When you wake up in the morning, do you immediately jump out of bed or do you hit the snooze alarm several times?  Are you really excited about going to the office or has it become routine?  Well, if you go to the office thinking, “What else can go wrong today?” then you might need a way to fix those frustrating management headaches. 

In my opinion, the ideal practice is one where a doctor is free to focus on creating practice revenue. This means when they show up to work they can focus mainly on delivering care and case presentations. The two most important income-producing areas in every practice!

The problem is that so much of a doctor’s time is consumed with putting out management fires. Here are three tips for reducing these common management frustrations:

  1. Systems are the answer.

How many times a day are you called out of the treatment room to answer questions that someone else should be able to handle?  Are you constantly wasting time on redoing other people’s work?  Doctors waste enormous time on things like:

  • Having to make sure a staff person is doing what they're supposed to be doing
  • Spending too much time on the telephone, and not enough time on practice development
  • Chasing insurance payments
  • Trying to do everything yourself


Wasting time on these things, means less time spent on practice development. You get caught up just putting out fires. Nothing significant seems to get accomplished. This can lead to frustration.  The solution is to set up systems and training.  Systems allow you and your staff to do things more effectively and efficiently

You will find that by implementing systems, your income will improve and the practice will grow.  This is because the doctor has more time for practice development. 

  1. Get rid of the belief "no one can do it better than me!"

There are two ways to increase your income.  One is to see more patients and the second is to produce more per patient.  If you believe, “if you want something done right, do it yourself,” then it will not be possible to increase your income exponentially.

Staff is there to help.  They want to feel important and be in charge of their work.  You need to train them and then empower them. I see doctors taking their own x-rays, putting on their own bandages and setting up their own procedures.  Why not train a medical assistant to do this for you.  They will appreciate it and you will be able to spend more time with your patients.  Since you will be able to see more patients, you will be increasing your income.

Stick around for the next Practice Management blog that will explain the third and final tip for reducing your management headaches – Relegation.

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