Practice Management The Front Office: Window to Your Practice Urgent message: Patients will return again and again—and tell their friends, too—if your center’s manager and employees are unfailingly courteous, competent, and thorough. Alan A. Ayers, MBA, MAcc f you’re planning to own and operate an ur- gent care center, you’re probably not thinking about managing an ad- ministrative office. In- stead, you envision your- self hurrying between exam rooms, suturing cuts, setting fractures, and dispensing orders. Digging your way out of paper- work, refereeing staff dis- putes, tracking down cash, and assuring supply cabi- nets are stocked are prob- ably not in your dreams. The front office of an ur- gent care center isn’t only © Lael Henderson/Images.com/Corbis the first and last place pa- tients interact with the practice: It’s critical to assuring that the center gets paid for every visit and has all the resources it needs to run smoothly. But despite its importance, all too often the front of- fice is the least funded and most neglected part of the urgent care operation. By focusing on the manage- ment, staff, processes, and physical environment of the front office, an urgent care center operator can po- tentially improve the per- formance and morale of the entire facility. I 18 Your Key Employee: The Center Manager Most urgent care centers employ a full-time man- ager, although the scope of his or her duties may vary depending on daily patient volume, owner- ship structure, and the extent of external billing and operations support. In a freestanding, independent urgent care center, the manager is typically a “jack of all trades” who oversees day-to-day operations, imple- JUCM T h e J o u r n a l o f U r g e n t C a r e M e d i c i n e | N o v e m b e r 2 0 0 8 w w w. j u c m . c o m