One way to Retain Staff in Your Medical Practice Without Raising a Single Salary

Retaining staff in your medical practice usually gets talked about as a pay problem or a benefits problem. Sometimes it’s neither. Sometimes it’s many small, micro-frustrations that slowly burn out a person. Like a computer that’s too slow to load a program, wasting seconds and mounting frustrations every day. Over and over and over.

One of the best ways to keep good staff has nothing to do with a raise. It’s asking them what’s slowing them down, what’s frustrating them, what’s inefficient in tasks they have to do and actually fixing it.

You’re a Boss, Even If You Don’t Think of Yourself That Way

Most physicians start practice thinking they’re doctors who happen to have an employee or two. We don’t see ourselves as employers. Or bosses.

I don’t like thinking about my team that way. I see us as equal members of the same team. My admin runs my life, and I mean that literally. I tell patients “she’s the boss, I just go where I’m told,” and it’s not really a joke. I couldn’t see the number of patients I see, or show up the way I want to show up, without her and without the practice extenders who support my practice day to day.

Here’s the part that’s easy to skip past. Even if you see the relationship feels equal, there is a hierarchy.

You’re the one signing the paycheque. That means creating a place people want to work is on you, whether you asked for the job or not. It’s also one of the best ways to retain staff in your medical practice.

The Slow Computer Nobody Mentioned

When I finally sat down at my admin’s desk to look at something quick, the lag between programs nearly made me lose my mind inside of two minutes.

She’d never brought it up. To her, it was just Tuesday.

We got her a new computer. She estimates it’s given her back 30-45 minutes a day and cut hundreds of micro frustrations.

When Fixing Your Problem Creates Someone Else’s

The flip side is just as real, and physicians talk about it less.

I’ve been using an app called Wispr Flow to dictate into notes faster when my templates don’t quite cover the nuance for a specific patient (not an ad, just real love). It gets me time back every day.

But it also changed the shape of some of my notes. Paragraphs instead of the bulleted plan my nurse Emily used to pull from fast when she prepped follow up notes. What made my job faster made hers slower, more difficult and more frustrating.

Fixing your own problem and creating someone else’s isn’t a failure. It can easily happen when we make a change and don’t check in with our team.

The Short Version: Retain Staff In Your Medical Practice Step 1

You don’t need an HR department or a budget for new equipment to start. You need two minutes and a direct question. Ask your team what’s frustrating, slow or inefficient about their day and what would make it better.

If nothing comes to mind right away, that’s normal too. Most people stop noticing their own annoyances. Have them write it down for a week and revisit it together.

What you’ll usually find isn’t laziness or a long list of complaints. It’s small, fixable things that have been sitting there long enough to feel normal. Fix what you can.

And doing this? This makes every day for your team better, less frustrating. They can then do their jobs more easily, faster, which is going to help create validation and loyalty. They’re going to have more time to help figure out more ways that you can keep running your practice better, which is only going to benefit you in the long run.

Dr. Kate Boehm MD, MEd, FRCSC is a reconstructive plastic surgeon and the founder of DuplicateMeMD. She stubbornly believes that practice management is the way for female physicians to get their time back. So they can show up as the person they want to be in their lives.