Medical office manager job description

Medical office managers are also known as health care executives or health care administrators. This position refers to people who are responsible for effecting management of health care. Health care is a business like any other industrial branch, and it is a task of medical office managers to run this business and regulate a long chain of tasks from the hiring decisions to ordering office supplies. Medical office managers supervise the operations, human resources, records, financial and other functions of health care organizations. This is a highly responsible position and medical office managers are those who are basically responsible for delivering top quality health care.

Profile

A typical medical office manager is a loyal and well organized individual. Office managers should be good in analyzing information and should have the ability to overview things from many different perspectives. One of the responsibilities of medical office managers is to evaluate, hire or terminate employees, so they need to have strong leadership abilities and be able to motivate others. A good medical office manager should have strong communication skills, strong time management and organizational skills, strong customer service and conflict resolution skills, strong trouble shooting skills, and must have knowledge of insurance and medical terminology.

Workplace

Medical office managers usually work in medical and surgical hospitals. A small amount of them works in physicians’ offices, nursing-care facilities or home health center services. Depending on the size of health care organization, a medical office manager may have different scope of responsibilities. Large health care organizations usually have many office managers who are responsible for specific clinic areas. This is an office based profession but very often office managers need to inspect satellite facilities or travel to attend meetings.

Education and training

Medical office management training runs the range from one-year certificate programs to master's and doctoral degree programs in health administration. Commonly included courses are: medical terminology, medical law and ethics, billing and collections, office management, business communication and human resources. Large health care organizations usually employ medical office managers with master’s degree, while smaller facilities or departments normally require a bachelor’s degree.

Salary

A typical annual average salary of a medical office manager ranges from $45,000 to $75,000. This is a highly rewarding profession and the salaries are even higher in large cities, due to the higher cost of living. Managers at larger health care organizations normally have higher salaries than managers hired for small practices. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the growing need for medical office managers all over the United States.