Simplify Your Systems, Simplify Your Life [Free Team Management Software]
First, a quick Covid legislative update: At the time that this article was written, it was still unclear what would become of the coronavirus relief legislation known as the CARES Act and FFCRA, both of which were scheduled to sunset on December 31, 2020. In fact, it wasn’t even clear whether or not the federal government would manage to pass any additional Covid relief before the end of the year.
Still, we went ahead and reserved a space on our blog where we will post any new Covid legislation information as it becomes available… This text opens a new tab to CEDR’S COVID update…. Check that page regularly for updates, or click here to receive the latest coronavirus updates from CEDR in your inbox… This text opens a new tab to sign up for CEDR’S COVID updates….
Now, let’s talk about saving you time and stress.
Throughout 2020, one theme arose again and again in the CEDR Solution Center: the OMs we worked with were exhausted, and most said that they just didn’t have enough time to get to everything that was required of them. Though the pandemic left many members of the workforce without any work to do at times, any dental OM can tell you that their workload only increased as a result of the pandemic.
That said, it’s little wonder why OMs across the U.S. have expressed a need for tools and tips that will help them save more time, above all else.
To that end, CEDR HR Solutions and AADOM have partnered up to give everyone in the AADOM Tribe free access to CEDR’s time-saving On-Demand HIPAA Training and HR VaultⓇ software.
Click here to get your free software set up… This text opens a new tab to the website…, or read on to learn how small time savings can add up to major windfalls in the long run.
Small tasks add up to big distractions
Some of the things you do at your practice simply cannot be automated. You can’t automate the process of giving feedback to your team members, for instance, nor can you automate things like interviewing candidates… This text opens a new tab to CEDR’s article on interview questions…, conducting performance reviews, or performing internal investigations… This text opens a new tab to CEDR’s article on investigations….
Still, whenever you can automate a process that you previously had to handle manually, it frees you up to focus on all the other things that cannot be automated at all.
Even if a certain manual process only takes a few minutes of your time, when you are forced to repeat that task several times over the course of a year, that time adds up quickly. In this way, even relatively quick tasks can silently devour hours and hours of your time each and every year.
Take the relatively straightforward process of administering vacation time, for instance. If the timekeeping system you use at your practice doesn’t automatically track this time as it accrues… This text opens a new tab to an article on timekeeping… while also making it easy for your employees to check their balances and submit time-off requests, you’re simply spending too much time administering PTO… This text opens a new tab to an article on timekeeping software….
If you’re still administering PTO manually, each time an employee comes to you to ask about taking time off, you have to stop whatever it is that you were doing before, check their time-off balance, confirm whether or not the schedule will be able to accommodate their absence, and, finally, make a decision.
Because you’re good at your job, maybe you’ve managed to bring that entire process down to a matter of five minutes per interruption. Though it may not seem like much, that time really does add up.
If you have ten employees and each one comes to you four times per year with such a request, that amounts to 40 interruptions requiring a total of 200 minutes of your time each and every year. That’s more than three hours of your time spent each year just answering questions that, if those processes were automated, would take less than a minute each to address.
And, when you start accounting for the time you lose when an employee interrupts you, things look even worse. A study… This text opens a new tab to the study… by the University of California Irvine found that it takes people an average of 23 minutes to get back on task after being interrupted.
Those 40 time-off requests, therefore, also incur a total of 920 minutes of distraction – that’s an additional 15 hours on top of the three it took you to address those questions in the first place. All told, that’s two full days of work spent addressing one very simple question, year in and year out!
What would you do with an extra two days of uninterrupted work every year? No doubt something you just haven’t had the time to do in the past.
Automation makes a real difference
After learning how something so simple as responding to time-off requests can lead to hours – even days – of lost time each and every year, you may be starting to wonder what other basic tasks might be demanding more of your time than necessary.
The short answer to that is “probably a lot of them.” Really, when you have the option to automate any process at your practice without sacrificing on quality, clarity, or accuracy, it’s a good idea to do so.
Not only will automation save you tons of time and effort when compared to manual entry, but it also leads to fewer errors. And that ultimately means better compliance practices and stronger protections for your business.
How your free CEDR software can help
As an office manager, HIPAA is just one item on a long list of things that you have no choice but to deal with. Protecting PHI isn’t just a financial necessity – it’s also a legal obligation.
But keeping your employees up to date on their HIPAA training isn’t always the most straightforward thing to do. Do you use an online program or bring in an actual professional trainer? What is your budget for training? Will you shut down your office and train everyone on the same day, or will you try to have your team complete their training when they have downtime in their schedule? And, if the latter, how will you keep track of when everyone completed their training and when they need to retrain?
Where this may not rise to the level of a “logistical nightmare,” all of these moving parts can be difficult to keep track of and – surprise – doing so requires a sizable chunk of your time!
Free HIPAA training
As an AADOM Member, you can now check HIPAA training off the list… This text opens a new tab to the website… of things that take up your time!
With free access to CEDR’s On-Demand HIPAA Training… This text opens a new tab to the website…, you can train everyone on your team without shutting down your office or spending a single penny from your budget! The online, video-based program makes it easy to train all of your employees on your time, and on your terms.
Make HIPAA training part of your onboarding process and rest easy knowing that new team members are up to date on day-one. Plus, you’ll get automatic reminders for your team to retrain each year so you’ll never have to worry about a lapse in certification putting your practice at risk of a violation.
CEDR’s On-Demand HIPAA Training program also includes certificates of completion for team members who complete training, as well as an advanced training track for your practice’s privacy and security officers.
Free team management software
When you sign up for your free HIPAA Training software, you’ll also get access to your own personal HR Vault… This text opens a new tab to CEDR’s HR Vault… account.
HR Vault is CEDR’s free document storage, sharing, and signature collection software – basically, it’s a digital filing cabinet that makes it a whole lot easier (and faster!) to take care of administrative tasks for your entire team.
Inside your free HR Vault, you can:
- Store all of your important employee information.
- Share important documents with employees.
- Collect legally binding digital signatures from your team.
- Make confidential notes in employee files.
- Share company-wide bulletins with a few clicks, and more!
What’s more, you can set up HR Vault so that each team member only has access to the documents they need to see, and they can then view and sign those documents from within their own personal HR Vault dashboards.
HR Vault makes it so that you’ll never have to track down individual employees to get their eyes on important documents, collect their signatures, or remind them about an upcoming company event – just take a few seconds to drop them a note in the Vault and you’re done, simple as that!
Try automatic PTO & time tracking free
Remember that example we used earlier about how fielding something as simple as time-off requests can ultimately eat up full days on your calendar each year? Well, guess what – we’ve got software to help with that, too!
The automatic PTO & Time Tracking integration inside HR Vault makes it easy for your employees to clock in and out each day from within HR Vault using any designated computer or mobile device.
We also customize your account during setup to track employee time off as they earn it per your office policies and applicable state laws, which means you’ll never need to keep tabs on that information manually again.
Plus, employees can automatically check their own time-off balances inside HR Vault without interrupting you and can even make and submit time-off requests in a matter of seconds. You can then respond to requests whenever you’ve got time to do so, rather than being forced to drop whatever it was that you were working on when the request came in.
When you sign up for CEDR’s free HIPAA Training through AADOM, you’ll get the chance to try the PTO & Time Tracking Integration inside HR Vault free for 30 days… This text opens a new tab to CEDR’s PTO & time tracking integration…. And, once you start that trial, you’ll quickly see that this is one piece of software that pays for itself many times over.
Conclusion
The pandemic has caused a great many employees across the US to find themselves without work at all. But, for dental OMs, it’s been a different story. Though many dental practices are generating less revenue right now because of the health crisis, dental office managers have never been busier.
One solution to the time crunch is to automate any and all processes at your office that you can. In addition to saving you time, automation will also help you eliminate data-related errors and lead to stronger legal protections for your practice.
In service of that goal, CEDR HR Solutions has partnered with AADOM to provide Free On-Demand HIPAA Training to all Members of the AADOM Tribe… This text opens a new tab to the website….
When you sign up for the free program, you’ll also get free access to our HR Vault team management software, as well as an invitation to try the Vault’s automatic PTO & Time Tracking Integration free for 30 days!
When used together, these three programs can help you save, not just hours, but entire workdays over the course of a single year. And, even better, they’ll keep saving you that time for as long as you continue to use them!
Go ahead and give them a try – after all, with this free offer exclusively for AADOM Members… This text opens a new tab to the website…, you’ve got nothing to lose and lots and lots of time to reclaim.
