The term Office Manager has long ceased to be a novelty in the culture of organisations oriented toward growth and development, with all the attributes of this role and implicitly its necessity within the team.
In the dental-services industry this term designates a role specific to the field and thus bears the name Dental Office Manager, or DOM. An efficient DOM considerably improves the quality of the services offered in the clinic. It reduces the stress level for doctors, ensures better organisation of activities, aligns all the premises for growing business figures, and not least ensures the efficient consumption of resources.
The idea underlying the need to have a DOM in the clinic starts from understanding the most important resource of the modern person, and implicitly of the dentist: time.
Seneca said that the problem is not that we have too little time, but that much time is wasted. In other words, although it may sound impossible, we can develop certain mechanisms of time control so that it flows in our favour and not against us.
Let us think with the figures in front of us. A dentist practises for around 35 years, with small variations. In addition, most dentists want to reach financial independence around the age of 50, which means they need to take all the necessary measures in this regard. Thus, at the opportune moment, they will be able to afford to reduce their working hours, have more days off, develop partnerships, and thus work only from passion for dentistry, not because they must cover their expenses.
This presupposes careful planning of present time in order to reach long-term objectives. If in one year the clinic records poor results and the team does not perform at its maximum capacities, the prejudice is seen not only in periodic financial reports, but also in fulfilling the overall vision of the business. Perhaps the clinic has not lost money, but it has lost precious time and, at the same time, the opportunity to make progress for its development. In other words, that year is a wasted year, because a business whose growth stagnates for a year is one year further from reaching the long-term objective.
That said, let us return to the main idea: the necessity of a Dental Office Manager in your clinic.
Market experience shows us that a practice with an efficient and competent Office Manager will far surpass (and across many performance indicators) practices without one, especially regarding profitability, efficiency, and growth. Every day that passes without such a role in the clinic generates for the founding doctor-entrepreneur costs that are by no means negligible for the development of the business.
So why is an Office Manager so important in a dental clinic?
The dentist's time is best capitalised, especially from a financial point of view, when they have a patient in the chair and carry out a treatment or explain a procedure to the patient. In other words, the value of the dentist's time is determined by the number of patients with whom they spend time in the practice, and by the complexity of the treatments they perform for them. Any minute, second, or fraction of a second of working hours in which the doctor is not with the patient or is not carrying out an activity connected with dental practice translates into lost revenue for the practice.
And yet, if the doctor is where they should be during working hours and treats patients, who runs the practice?
In most practices… no one. Of course, there is someone who answers the phone and schedules patients, but this person's involvement generally stops there. But who coordinates employees' activity and solves problems, ensuring that efforts are not wasted and all resources are optimised? Most probably, no one takes care of this.
Some founding doctor-entrepreneurs will say that in their practices they take care of these activities, and that is probably true. But that means that during this time they cannot treat patients. In the absence of a person dedicated to coordinating the clinic, the doctor faces two unpleasant decisions.
They could occupy themselves only with dental practice and hope that this will not affect activities at the clinic reception. This can work for a period, but without efficient coordination, stressful situations can appear in a short time. The alternative would be for the doctor to occupy themselves with clinic management, which would mean they no longer occupy themselves with patients. Neither option is a happy one. Therefore, clearly, the only solution is involving a Dental Office Manager.
Who can be a Dental Office Manager?
A Dental Office Manager supervises from an executive point of view the activity of the practice, so that doctors can carry out their practice in an environment that does not distract them and that allows them to allocate all their attention to patients' needs. This role presupposes management skills, solving unpleasant situations, as well as capitalising on a business's growth potential, or training and managing a complete recruitment process.
When you are looking for a Dental Office Manager for the medical team, you actually need a person oriented toward finding solutions for the potential problems that can appear (and that inevitably appear), someone who does not feel uncomfortable coordinating others, and who is in themselves a productive and autonomous person. This person must be able to manage all activities in the clinic — except the medical ones, of course — without difficulty, while also inspiring others to be productive. It is important to mention that for this role the person's capacity to learn, to challenge themselves, to use personal ambition to constantly exceed their limits is very important. This person must inspire and offer an essential element in any organisation: trust. And the most important thing to underline is that this person must invariably be responsible — so that they deliver results matching expectations, do things well and within the agreed time.
In fewer words, when you look for a DOM, you are actually looking for someone to manage your entire business, and in whose care you can leave the practice's activities without feeling any trace of discomfort or worry.
How does this apply in the case of smaller practices?
You probably imagine that in the case of a smaller practice a Dental Office Manager is not necessary. Well, this is not necessarily correct, because a DOM can cover several roles and can contribute, together with the medical team, to growing the business.
Then what role does the founding doctor-entrepreneur still have in managing the business?
As owner of the business, the dentist maintains the highest standards of care for patients and inspires others to do the same. They set the practice's objectives and take operational decisions that aim at its growth (such as purchasing another dental chair). Long-term objectives are also set by them; they set the tone and get others to follow. They supervise and manage the financial component of the practice, coordinate the Dental Office Manager, and work with them when the situation requires it — for example when a new person needs to be recruited to the team.
The doctor can make a perfect team with the Dental Office Manager for developing the clinic. As doctor-owner, they hold the entire responsibility for the business and, implicitly, actively involve themselves in coordinating the DOM, work together with them to reach general and specific objectives. Therefore, the first step would be to hire a Dental Office Manager in their clinic.
What does a Dental Office Manager do?
They plan and lead all administrative activities within the practice and ensure that the objectives set by the doctor-owner are reached. They handle hiring, training, and dismissals, propose procedures when the situation requires it, and maintain close communication with the doctor. In addition, they ensure that the clinic's image is in accordance with the direction set by the doctor-owner, the relationship with clients is impeccable, and internal conflicts are managed efficiently and quickly. Of course the role is more complex, but in broad lines these are the main activities.
If we were to compare these roles from the clinic with those in a corporate organisation, we could say that the Dental Office Manager is the CEO, and the doctor-owner is the Board of Directors.
How will the two work together?
Ideally the doctor-owner and the Dental Office Manager should meet weekly and review the main tasks related to general practice in the practice. In addition, the two must coordinate daily to set the objectives for each day. Detail meetings, within which figures, reports, financial situations, and development plans are discussed, can take place monthly, semi-annually, and annually.
Once this process is put in order it will run without problems; the Office Manager will do their job efficiently while the doctor-owner will be able to concentrate on their core activity — dental practice and permanent training — in order to be able to offer patients services at the highest standards.
Changing the role for the founding doctor-entrepreneur
At a certain point along the career path, the doctor-owner may opt to withdraw from medical practice in order to dedicate themselves entirely to the Clinic's Management activities — whether it is a partial withdrawal in which they only reduce their number of hours, or total, in which they give up medical practice and involve themselves exclusively in running the clinic. What is the Dental Office Manager's role in this case? It is good to mention beforehand that this takes place in a context of business growth, when it has scaled, developed, the clinic has enough doctors and patients, and the doctor-owner can take such a decision. In this situation, whether they occupy themselves with coordinating the growth process or simply are the right hand of the founding doctor-entrepreneur, the Dental Office Manager helps them reach their objectives faster than if they ran this process alone. In the case where the number of clinics grows, the Dental Office Manager can rise one hierarchical level, thus becoming the Manager of the other Dental Office Managers corresponding to each clinic.
Therefore, if the founding doctor wants growth of their business, it is clear that they need a Dental Office Manager on their team.
Where can the doctor-owner find a Dental Office Manager?
The first place they can look is right in the present team. Team members already know the organisation's culture and it is very possible that there is a person who meets most of the conditions of the role and who can be promoted from within. If this is not an option, plan two would be external recruitment, on the criteria mentioned at the beginning of the article.
It is useful to keep a few aspects in mind. If someone has successfully managed a similar activity elsewhere, this is not a guarantee of repeating the result elsewhere. We can never know all the elements that led to an individual's professional success or failure, which is why it is good to gradually test the person's competences and limits in their new role, progressively increasing the degree of responsibility of the tasks — from simple administrative actions to executive-complexity tasks, up to involvement in the management and financing plan. Do not get stuck in "recipes for success" that put barriers between you and the most suitable candidate. Someone who has already been active in the industry is not necessarily more suitable than someone who comes from another field in which they have already demonstrated their managerial abilities. Someone more advanced in age does not necessarily have more experience that can be capitalised in the new role. Beyond a certain level of maturity, what matters a great deal is the ability to act, to be accountable in decisions, and to have a mentality always open to learning something new.
Continuous training and capitalising on the future DOM's potential
Where you see potential in a certain person, but at the same time observe a lack of knowledge that could be important in their activity, the solution is training. Exposure to know-how from those who know through participation in specialised trainings and courses contributes directly to completing the set of tools needed for the Dental Office Manager role.
A well-trained Office Manager is a vital component for a successful dental practice. Which brings us to the idea from the beginning of the article — namely that the most important role is played by time. Properly capitalised, it will pass in favour of and in support of the founding doctor-entrepreneur, so that they can lead their business in the long term to the destination they proposed for themselves from the first years. Every second that passes without the presence of a key role in the dental clinic is lost time that prevents the founding doctor-entrepreneur from reaching their objectives. And every second in which the founding doctor-entrepreneur and the DOM make a team together is a precious investment in the healthy and sustainable growth of the clinic.