Week 11: Wellness Office Management
Welcome to week 11! This week we will explore the responsibilities of a wellness office manager, which is a more senior role you may find yourself working in within the wellness office industry. This role comes with a lot of fun new tasks and responsibilities – let’s explore together.
Wellness Office Inventory
Consider your Module 2 assignment in which you were assigned a dental office item and sourced the prices, quantities, and shipping details from a few different sites. As a wellness office manager you will be required to perform similar inventory processes but with unique items depending on the wellness provider.
Wellness Office Marketing
Wellness Office Marketing Approach
Consider traditional business marketing tactics… advertisements focus on the consumer, right? In wellness offices, it is important that your marketing strategies are directed to not only the consumer/client, but physicians, the general public, and community organizations too. Physicians may make a referral or recommendation to a client, the general public contains friends/family word-of-mouth referrals and community organizations often post educational content for everyone to see. By broadening your marketing approach, the mission of your clinic can become well-known (and well-utilized!).
5 P’s of Healthcare Marketing
Social Media Marketing:
Social media has become a key marketing platform for the healthcare industry, including wellness offices. As an office manager, you may be tasked with creating various social media channels and posting scheduled content.
Office managers should be mindful of the following before posting:
- Who is the target audience and is this content and level of language/terms appropriate?
- How will you proofread or edit before posting?
- How will you keep your personal and professional accounts separate?
- What level of frequency is appropriate for each platform?
Stop and consider:
- What are the advantages of social media in healthcare?
- What are the disadvantages?
Remember: Social media is a powerful tool but must be used and managed carefully!
Communication
As a wellness office manager, you may be responsible for staff and client communication.
When communicating with your staff, a wellness office manager should remember these 3 takeaways:
- Professional communication:
- Error-free
- Direct
- Encourages productivity
- Consistent communication:
- Not so often that messages are ignored
- Not often enough that staff do not know what is happening around the office
- Actively listen to staff:
- Ask for input
- Involve staff in decision-making
When communicating digitally with clients, a wellness office manager should remember these 2 takeaways:
- Preferred method of contact:
- Ask clients how they prefer to be contacted and receive consent
- Ensure privacy:
- Encrypt files via email or with password protections in place
The Client Experience
Customer centricity is a term used to describe a healthcare business model that focuses on the client (A Roadmap to Improve Customer-Centricity in Health Care, 2016). By focusing on the client, organizations can better involve them in decision-making and approaches to treatment (A Roadmap to Improve Customer-Centricity in Health Care, 2016).
Consider your role as an administrator and office manager. How might you focus on the client?
A proactive approach is best – meaning that you won’t wait for an issue to arise before addressing it! Consider process improvements that could positively impact your staff and clients. When your staff are happy, this translates to the experiences involving the clients.
Referrals: Sending and Receiving
When your office receives a referral:
- Upload a copy to the client’s EMR profile or make a copy for their paper file
- Contact the client to schedule the appointment
- Alert the provider to the referral and highlight any necessary notes or requests
When your office sends a referral:
- Upload a copy to the client’s EMR profile or make a copy for their paper file
- Send the referral to the office via mail, email, or fax – be sure to apply confidentiality practices
- Verify referral has been received – follow up if necessary
References
CareerExplorer. (2019). What does an office manager do? https://www.careerexplorer.com/careers/office-manager/
Walworth, M. (2018). Leveraging the 5 Ps in healthcare marketing. Franklin Street. https://www.franklinstreet.com/insights/2018/11/leveraging-the-5-ps-in-healthcare-marketing/
Ellis, L. (2016, August 29). A roadmap to improve customer-centricity in health care. Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/ecpe/a-roadmap-to-improve-customer-centricity-in-health-care/
Purcarea, V. L. (2019). The impact of marketing strategies in healthcare systems [opens a PDF]. Journal of Medicine and Life, 12(2), 93–96. https://doi.org/10.25122/jml-2019-1003
