Staffing

Cross-training for success

A well-rounded staff offers your practice many advantages.

BY LINDSEY GETZ, PHILADELPHIA, PA.

Cross-training your staff by teaching multiple individuals to handle your office’s necessary tasks helps your practice operate more efficiently. Jane T. Shuman, MSM, COT, COE, OCS, CMCSS, president of Eyetechs, Inc. and co-editor-in-chief of Ophthalmic Professional, cross-trained her staff 15 years ago with the primary goal of creating a self-sustaining staff.

“The whole idea with cross-training is that another staff member should be able to jump right into a role and pick up the slack if someone is out sick, the office gets busy, or a new job becomes available,” Ms. Shuman says. “The ability to be self-sufficient and operate so well internally is one of the biggest benefits.”

Practices with successful cross-training strategies report many benefits, which are described below.

Promoting from within

When Ophthalmic Consultants of Long Island in Lynbrook, NY, hires for their front desk staff, they usually intend to move that person up within the practice. They cross-train employees from the start, which gives the staff opportunities to pursue promotions and additional roles within the office once they develop the skill set.

Cross-training also has cost saving abilities by leveraging the company’s talent from within its existing workforce, keeping recruiting time and resources at bay.

Keisha Beckford, COA, clinical operations manager, started at Ophthalmic Consultants of Long Island on the front desk staff before simultaneously becoming a tech and a scribe. Thanks to cross-training, she was promoted to tech supervisor, then assistant office manager, office manager, and ultimately clinical operations manager. “We usually give front desk staff six months there and see how they’re doing. That’s a good amount of time to get a sense of how they respond and how they fit into the practice. At that point they may be trained for a tech position.”

Of course, not everyone is a fit for every job. For instance, Ms. Beckford says to guide individuals directly to a scribe role if they show more proficiency with data entry. Also, those who are more people-oriented may fit best as techs. Ms. Beckford recommends paying close attention to individuals as they train to determine whether their personality and skills fit the role.

“If we reach week three of training and the individual is still struggling with the skill set, we are very up front that it’s not working out,” she says. “Cross-training will only be successful if you’re able to do that. We will put the individual back at the front desk and may revisit the opportunity in the future. We do hold that front desk position open until we know whether it’s working out.”

Shakira Senior, COA, technical supervisor at Ophthalmic Consultants of Long Island, says starting front desk staff with tech training offers benefits — even if the individual ultimately becomes a scribe.

“That technical background winds up being very helpful in the scribe role,” Ms. Senior says. “If they go into the scribe role first, they may struggle with some of the technical understanding.”

Flexibility

During cross-training training, Ms. Shuman says individuals moved into new roles during slow times. Her cross-training program’s flexibility allowed staff to shuffle back into their “comfort zone” when the office got busy, she says.

“If things suddenly erupted at 10:30 and we had a huge rush of patients, we could easily halt training and get everyone back to their primary position without interrupting the work flow,” Ms. Shuman says.

Ms. Senior adds that cross-training staff members makes her job of scheduling 30 different techs and scribes much easier. “My goal is that eventually everyone who is working in my office will learn to do everything,” she says. “That way if someone calls out or is late coming into the office, someone else can step right in.”

Smooth transitions

Some positions make for more natural transitions than others. For example, Ms. Senior says that converting front desk staff to technicians can work well because the individuals already have a sense of the office flow and some familiarity with patients. Also, she says front desk individuals progress well to scribe positions, as they have familiarity with the diagnoses and procedures.

“When scribes come from the front they’re often already very familiar with insurance and even procedure codes,” Ms. Senior says. “I’ve had scribes point out that insurance won’t cover a certain procedure because they’re already so familiar with the coding. That’s incredibly helpful.”

For some positions, don’t spend the time cross-training everyone in the office — too many cooks in the kitchen can create complications rather than improve the work flow, Ms. Shuman says.

“Surgical booking or counseling, for instance, should have a back-up but that position should not fall to multiple people,” she says.

Benefits for all

While cross-training staff provides flexibility for the practice, Ms. Senior says that the staff members benefit as well. “Being capable of performing multiple roles makes the individual much more valuable as a staff member,” she says. “When a promotion becomes available, those who are cross-trained are prime candidates. It’s a win-win for everyone.”

Also, Ms. Shuman says that once her staff was better trained and more knowledgeable from check-in to check-out, it resulted in a better patient experience.

“Everyone understood the ramifications of all facets of the clinic,” she says. “The office also operated more efficiently as it broke down that front-to-back barrier that often exists in medical practices. Everyone became far more engaged in all aspects of the office flow.” OP