The Perfect Office Manual: A Step-by-Step Guide to Streamline Your Practice
As I enter my fifth year of managing a pediatric practice, I have had the opportunity to reflect on some of our most significant challenges and our success in overcoming them. When I first began managing, I felt like a deer in headlights, not knowing where to run for the right information or even what information I needed in the first place.
Like many of us who step into a dental office management role, there are many surprises and opportunities. If I had a dollar for every time I heard from fellow AADOM members where they could get their hands on templates, outlines, or copies of manuals that other offices use, I would be retired already!
Like getting an owner’s manual with a new car, I thought I’d get one for managing this dental office. Unfortunately, that was not the case for me and, likely, many others. The common problem in this scenario is that not all offices are the same, just like not all cars are the same. They all require their own specific and personalized manual for each feature they must do to perform their job.
After searching for these tools that both our office and I desperately needed to become more organized and efficient, I realized it doesn’t exist. But the answers were right under my nose.
Creating a Backup Plan
Fortunately, our practice already had great team members who were doing a great job. Our blind spot was not having a backup plan for when these great employees had to be out of the office. Knowing the danger of having one employee be the keeper of all the knowledge is one thing. However, another challenge is creating a detailed outline of their position and scope of responsibility that details it step-by-step.
It was also the perfect approach for getting buy-in and participation. Our team members each held the answer to getting our hands on the perfect office Manual, and they would be crucial to getting it done. We just needed a process for collecting, documenting, and compiling the knowledge they each held and transferring it from their minds to the manual.
We completed the following steps to begin the process, which is still a regular part of our office routine. Using a shared folder on your company server is ideal, and I highly recommend there is only ONE FILE that everyone can access for adding and editing. This will eliminate multiple copies of files and confusion about who has updated what and where the latest version is.
If a shared folder on your server is unavailable, consider these options: OneDrive, OneNote, or a third-party drive like Google, as long as it is private and secure to meet security standards. If none are possible, a giant three-ring binder with tabs will do just fine.
Creating a Comprehensive Office Manual
Here is the process:
- Ask each front office team member to write a detailed list of their daily duties, broken down by opening and closing tasks by day, week, and month. As your manual takes shape, you can constantly adjust the information you document. Once the tasks are listed, move on to step 2.
- Using their daily tasks as a guide, assign one duty at a time to be detailed from start to finish AND documented with examples (screenshots) and specific details, step-by-step. I always say, write it like you were going to read it to a third grader—not because the reader is a third grader, but because it needs to be clear, detailed, and very easy to understand and follow.
- As the teams work through documenting the details of their tasks, assign a block of time for team members to “swap” a responsibility and follow the new manual to complete the job. I explained that if your co-workers were unexpectedly unable to come to work and this was your only tool to cover their job, is it easy enough to understand, and can you complete the task? This is what I like to call the ‘test drive.’
- Once the “swap” is completed, ask them to share their notes about what they learned and discovered. Were the instructions clear? Easy to follow? Did you hit any road bumps? And what worked and what didn’t?
Our office has documented our manual for about two and a half years. Initially, it was met with some resistance because of how daunting the task seemed. But over time, we have all come to appreciate and rely on it daily. It has also helped us out of a few tricky situations at a moment’s notice.
It truly has become the perfect office manual and, with some time and participation, could possibly become yours, too. I’d love to hear how it goes for you and your team!
About the Author
Jeannette Davidson, MAADOM
Jeannette Davidson is the Office Manager at The Kidds Place Dentistry for Children in Spokane, Washington, and has been a member of AADOM since 2020. She received her FAADOM in 2022 and MAADOM in 2024.
She began her role in dentistry later in life after making a life-changing decision to leave a 30-year career in sales, marketing, and business consulting. (Her current employer was a former client). Jeannette discovered the best of both worlds could exist by combining her non-dental experience with leading a fun and passionate pediatric dentistry team.
