What is the difference between an office manager and a practice manager. If you hire someone to help manage your practice—regardless of how small it is—that employee is a practice manager. 

What are the tasks that practice managers may be responsible for? Here's just a short list:

• All things Human Resources
• Oversee billing and  understand revenue cycle management. 
• Medical records management

 One of the questions that I’m frequently asked is, “How much should I pay my practice manager?” In my experience, there are 3 general categories of practice managers. 

• The starter—when you are first getting started and have only a few employees and the complexity of the tasks is limited. 
• The growing manager—more staff, billing,  expenses, and providers to manage. 
• The scaling manager- adding new providers, satellite offices and multiple additional revenue streams requires a whole new list of competencies. At this stage, you need someone who has the ability to help you grow rather than simply manage the practice. 

Now that I’ve told you the list of potential tasks you’re going to want your new practice manager to take on, I’m sure you’re wondering where you are going to find a person who possesses all the required characteristics you should be looking for. The answer is that it’s incredibly unlikely that you will find someone who checks off every single box. 

What's the  one quality that’s essential in a good practice manager? Regardless of what stage you’re at, your practice manager needs to have excellent communication skills in order effortlessly communicate with everyone in your practice including patients, physicians, and other administrative staff. 

Here are some of the things you’ll want to consider when hiring a practice manager: 

• Check the candidate’s previous work experience.  Even in the beginning stages, you are going to want a practice manager with at least two to five years of prior work experience And, you want to specifically know what tasks they were previously responsible for.
• Look for the necessary personality characteristics: Hiring the right person is all about fit. In order for your practice manager to be successful, they must be empathetic, compassionate, and pay attention to detail.  
• Your practice manager is really your right hand person. You want someone with shared values who can embrace your vision.
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