How necessary is a dental office manager to your practice? A quote that I really believe is that “We can do anything, but we can’t do everything.” While it’s not impossible to do anything, if we simply try to do everything by ourselves, we won’t get anything done right.
Lorie Streeter, the senior Vice President of American Association of Dental Office Managers (AADOM) gave us a few good reasons on the Thriving Dentist Podcast on why an office manager would be crucial to a dental practice. Lorie has over 22 years of experience in the dental profession, 12 of which she spent as an office manager herself.
Why do I need one?
A question that I often get is whether the practice needs to be a certain size, before they can hire an office manager. An office manager can benefit any kind of dentist’s office, whether it be a solo-doctor practice or a group practice.
A dental office manager doesn’t stand in between you and the team, they tie you to the team. They can really free yourself up to focus on the clinical side of dentistry, which is what most dentists love to do. With an office manager, you don’t need to worry about the day-to-day administrative tasks on such a detailed level, and you can focus fully on your patients.
Duties and responsibilities
The role of office manager has in a dental practice has now evolved to encompass a whole lot of different tasks and duties. A dental office manager can take care of all the business aspects of your dental practice. Everything from profit and loss statements, to overseeing or helping with scheduling, collections, patient financing, or even inventory. A lot of companies and event dentists make sure on whether office managers have the skill level to help you determine whether you need new pieces of equipment in the practice. An office manager could also play a marketing or an HR role.
With such a wide range of tasks an office manager’s role can become the central hub of the entire practice.
You go to dentist school because you want to be a dentist, that’s where your passion lies, nobody hands you a manual saying that now you have to be an HR person, or an insurance expert. An office manager can become the advocate for you and the practice and take some of these burdens off your shoulders, and help you really be the dentists that you’ve always wanted to be.
