Know What You Need

One way to put yourself in a disadvantage in the early days of your practice is to not understand what roles you need to fill in your office. If you are a small practice, less than 10 employees, it may be best to use medial assistants and cross train them in other areas like phone triage and reception. On average, medical assistants cost roughly 1/3 less than an LPN and significantly less than an RN so if there is not a reason to bring on higher credentialed staff in your practice then it’s much more advantageous to seek out quality medial assistants and cross train them. In many circumstances an RN does not have the training or skillset to work the front desk. It also does not make financial or professional sense to staff you desk with RN’s. However, medial assistants are trained to cover multiple areas of a medical practice and can be cross trained to cover your admin areas as well as your clinical areas.

You can always increase your staff but starting your practice with these higher credentialed staff can lead to cash flow issues due to higher payroll costs in the early days. Since payroll is one of the largest expenses a practice will have it is important to keep a handle on payroll costs because they can balloon quickly. Another great benefit is you have built in redundancy in case someone calls out sick, is on vacation or you are short staffed.