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An employee policy manual is a must-have for any business, including medical practices.
Let’s be honest, nobody likes reading an employee manual. They’re thick and frankly … boring.
Unfortunately, they serve an important purpose. Employee manuals describe the regulations, rules and key behaviours that must be followed when working at your business.
As a business owner, making your policies clear to your employees sets expectations and provides you with legal recourse should they not be followed.
Like in the case of Bob …
(Yes Bob. Oh, poor Bob, will those rascals leave him be? Heck no!)
Shortly after “moving on” from his role as an office manager and thanks to a little creativity with his resume (5 years of experience as the office manager of a medical practice!), Bob landed himself another office manager role at a larger clinic.
After his last experience, Bob was a little more careful. He knew to be on his best behaviour until his probationary period was complete.
Of course, this was Bob.
Bob found the paperwork aspect of his job incredibly boring. Seriously, how could anyone stay focused when updating client files and dealing with billing information. Thankfully, he had a solution. His phone!
Stream and file? I’m sure there’s a meme in there.
Imagine the surprise of Betty, one of the owners, when she walked by and found Bob riveted to the latest episode of Outlander with his hand poised over his keyboard and a client’s billing information on the screen.
“Bob, what are you doing?” Betty asked.
“Oh, um .. I’m doing the client billing and insurance filing.” Stammered Bob.
“But you’re watching TV on your phone. You can’t be using a phone while accessing client information like this.”
“I can’t. Well, I’m sorry, I was distracted, but I’ll get the work done.” Bob replied confidently.
“That’s not it, well that is part of it,” started Betty, “It’s a privacy issue. We don’t allow personal phones while you’re dealing with client records. Especially billing information. It’s a confidentiality thing.”
You should have clear policies around personal mobile device usage and client confidentiality. In many situations, such as while dealing with financial information, use of personal mobile devices could create a risk of a data breach.
“Oh, I didn’t know.” Responded Bob, sadly putting his phone away. The big romantic scene would have to wait.
Problem solved; Betty walked back to her office.
How could Bob not know the company’s policies?
She remembered having a policy manual, but she hadn’t seen it in a while. After a little digging she discovered a half-written draft that had never been rolled out.
Then Betty remembered. She poured dozens of hours into the half-finished manual. Figuring out the regulatory requirements was so painful that she never got it done.
It had never seemed important before, but now she got the feeling it would be needed. With an exasperated sigh, she knew where her evenings were going.
Your employee manual is a complete set of policies and expectations for all employees to follow. It must include:
One of Bob’s duties was to cover for Penelope, the receptionist. While he didn’t love this part of his job, he could alleviate his boredom by being on the phone! It was the perfect opportunity for him to catch up with his mom and look like he was doing his job.
On Tuesday, while catching his mom up on the latest office gossip, a patient walked in.
“I’ll be with you in one moment.” Bob informed the patient, then continued on the phone.
“You wouldn’t BELIEVE who came into the clinic last week”, he told his mother, “Diana Digby. Yes, the actress!”.
Bob covered his mouth with his hand and continued, “She was in for some sort of an exam. I bet she’s sick or something… “
The patient, still waiting to be checked in, looked at Bob in shock. If he was gossiping about other patients that way, who else was saying what? This was supposed to be a private clinic.
Once in with Betty, the patient complained about the apparent (and appalling) lack of privacy and confidentiality at the clinic. After reassuring the patient, she knew something had to be done.
The situation was a bit too familiar for Bob. He sat in Betty’s office, shoulders slumped. He was in trouble, again.
Betty was droning on about “privacy” and “common sense”. Yes, he was in trouble.
“But I didn’t know these rules.” He defended himself weakly.
Betty firmly replied, “I’m sorry Bob, this isn’t going to work out. We’re going to have to let you go.”
And like that, Bob remembered what happened at his last job. He sat up, looked directly at Betty and said, “I’m going to sue you.”
Author’s note: We won’t subject you to the next few months of Betty’s life, the stressful nights, the “fun” dealing with lawyers or the eventual payout, as Bob did have a valid case due to the lack of an employee manual.
At dinner one evening, Betty was telling her painful story to a friend who owned a clinic downtown.
“Ouch! I almost ran into the same thing last year.” Her friend empathized.
“What did you do?”, asked Betty. “I don’t have the time to write the manual, I have a full patient load and a clinic to run!”
“I didn’t write one, I worked with the team at RascalHR and we built an employee manual from their templates. It was like putting together a puzzle – all the pieces were there and just needed to be reviewed. They also helped create job descriptions and employee agreements for all my staff.
And with that advice, Betty’s stomach felt a little better. She knew who she was going to call tomorrow.