When designing the job descriptions in your practice, it is important to look at the big picture before we dive into your Dentrix software. First, let’s identify the vision of this position and what outcome or result you desire. After we look at the 37k foot view of this job description, then we can start drilling down into the weeds and what tasks are needed to accomplish the result. The person who will fit into this primary role will need to have the personality type, skills, and character to fill these shoes.
As an example, let’s look at the Financial Coordinator job description. This person’s primary role would include being responsible for collecting money, managing financial arrangements, and following up with patients who have outstanding balances. These outcomes all come with a set of tasks that need to be completed every day. Each office might have a slightly different set of tasks for this role depending on how many team members are in that practice to fulfill the role.
The Financial Coordinator job description might include the following tasks:
- Setting up payment agreements
- Sending billing statements
- Making follow up calls or emails to past due accounts
- Checking patients’ insurance benefits
- Generating and following up on insurance claims
- Sending accounts to collection
- Balancing the collections for the day
In your job description, it is important to outline all the tasks that are associated with this role and how each task is accomplished. Every task would be on the to-do list every day and included in your SOP guideline. Once you have identified the tasks, then create a “how to” guide so the team member has a clear path to complete the task. The how-to is where your Dentrix software will come into play and give your team the workflow needed to create the necessary outcome of the job.
With this example of the Financial Coordinator, the how-to in Dentrix would be accomplished using several different reports and processes to collect money. If we look at some of the list of tasks above, I can think of several reports and features inside of Dentrix to help complete these tasks. Remember, however, that this is an ongoing process and becomes part of the weekly workflow.
- Use the Payment Agreement Manager for managing all patient payment plans
- I love Quickbill for generating patient billing statements and would not use any other system for sending statements
- The Collection Manager is the best report in Dentrix for managing all patient accounts receivable.
- There is a four-step process for sending accounts to collection. To learn more about this, I would re-read my blog HERE
Of course, this is just a sampling of what might go into your written job description in your practice. The critical piece to this is making sure you identify the “what” and the “how” this all gets done so your team members know when they walk in the door each day what they are responsible for and how they are going to accomplish their tasks. If someone needs to take a leave of absence or you are hiring a new person for this role, you can point to this document for guidance.
