For Office Managers: Ten Ways to Wow Your Boss and Accelerate Your Career

If you’ve worked as an office manager in a successful dental practice for more than about 15 minutes, you know your job is important. So how can you help your boss appreciate the value you add to your practice? Use these 10 common sense suggestions to improve your performance and become an even more valuable part of your dental team.

1. Take the Initiative to Know Your Practice

Take the time to thoroughly understand your practice’s mission statement and goals, then work to make sure your approach and activities are contributing to those objectives.

2. Look for New Ways to Save Your Practice Money

Find opportunities to automate and offload routine, mundane tasks that prevent your staff from focusing on practice goals. For example, using an automated billing statement service such as Dentrix QuickBill could save your practice up to $4.20 per billing statement.

3. Make Patients Your Priority

Start with simple personal gestures that make every patient feel recognized and appreciated, such as handwritten notes or small gifts on special occasions. Then, make all the technology your patients depend on part of your communication strategy with automated tools such as Dentrix Communication Manager.

4. Show Leadership and Bring the Big Ideas

Look for new ideas you can take back and implement in your practice when you’re at industry conferences and events. Subscribe to dental trade magazines and actively participate in industry associations such as the American Association of Dental Office Managers(AADOM). And encourage and listen to ideas and suggestions from your team.

5. Look and Act the Part

Project a sharp professional image, bring a positive attitude to work every day, always deal with performance issues behind closed doors, and actively work to build a culture that minimizes office politics and gossip.

6. Stay Informed

Become familiar with the responsibilities of everyone in your office and stay up-to-speed on new technology trends, developments in the insurance world and other important industry issues. Set aside hours for reading, viewing podcasts and participating in online and face-to-face trainings.

7. Put in the Time

Arrive on time and put in full days of focused, attentive and productive work, because your team will invariably follow your lead. This includes carefully organizing your time, following through on your commitments and helping with special projects.

8. Keep Yourself and Your Practice Organized and On Task

Hold consistent Daily Huddle meetings with your team to plan for unexpected scheduling emergencies and assess your daily production goals. Use the Dentrix Daily Huddle report to see how well you’re tracking with your monthly goals, rank tasks and find out exactly what you need to accomplish to stay on track.

9. Expand Your Horizons

Actively look for ways to stay fresh and develop new skills, whether it’s volunteering to talk to kids in the community about oral health or organizing and leading a local AADOM group. Find something you’re passionate about—and then convert that passion into something you can use to enhance your skills and build your resume.

10. Take Care of Yourself

Take time every day to rejuvenate and clear your head. Take a walk over your lunch break or schedule short breaks throughout the day. Plan and take vacations to decompress, spend time away from the office and keep your life in balance.