What Can an Administrative Assistant Do For Your Practice? | GP 41

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What Can an Administrative Assistant Do For Your Practice? | GP 41

Are you thinking about expanding your private practice? How can hiring an assistant help you manage the admin aspect? What are some of the best things about having an assistant helping you in your practice?

In this podcast episode, Alison Pidgeon speaks with her office manager Brittany Heine about what an administrative assistant can do for your practice.

Meet Brittany Heine

Brittany Heine is the office manager for Move Forward Counseling in Lancaster, PA.

She does all of the things (!) and makes Alison Pidgeon’s life much easier by handling scheduling, insurance details, human resources tasks, and much more.

Visit the website

Connect on Facebook and Instagram.

In This Podcast

Summary

  • Where an administrative assistant can start
  • What are some of the best parts of the job?
  • Things to consider when hiring a new admin

Where an administrative assistant can start

She helped with scheduling new clients for the therapists, working with the payment in the HR system. She would stock the coffee areas throughout the office.

As Brittany become accustomed to the work, she started taking on more roles such as working with bank deposits, working with organizing the therapists in the office one at a time, entering information into the payroll, and helping Alison with her calendar and organizing meetings.

What are some of the best parts of the job?

Feeling fulfillment working alongside therapists and helping them with her tasks. Working in a team and managing situations together, and working every day to affect the world in a positive way.

By working in a team, the practice owner can assist their assistant by helping them be as organized and prepared as possible. Look for someone who is detail-oriented when you are considering hiring an assistant, and someone who follows up with you on any loose ends.

Things to consider when hiring a new admin:

  • Look for someone with experience but also making sure that they are someone with a go-getter attitude.
  • Someone that has compassion and care for their job, and not just having a job for the sake of the income.
  • Do a slow transition with your assistants to give them a chance to have a handle on their current tasks before giving them more responsibilities. Be available to your assistant when you train them so that they know they can ask you any questions they need to know.
  • Once your assistant is trained up or well enough, trust yourself as well as trusting them to make decisions on their own for your business, such as buying supplies or making quick calls.

Useful Links:

Meet Alison Pidgeon

A portrait of Alison Pidgeon is shown. She discusses ways to grow your group practice on this week's episode of Practice of the Practice. Alison is a serial entrepreneur with four businesses, one of which is a 15 clinician group practice. She’s also a mom to three boys, wife, coffee drinker, and loves to travel. She started her practice in 2015 and, four years later, has two locations. With a specialization in women’s issues, the practices have made a positive impact on the community by offering different types of specialties not being offered anywhere else in the area.

Alison has been working with Practice of the Practice since 2016. She has helped over 70 therapist entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses, through mastermind groups and individual consulting.

Thanks For Listening!

Feel free to leave a comment below or share this podcast on social media by clicking on one of the social media links below! Alternatively, leave a review on iTunes and subscribe!

Podcast Transcription

[ALISON]:
You’re listening to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. Whether you’re thinking of starting a group practice, are in the beginning stages of a group practice, or want to learn how to scale up your already existing group practice, we have lots of great content for you.

Grow a Group Practice is part of the Practice of the Practice Podcast Network, a network of podcasts seeking to help you grow your group practice. To hear other podcasts like the Imperfect Thriving podcast, Bomb Mom podcast, Beta Male Revolution, or Empowered and Unapologetic, go to practiceofthepractice.com/network.

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[ALISON]:
Hi, and welcome to the Grow a Group Practice podcast. I’m Alison Pidgeon, your host. Today I am interviewing my own assistant from my practice, Move Forward Counseling. Her name is Brittany Heine. She has been with the practice since May of 2019, so about a year and a half, and she is awesome. She does all the things and we talk about all of the different tasks that she does, and what she finds most challenging about the job, what is the best thing about the job, just some things that we figured out along the way, you know, to make our working relationship just go really smoothly. So if you’re thinking about hiring an assistant, or maybe you have an assistant and you want to add more tasks so you can get more administrative things off of your plate, definitely take a listen to this episode. And yeah, I hope you enjoy it. So without further ado, here is Brittany Heine, she is the office manager for Move Forward Counseling.

Hi, Brittany. Welcome to the podcast.

[BRITTANY]:
Thank you. Thanks for having me.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I’m excited to talk with you today. So, Brittany is my wonderful office manager that we’ve had in the counseling practice since May of 2019. So, you’ve been with us for about a year and a half. And we thought it might be good to kind of talk about, you know, various things that you do in the practice just to give other people ideas of what they could have their assistant do. So maybe we should start at the beginning and talk about, you know, what you started out doing the practice, because obviously, as you have been with us, and we’ve seen how great and capable you are, we’ve just given you more and more things to do. But maybe you can kind of give us the overview of like, what did you start out doing in the practice?

[BRITTANY]:
Sure. So I remember when you first hired me, I kind of started with the basics. So that being, like, scheduling for the therapist, of new clients, also entering the explanation of benefits into our EHR system. I would do the basic, like, trash and stocking of the offices of, like, we have a little coffee and snack area. So I keep watch on that and restock it as needed. I’m trying to think what else. I think that is kind of like what I remember from starting out. It was mostly scheduling and entering the payments into our EHR system at the very beginning.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah. So at the time, we had maybe 10 or 12 therapists and so it was, you know, I would say, quite a bit of time spent on the phone just scheduling new people.

[BRITTANY]:
Yes, definitely. I would say that was probably 75% of my day. Yeah.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah. So, over that period of time, we have grown and obviously gotten busier. And as you proved to be very capable and just excellent at what you do, we started giving you more and more tasks to do. So do you remember what some of those things were that we added along the way?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, so I remember you gradually started having me take over handling the bank deposits for you. I took over handling the office space, so making sure the therapists that are in the office, like, nothing overlaps in their schedules so we only have one therapist in an office at a time. Also, credentialing for new therapists and getting them on board. Also, payroll; entering payroll for you every other week. And also handling your calendar and scheduling meetings that you do between the check-in meetings with therapists, and meetings outside of Move Forward, helping with your calendar there, [unclear] ordering supplies.

[ALISON]:
Right. Yeah, yeah. So I gave you the business debit card so that you could order supplies and take care of all that. So then I didn’t have to be part of that process necessarily anymore.

[BRITTANY]:
And then also, I was like, running to… I remember running back and forth to the offices. It’s hard for me to remember this, because we’ve been doing telehealth now for so long, but running back and forth to all three offices when we were doing in-office appointments, handling the mail and just checking up on things too.

[ALISON]:
Right. Yeah. So something else too, that was pretty big was we made the switch over to W-2 employees at the beginning of 2020. And I know you were really helpful with that whole process because we had to get all of this paperwork filled out by the existing staff, and we had to write a policy and procedure manual, you helped with that. Do you remember anything else that you did around that, making that transition?

[BRITTANY]:
Well, we switched the payroll system to paychecks. I had to learn that along with, like, the new pay structure in the new year. And like you mentioned, the paperwork of the employees, switching to W-2. I’m trying to think…

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I know you were really helpful with, like, making sure everybody who wanted health insurance was signed up.

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, I did that as well. And a lot of stuff like, I guess I was just kind of like the go-to person for staff too, with having questions that would come up because of the transition from independent contractors to W-2 employees; it was quite a transition for everyone. So I think I was kind of like their go-to person. And when they asked me questions I didn’t know I would just come to you and find out an answer. [Unclear] you were getting overwhelmed with all these questions.

[ALISON]:
Right, right. Yeah. And I think now you do a fair amount too, with, like HR type stuff, like all the paperwork. And we switched to a system called Bambee HR – it’s like Bambi with two E’s at the end – that has the capability to store all the HR paperwork electronically, but then also, you have access to an HR rep. And so I know you were talking about how that’s made your life a lot easier. What do you like about using that system?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, so it’s really cut down on paper a lot. I love that we can send all our new hire paperwork electronically to the new therapists that start. So before, we were having just everything in a folder, like a paper chart for each employee, and it was a lot; it took a lot of time just because we had to get this filled out before they started and say they didn’t live close by, I would have to mail them the paperwork. And then they would fill it out and then mail it back to me. So we were paying money for postage on top of just the extra time it took. So now that we’re on Bambee, everything can be sent electronically, and they can sign everything, and I get it back right away. And it also really just helps keep everything organized a lot better. I can find stuff a lot easier by just typing in a search bar to look for a piece of paper, then looking through a whole like employee folder for stuff. So it’s a lot easier that way as well.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. And I really appreciate that you have, like, taken on making sure we’re getting all of that stuff completed because, you know, obviously, from a legal standpoint, you have to make sure all of that paperwork is done when a new employees start, and, you know, it’s just like a lot of little details. And if somebody doesn’t fill it out right away, you gotta remind them or I don’t know, maybe the system reminds them. But yeah, I really appreciate that you handle that because then I don’t have to do it.

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah. Definitely.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. Anything else that you do…? I would say a couple other things are like, we decided to buy everybody a Move Forward t shirt. All the existing staff if they didn’t have one, and like, anybody new who gets hired, like, we’ll have extras to give them as a welcome gift. So you ordered all of those and took care of that. When we were in the office, I know you would run errands, like, not just between the offices, but if we have to run and get paper shredded or something, you’d be the one to drop that off or you’d have to run to the post office to buy postage or something like that.

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah. I mean, also like, kind of managing… What I think is really neat that we do here at Move Forward is we keep a staff birthday chart for me to kind of follow. And every time someone has a birthday, we send a little card in the mail with a gift card, just telling them we’re happy they’re a part of our team here at Move Forward. I think it keeps them around, the therapists really like it. And I kind of manage that now since starting as well.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, so I think that, again, that’s another detail that I don’t have to think about or keep track of like, oh, whose birthday is it this month? You have your system for remembering that and you take care of it, which is great. Nice.

So what do you think has been…? So obviously, you had experience working in a mental health setting before doing administrative assistant type work, so it wasn’t totally foreign to you. And that’s actually how we knew each other and then we had kind of lost touch because you had moved away, and obviously, I had left that community mental health agency. So then when you applied for my job, I was like, I know her. I’m gonna interview her. Okay, so what do you think is the most challenging part about the job now? And I have a guess, for you. And you can tell me if you think this is right or not, but my guess is dealing with customer service problems is probably the hardest part.

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, it’s probably my least favorite part of this job. We don’t really get them too often. But a lot of times when we do, it’s kind of like, it’s almost like a lose-lose situation sometimes. We try to make it like, whatever the customer or the client feels is inadequate, or whatever they’re upset about, we try to make right, but sometimes we just can’t make it right because they’re not seeing things how we’re seeing things either.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, so I think what happens most is, like, we charge a no-show fee, and the client doesn’t feel like it was fair. And then of course they call you because you’re there to answer the phone and the therapist is usually in session all day. And then you sort of get that first line of the complaint, right? You’re the first complaint department person who’s kind of listening to what’s going on with the situation. And like, you don’t always know what the client’s circumstances are, or what the circumstances were around the cancellation or whatever. And so then you sort of feel like stuck in the middle, because it’s like, well, you know, it sounds reasonable to me, but you don’t know the context or the history. And then you don’t want to necessarily reverse the decision that the therapist made. So I think that’s one of those things that like, we’re still working through our process to figure out how to make that easier, or simpler so those things don’t come up as much. But yeah, those can definitely be tricky situations.

[BRITTANY]:
Definitely. That’s definitely probably like, the hardest part to handle with this job. For sure.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Is anything else particularly challenging, do you think?

[BRITTANY]:
Credentialing the new therapists. It’s not challenging, it’s just very time consuming on my end because we work with so many different insurances, and it takes a while on the insurance and things as well. So it’s not challenging, but it’s just very time consuming, the credentialing process.

[ALISON]:
Right. And I would imagine it probably can feel tedious at times.

[BRITTANY]:
Oh, yeah.

[ALISON]:
Yes, yes. And I don’t remember now, but who taught you how to do the credentialing? Was it me or was it somebody else?

[BRITTANY]:
Um, I think it was a combination of you and then kind of learning bits and pieces as I go along. And then also, the clinical director that we had, as well.

[ALISON]:
Okay, gotcha.

[BRITTANY]:
I’d never done that before. It was totally new to me coming to Move Forward.

[ALISON]:
Okay, yeah. So that’s something that I get asked a lot, like, who does your credentialing for you? Because there’s actually companies that will credential therapists for you. And obviously, you pay for that service. And then people are always surprised when I say, oh, Brittany doesn’t it. And they’re, like, what? How does she know how to do it? But I think it was just like my own [unclear]. What’s that?

[BRITTANY]:
I said, you can definitely, like, someone can definitely learn credentialing. It’s definitely learnable for someone who’s never done it before.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, so like, if you had to give somebody advice about, like, how they might teach their assistant how to do their credentialing, do you have any tips for them?

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, if you could write out something for them to follow, I think that would be really helpful because I had to actually train someone to do credentialing for me while I was on maternity leave recently. And I wrote out, like, I did show her how to credential but I also wrote out a sheet of walking her through the steps that you take. Because some insurance companies, you do credentialing all electronically online, other insurance companies, they require you to fill in a paper application and actually send it in through fax. So each insurance company is different. So probably the best way if you’re training someone or teaching someone how to credential, is just show them the steps, but also to like, write out a document so they have something to look back to when they actually do the credentialing.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, when I figured out the credentialing because I was just really stubborn and just thought like, well, I’ll just figure out how to do this myself in the beginning. And it seemed like all the insurance companies want the same information. It’s just sort of, like, the format of the application might be different, or, you know, like you said, one might want it electronically, another one wants it on paper. But they all kind of want the same stuff. Do you find that’s true?

[BRITTANY]:
Yes. Yeah. That is 100% correct. Yep.

[ALISON]:
Yeah. So basically, if you have all the documents assembled that you need, it’s just like copying the right numbers and the right information in the right spaces on the application.

[BRITTANY]:
Just takes a little time. But if you have the information, it’s not hard to do.

[ALISON]:
Right, right. Yeah. And it can, again, you have to sort of go on the insurance company’s timeline, which may not be your timeline, but they’re just gonna take as much time as they want. So we kind of talked about what’s challenging about the job. What do you think is the best part of the job?

[BRITTANY]:
I love being a part of this team that, like, I feel like I’m playing a role where we’re helping others, especially now, during the pandemic right now, more so than ever. I like knowing I’m playing that role where I’m helping others that are needing help right now. So I get fulfillment out of that. I’ve never had fulfillment, really, in a job until I started working here. And I was like, I know I’m doing good in the world working here.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah. And I think that makes such a big difference, you know, getting up and needing to come to work every day. And like, you feel, like, oh, what I’m doing has a purpose. And I see how, you know, there’s like a direct correlation to what I’m doing and how it is helping other people and it’s affecting the world positively.

[BRITTANY]:
That’s definitely the number one thing that I love about this.

[ALISON]:
Good, good. Yeah. And I think the one thing too that I wanted to talk about a little bit is, you know, I’ve had a lot of different assistants over the past five years of having the group practice. And I would say, you are the best assistant that I’ve ever had. And I think that the reason… one of the big reasons is because you are really good at, like, anticipating what is going to happen before it happens, like, you’re proactive. You’re sort of always thinking two steps ahead. And I’m wondering, like, how you do that? Or how did you learn that? Because I think there’s a lot of assistants who are good, but they don’t… they’re not thinking ahead and being proactive. So is that something you learned somewhere? Or is that something you just figured out along the way? Or how did you…? Do you know you do that?

[BRITTANY]:
I don’t know. I honestly think it’s just like, I always think like, well, if this happens, what do we do if this happens? Or what do we do if this happens? So I’m always feeling like I need to be prepared for, like… I always look ahead at stuff. So I feel like I’m just trying… I’m the type of person that has to be prepared. I don’t like feeling unprepared, or feeling disorganized. So I’m always thinking about things and thinking that, like, two steps ahead so we can stay on top of things. And that’s true in my personal life too and not just my workplace. So I wish I had a better answer, but I don’t know. I think it’s just the way my mind works.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that’s something that other practice owners, if they’re looking to hire an assistant, maybe that’s something that they can, you know, maybe train them on, like, you know, encouraging them to think about, okay, if… not that you want to think too far ahead in the future, but I think it really does help to, like you said, be prepared. Like, okay, if this happens, like, we could have this outcome, or we could have that outcome, and kind of knowing what the plan is based on either possibility. So yeah, so I think maybe that’s something that, you know, if as a group practice owner, you’re looking to hire an assistant, maybe that’s part of what you can train them on.

I was going to give an example too, like, so recently, my children broke my cell phone. And they landed on it with such force that the screen broke and so I couldn’t get any of the information off of my old phone onto a new phone when I did get a new phone. So I didn’t have anybody’s phone number. So I had meetings set up with people and normally I have all the staff phone numbers saved in my phone. And then I, you know, opened up my calendar and saw, oh, I have a call now with this person and I don’t, oh, I don’t have anybody’s number saved in my phone. And so I quickly texted you, like, what is so and so’s phone number? And then, like, of course, you responded very promptly. But in the meantime, I clicked on the, you know, the appointment you had made on my calendar, and I saw you had put the person’s phone number in there. And I was like, how did she know that I was going to need their phone number.

[BRITTANY]:
Always be prepared.

[ALISON]:
That’s right. That’s right. So it’s just like those… it’s like a small thing. But it just makes my day so much easier when it’s like, I’m not scrambling to find a piece of information. And I am not always good at remembering all the details of things, because I’m obviously thinking about lots of things and looking more at the big picture of what’s happening in the practice. And so it’s really nice to have somebody who’s very detail oriented. So I would say, as well, like, that’s something if you’re looking to hire an assistant, it’s important to find somebody who’s really detail oriented and isn’t gonna, you know, sort of let things fall through the cracks, because I appreciate that you think, you know, you think of things ahead of time, but also like, you know if I forgot something, or if I didn’t give you an answer to something, you will follow up, which I appreciate as well. It doesn’t bother me at all that you’re like, oh, remember this question I asked you five days ago that you didn’t give me an answer to yet? And I’m like, oh, yeah, I totally forgot about that. So I appreciate that you follow up. So that’s great, too.

So, what do you think in terms of, you know, we’ve been growing a lot over, I would say 2020, we’ve really added a lot of staff. Do you feel like your job has changed since we’ve added more therapists? Obviously, one big change has been we had to hire a second administrative assistant. So that was a big change. But anything else that you feel like is different now that we’re bigger?

[BRITTANY]:
I guess how I spend my time is slightly different now that we’re bigger, with the help of the second admin person. So my time spent is on different things now than just always scheduling because before, I was always on the phone, always scheduling, and could never get any of my other work done some days, just because the scheduling piece became a really big, time consuming piece of the job because of having so many therapists, and our call volume was growing. So we hired a second admin person who handles a good chunk of the scheduling. And my time is now spent on more of the billing end of things, and following up on payments, as well as, like, helping the therapists with, like, various tasks. They oftentimes will email me stuff that they need done. So I usually handle that as well. So my time and my day to day job looks a lot different now that we’re growing and expanding than it did, like, a year ago.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, and I think the other change too, has been, like, you are in charge, like, you’re the sort of the boss of the other administrative assistant. So that’s kind of a new role for you as well, like, you’re having to kind of grow into the role of being a manager, in a way, I would guess.

[BRITTANY]:
I’m still learning because this is new to me.

[ALISON]:
Right. Right. Yeah, I think overall, it’s been really good to have somebody else to share the workload with and you can sort of cover for each other and that kind of thing.

[BRITTANY]:
Yeah, we work really closely, like, if she ever has a question she calls me and if I ever need help with something I call her. So it’s really nice having that extra set of hands here now that we are growing in such capacity that we are now.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, yeah. And you know, what was interesting, you know, we had done those interviews together this past summer to try to find the second admin person. And I think for as much as we wanted, obviously, to find somebody who had a lot of, you know, potentially a lot of healthcare experience, it also was important to find somebody who was a good fit personality wise, you know, because you are working very closely with that person. So I think that was a big part of our decision making as well. So, what was important for you in terms of when we did interview potential admins, like, what were you looking for to make sure that they were going to be a good fit?

[BRITTANY]:
I wanted someone with experience, but also, like, what was really important to me was making sure that they had that go-getter attitude, and their personality was important to me. Especially if they were handling phone calls, I want to make sure that this person had compassion and care for their job and wasn’t just working this job just to have a job, but actually truly cared. So for me, it came down to almost personality over experience.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, and I think one of the things that impressed me about the person we hired is that, like, we have run an ad on Indeed, and she had sent an application, and it caught your eye because she had sent a really nice, very personalized cover letter. And she then went the additional step to find our website and found my email address. And then, like, sent her resume again, just saying how excited she would be to work for the practice and that kind of thing. So like, yeah, that showed me she was a go-getter because, you know, it’s easy just to throw together a generic cover letter and a resume on Indeed, versus take the time to write something personalized. And then on top of that, like, go the extra mile to make sure that you send it directly to the person who would be hiring you.

So anything else, Brittany, that you would give for advice or tips if, you know, maybe somebody is looking to hire an administrative assistant? Or maybe they have one and they’re still doing a lot of administrative work, and they want to kind of give that person more tasks? Do you have any advice about how best to do that? Or, you know, what kind of made that a smooth transition for you? I think that was one thing I did do, is I didn’t dump everything on your lap at once. It was sort of like a slow build up of, like, okay, do these things first. Okay, now you’ve done really well at these things; let’s add these things. I don’t know how that felt for you but it seems like it would probably have, you know, it was probably less overwhelming that way.

[BRITTANY]:
Oh, yeah. It was very gradual, like, the stuff you gave me, which is really nice because I wasn’t overwhelmed ever. So like, starting out gradual was really nice. And I would probably say that that would be something, if you currently have an assistant, you’re looking at giving them more work, I think communication is really important. I know I’ve asked Alison a lot of questions while I was learning, and she never was, like, stop asking me questions, or anything like that. She would always answer whatever I needed to know and she helped a lot with my training. So I think just being available to your assistant to help train them and answer any questions that they have, that’s really been helpful to me in the learning and the growing experience, knowing that if I have questions, Alison’s available to answer. So I would say if you can make yourself available as much to your assistant, and then in the long run, it will pay off because eventually they will know these answers and they’ll know what to do. So eventually, it’ll be a lot off of your shoulders.

So if you’re training someone, or if you’re looking to hire someone and train them, I would say probably the most important piece of hiring someone in my opinion is definitely going off of their personality. And I think their experience is really important too, but don’t go fully on the experience. I think it’s kind of a combination of things to get the right assistant. I know, speaking from experience, we’ve interviewed people that had a whole lot of experience, and they looked really good on paper, but then when we interviewed them it was just like, no, there’s no, like, enthusiasm in their voice or there was like, just, there was always red flags to these people that had a lot of experience. And then the person we interviewed had pretty much no experience in the mental health field but she had that personality that we were looking for. And so we went with her and it’s been a really good addition since we’ve hired her.

[ALISON]:
Yeah, I think that’s been a new kind of concept for me because she did stand out so much, just from her personality and her enthusiasm that we were willing to take a chance on her even though she hadn’t worked in mental health before. And I was a little bit wary about that. But it’s worked out really well because she’s super willing to learn and, you know, just enthusiastic and wants to do a good job. So that goes a long way, for sure.

One other thing I wanted to say too that I know we talked about, especially in the beginning, is that, you know, I think you wanted to make sure you were doing the right thing and so you would ask me questions about things. And I felt like, okay, well, you’ve been here long enough that you should feel empowered to just make those decisions. Do you remember we talked about that, and I was, like, you know, if you need to buy supplies you don’t need to tell me – just go buy supplies. Just don’t spend more than X number of dollars a month, and it’s fine. And so, I know, for me, that was really huge because, you know, you want to feel like you have some decision making ability in your job. And then also, I trust you and so I don’t need you to run every little thing by me. So I think that’s another thing too, if you’re looking to hire an assistant, just to keep in mind, like, having that conversation about like, okay, well now you’re doing a great job with this. You don’t need to keep running this by me or whatever, like, just feel empowered to do it yourself. So I don’t know how that experience was for you. But I know that took a little getting used to.

[BRITTANY]:
No, it was like when you told me, like, you can start just doing this stuff on your own, I trust you. It was kind of like a lightbulb switch. I was like, oh, okay. So I don’t have to tell you or ask you, like, can I go get some more pens and paper for the office or whatever? Like, just do it. And it saves me time and it saves you time.

[ALISON]:
Right. Right. Does that feel better for you, to feel like Alison trusts that I can make this decision and, like, obviously, I’m an adult that doesn’t need to ask permission for every little thing?

[BRITTANY]:
Oh, yeah, definitely. Yeah, once we got that point…

[ALISON]:
Yeah. Yeah.

[BRITTANY]:
Cuz I know at the very beginning, yeah, [unclear].

[ALISON]:
Yeah. In the very beginning, yeah, you’re trying to figure me out and I’m trying to figure you out. And yeah, of course, you’re gonna ask lots of questions. But eventually it’s like, yeah, you can do this. I trust you. Yeah. Well, Brittany, thank you so much for talking with me today. I know this is not the most comfortable thing for you to be interviewed on a podcast, but I do really appreciate you taking the time.

________________________________________

[ALISON]:
I hope you got a lot of valuable information out of that episode. Brittany is a total gem and she gets things done efficiently and quickly and makes my life much easier. So I appreciate everything that she does for me and for the practice. I definitely couldn’t do everything that I do without her. And wanted to let you know too, this episode actually came out of some questions from our Group Practice Boss membership community. So we have folks who have established group practices as part of this membership community where they can get support and every month we have a different theme, so the theme for the month of November is about delegation. And there’s already, you know, some talk – even though it’s not quite November yet, this is being recorded a little earlier – about, you know, what do I delegate to the assistant? Just, if you’ve never had an assistant before it can be hard to think through what exactly to put on that job description. So this is an episode for all of my folks in Group Practice Boss so that they can learn how to best utilize their assistant.

If you are interested in joining Group Practice Boss we are going to be opening the doors again in a couple months, likely either the end of December, beginning of January. If you want to get on the waitlist to find out when the doors open, the URL is www.practiceofthepractice.com/grouppracticeboss. So I will see all of you next time. Hope you’re doing well. Bye.

This podcast is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regards to the subject matter covered. This is given with the understanding that neither the host, Practice of the Practice, or the guests are providing legal, mental health, or other professional information. If you need a professional, you should find one.