Meet Office Manager Nadirah Abdallah-Joune

Learn how a novice office manager reduced wait room times to eight minutes while hiring and retaining a dependable team

The ModMed® Practice HERO Award recognizes leaders in operations who harness our solutions to help improve their practice. Award finalist Nadirah Abdallah-Joune’s hiring and management skills helped her staff reduce wait room times to eight minutes, as well as reduce appointment wait times to 24 hours. Discover how she did it below.

Nadirah’s story

I started out as a receptionist at Michigan Foot & Ankle Specialists while attending college. After graduation, I was a teacher for four years, and then my old boss asked if I’d like to take the office manager position just around the time that our old EHR system, TRAKnet, merged with ModMed. I shadowed practice staff during the transition to decide if I wanted to take the position, and I decided it was a “yes.” When I started, we had one receptionist, so I hired three new front desk staff to stabilize the front office experience for our patients. I’ve been the office manager for two years, and I have to say that becoming a HERO award finalist feels like a major accomplishment.

Reducing wait times

The bottom line is that patients come first, and our goal as a team is to get people in as soon as possible. We do have a set schedule, but we’ll sometimes get calls for walk-ins, and the front desk will intercom me to fit the patient in. My perspective is that you never let a patient walk away. I feel that we have a responsibility to our patients in pain, and we need to figure out how to get them seen that same day. We all make an effort to ensure no patient waits longer than 24 hours to get a scheduled appointment, depending on their insurance requirements. In the waiting room, no patient waits longer than eight minutes. When it comes to serving our clients, it doesn’t matter if it’s a new or existing patient, or if it’s a nail emulsion procedure or callous procedure. No matter what your primary concern is, we make sure you’re seen in a timely fashion. Depending on the chief complaint, our doctors are so time efficient that our average appointment time is about 35 minutes.

Overcoming office challenges

Personally, one of my biggest challenges was appropriately asserting my leadership. I’m younger than the physicians, as well as some of the medical assistants and front desk staff. Sometimes I still saw myself as “the receptionist” when I first came into the role. I had to put that old self-perception aside and commit to seeing myself as a leader. Once I shifted my perspective, adapting to the increased responsibilities and new EMR system came easily to me. Professionally, two major challenges really stand out: transitioning from TRAKnet to ModMed, and hiring and retaining staff. When I was a receptionist using TRAKnet, it was much harder to leave the office at the end of the day. Now, I finish my work on time or I get to go home earlier than usual.

Overcoming workflow challenges

TRAKnet was difficult to navigate compared to ModMed. There were too many tabs to switch between and click through — it was just difficult to use. As a manager using ModMed, it’s a game changer. No one has to find their way through multiple tabs, and when we scan in paperwork it pops up right in the program. I can communicate with our billing staff through intramail, see flagged claims, fill in the gaps and send it right back to them for resubmission. Each part of the office has different areas of ModMed software they can use to make their lives easier, and everything stays in one place. I think ModMed has made us more time efficient, more stable and more organized. Tasks are getting completed more quickly and it’s simple to identify urgent items.

How to hire and retain staff

It’s a challenge to find reliable people who care about treating each and every patient with enthusiasm. It took awhile to find staff who showed up ready to do their best, but eventually we did succeed. I believe the front desk is the ultimate first impression, so I insist they have excellent verbal communication skills and smile during patient interactions. When you’re hiring for the front desk, keep an open mind. It’s hard to hire someone with no experience, but it’s possible for them to be successful if you’re patient, understanding and willing to teach them yourself. And when you’re in that teaching phase, if you need to talk to someone about a problem, you should take them aside for a private conversation. Don’t talk about it in front of other people. Now we have a good front and back office staff, some of whom have been here for 10+ years. I believe the key to our retention is that our doctors treat the staff as equal participants in the healthcare process. Doctors who treat their staff with respect are invaluable for employee retention, and it facilitates an environment where everyone cares about each other. That makes people want to stay.

“Don’t take it day by day; planning is key!”

Advice for aspiring office managers

Don’t take it day by day; planning is key, and it played a huge role in my success in office management. I still make lists, I have a calendar planned out, and I send morning reminders to the staff. Beyond that, my advice is to take the plunge and just do it! Challenging myself to become a manager and learn how to use ModMed increased my confidence in my professional skills. It opened my eyes to new possibilities, and pushed me to think bigger about my career. Now I can see myself becoming a director or branching out into the hospital space…who knows? The sky’s the limit.

Learn more about our ModMed HEROs. 

The statements and conclusions contained herein reflect the opinions of Nadirah Abdallah-Joune and not those of ModMed. ModMed makes no representations or warranties as to the accuracy of any such information. Results may vary depending on medical practice size, product usage and other variables.

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