I recently read an article written by a fellow consultant whom I admire and respect for both consulting knowledge and no-nonsense systems planning. However, when the article also discussed job responsibilities and listed no less than 7 “coordinators” needed by every ortho practice, I did feel like we’d reached a diversion in opinion. We have the scheduling coordinator (the staff member who makes the appointments), the Financial Coordinator (the staff member in charge of collections), the Clinical Coordinator, the Marketing Coordinator, etc., etc., etc. While we have no issues with titles, it does seem we’ve started to get a bit caught in our own nonsense. We definitely need responsibilities delegated to specific staff members, but does everyone really have to have a title to feel good about getting their job done?
A solid orthodontic office runs with a good Office Manager, a competent Treatment Coordinator, smart staff members at the front desk and well trained assistants. That’s really all you need. If you have an exceptionally large office, you might want a lead assistant. Done….over…fini, terminado, làm xong! Our offices have started to drown in titles and it has not been beneficial for the doctors, the staff or the practices. We’ve all become so full of ourselves and our titles that we forget our main objective is to get the business of the practice done. Everyone is just too darn important to do anything…..and heaven help us if we dare to suggest that someone with a fancy title should clean an office bathroom. These days we’d rather just do it ourselves than listen to all the important titled staff members telling us why bathroom cleaning is not in their job description.
We see it as time to get back to basics and stop all the silliness and self-importance. We’re all an essential part of the team, from the doctor to the assistant who only does sterilization. We’ve become so title obsessed that we’re not getting all the basic jobs of scheduling, collections and patient care accomplished. The very best practices we see are the ones with great docs and bright staff members and very few titles. They all work as a team…..and even the doctor occasionally cleans the bathroom. When we stop trying to swim so hard upstream to the next title, we actually have time to work and save ourselves from drowning in our own importance.
