coder/biller will see possible changes ahead and make sure your practice is ready for them.  Clinical staff-medical assistants, lab, nurses, etc. these people are all crucial to the practice as well.  They each have specific job functions that render the information you, the doctor need to make the best plan of care for your patient.  They spend much face to face time with the patients, doing the stuff no one wants to do (give shots, take x-rays while a patient is in pain, attempt to get information from patients, etc).  All of these people working together is what makes an office run effectively.  When we get along, the practice can be a positive atmosphere.  When the practice is positive, patients notice and are more comfortable getting treatment from your practice versus one where everyone scowls at each other.  Everyone deserves respect. When we are treated fair, we are going to be nicer and more fair with others-creating a happy work environment and happier patients.

Suggestion or Comment Box.  Does your office use patient satisfaction surveys? Does your office have staff satisfaction surveys?  You should be using both, but for the contents of this blog we will be discussing why staff suggestions or comments should be requested.  As part of the CMS Compliance requirement (not yet required)-staff should have an open door policy for reporting HIPAA violations and guaranteed no retaliation for informing.  If an employee discovers a possible breach of HIPAA, or another unethical situation-its best for them to inform you or management, over an outside entity. Once a report is made, the employee should be thanked for coming forward and a full confidential investigation should be completed.  If the information is correct, make changes to ensure it doesn’t happen again-if you must contact OIG because of the infraction your penalties will be far less than if the employee went straight to the OIG themselves.  That is a “worst case scenario” of the suggestion box, but again-its better for you to be aware first and have the opportunity to correct it, than to have to hear about it from the feds.  Most likely you will find comments within the Human Resources realm of your office.  There could be suggestions of employee rewards or fun competitions, there most likely will be comments of specific employees not getting along.  All of these comments are very useful.  You want to keep your staff happy, and if you can help diffuse strained relationships in the workplace-everyone wins.  Remember happy staff means happier patients too.

The scheduled staff meeting.  Does your office have a regularly schedule staff meeting every week, or every month? If not, you should be having all staff members come together on a regular basis.  Depending on the size of your office, and the patient volume, most staff members may not have much opportunity to interact with each other.  This is a great opportunity for other departments to get to work together and possibly even come up with solutions to each other’s problems.  If possible, have an itinerary to discuss specific issues then open the floor for suggestions.  Sometimes having someone outside our regular area of expertise can see things from a different point of view and bring new solutions that no one had thought of before.  This is also a great time to bring up any changes. If the office is now going to increase the bounce check fee to patients, bring this up at the meeting.  Even though billing staff will be most affected, your nurse may be asked by a patient during her visit about the rate increase-and its helpful for the nurse to know too-since she spends face time with the patients.  If you have a suggestion box, open the contents and read them aloud.  See if staff have solutions or feelings about the suggestion given.  The staff meeting is also a great time to discuss how each staff member is preparing for ICD 10 and to give encouragement for all staff to get onboard and learn the changes.
Rewards-Doesn’t everyone like a treat?  It is widely known that positive reinforcement can get longer lasting results than punishment.  It’s a longer process to wait for, and then punish negative behavior, than it is to “treat” good behavior as soon as it is observed.  Have an office goal (no tardy employees for a month) or a department goal (increase copayments received in office), and reward the group when the goal is obtained.  The reward can be lunch brought in, or even something smaller like nice pens for office staff, or new matching lanyards for clinical staff.  The important part is recognizing each person in the office (or department) for obtaining the goal.  If you set department goals-make sure each department has a goal to work towards and the opportunity to obtain the goal and get the reward.  Its empowering to see other departments work together for the good of a practice (and the good of the patients).

There are lots of ways to improve staff relationships in the workplace.  Having open lines of communication is very important and will help keep small annoyances from becoming World War 3 in the office.  It is important that each person knows they are important and valued for the work that they do.  They must also feel comfortable coming to you, or a designated person (Human Resources), when there is a problem that they are not able to correct.  If you follow those 2 main goals and then mix in a little bit of team building and fun-your staff will have more enjoyment of work and your outcomes in patient satisfaction will increase as well.  Besides, we enjoy what we do-but wouldn’t it be nice if you could enjoy it more?