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Curbside Consult with Dr. Jayne 4/25/16

April 25, 2016 Dr. Jayne, News 1 Comment

I wrote last week about my experience with a client who had been swindled by a practice administrator who had promised far more than he could deliver. A reader commented: “I would have loved to hear a few more specifics on what a practice might do to avoid hiring such an administrator or office manager. It has also been my experience that too many independent practices don’t seem to know what to really look for and consequently suffer down the road.”

I’ve certainly done more than my share of hiring and firing over the last decade. On my own, I’ve employed medical assistants, office managers, and partners. I also had to terminate at least one of each. As part of the corporate world, I’ve had to deal with vetting a host of positions including clinical staff, IT staff, managers, and operations execs. As a consultant, I’ve been asked to deal with errant members of the C-suite and upper management and also to assist in finding their replacements.

The best tip I can offer anyone in a hiring position is an old adage: trust your gut. Nearly every time I’ve gone against my gut, there’s been a poor outcome. Sometimes you can’t avoid it, especially if you’re in an employed capacity or part of a larger corporate entity.

For example, I once had to hire an analyst to run some lab interface work. The health system’s HR department (which usually left something to be desired) was only able to find two candidates who were remotely qualified. Although their resumes were decent, both of them interviewed somewhat poorly. I felt the first one didn’t understand the job we were offering, despite our attempts to explain it and talk about the work she would be doing. She kept going back to what she had done in the past and how good she was at it, even though we were trying to assess whether she’d be a good fit going forward.

The second one was too folksy right off the bat. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a folksy girl myself, but there’s a time and place for familiarity and it’s not in a job interview. I don’t want to hear about your children and your weekend plans – not because I don’t care, but because it’s too easy to get close to discussion topics that are normally a bad idea during the interview process. She seemed to be much more eager than the other candidate, but I didn’t really feel that she would be able to get the job done.

I wanted to go back to HR and ask them to look for other candidates, but was under pressure to fill the open posting immediately to ensure we could get someone in the position before a series of budget cuts that might force us to pull the opening off the board.

Although her interface skills were decent, it turned out that her overly casual demeanor was reflective of casual regard which she paid to all her work. When asked for status reports, it always felt like she was on the cusp of getting to the tasks that needed to be done, rather than actually doing them. She also liked to spend a lot of time chatting with other team members, which impacted not only her productivity, but that of others. It felt like she spent a lot of time doing nothing and then sprinted towards the deadline, which was a poor fit for our company culture.

Although I was involved in the hiring, I wasn’t her direct manager. He didn’t seem to have the wherewithal to deal with her because she interpreted every element of constructive criticism as “being mean.” Needless to say, she didn’t last very long. My failure to fight for my gut feeling in that situation bothered me for a long time.

Besides following your instinct, it’s important to watch out for people that seem too good to be true. Maybe they have a seemingly stellar record of accomplishments, but are willing to work for a salary that is lower than they appear to be worth. Sometimes you can get a bargain, but usually there’s a good story to go along with it. For example, a highly-skilled administrator who moves to a small town to care for aging parents or someone who needs a more low-key role to provide greater work-life balance. Usually these candidates realize that they may seem oddly matched for a position and will take the lead on explaining their desire to move down the ladder.

Other times, though, they might not have a good explanation for why they left their last position, or the references they provide don’t seem to make sense. I admit that it’s getting harder and harder to get a decent reference, particularly from past employers. Often organizations will simple verify the dates that the individual was employed. If you’re lucky, they might tell you if the person is eligible for rehire. Getting a true reference that you feel you can trust is like gold.

Other things that I sometimes don’t see smaller practices do: the consumer background check. They may do a criminal check, but not a consumer one. In this day and age, it’s important to know whether the people you are hiring have had any financial difficulties, particularly if they are going to be a position to handle funds within the office. Of course, that won’t tell you if the employee will make bad decisions, like the front desk staffer that I fired after finding $1,200 in co-pays in the sample closet. Why, you might ask, was the money in the sample closet? Because she didn’t have time to go to the bank and do the deposit each night, so she wanted to keep it somewhere “safe.”

Organizations should also make sure that candidates have valid experience for the position they’re trying to fill. Candidates might not have held the exact same job or title, but should be able to clearly explain how their previous experience will translate to the new position. Especially for higher-level roles, most organizations don’t have time to deal with someone who cannot hit the ground running. I do occasionally see it though, with groups that feel like they can mold someone into something that they may not be able to become.

Administrators should be able to talk about their achievements in previous roles and cite metrics for practices they’ve led. How have their days in accounts receivable been? Even if they weren’t stellar, did they show a positive trend? What initiatives did the candidate lead to try to move things in the right direction?

Potential employers need to have a list of solid questions to ask that relate to the needs of the organization. If you’re planning to become a Patient-Centered Medical Home, ask about that experience. If the candidate doesn’t have experience, ask him/her what he/she would do to get up to speed should they be hired. Anyone worth their salt should be able to articulate a plan to learn about a new discipline or new initiative, especially since the healthcare system we may be operating in over the next few years doesn’t exist yet. If they can’t come up with a reasonable strategy, they might not be a good fit.

Once an administrator or practice manager is hired, the practice should keep close tabs on their performance, not only in the initial hiring period, but in a regular ongoing fashion. Practice leadership (owners, partners, managers, etc.) should be having monthly meetings to review financials and potential problem areas in the practice. If the administrator says everything is rosy all the time, something is wrong. Even in the strongest practices there is always opportunity for improvement or some sort of personnel issue to make management aware of.

Owners or top leadership should also watch out for staffers that continuously spread blame around to vendors, payers, or other staff without showing even the smallest level of introspection about whether they could have done something differently.

Another good question to help assess a potential hire is this: “Given what you know about our organization, if you are hired into this position, what do you see the first six months looking like?” In my experience, candidates who plan to do a good amount of listening and observing before making too many changes are often the best. They’re willing to take their time to figure out what they have to work with, assess the team’s strengths and weaknesses, and make a careful plan rather than coming in with guns blazing.

What’s your worst hiring or firing nightmare? Email me.

Email Dr. Jayne.



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