What Is a Medical Practice Manager? [Role & When to Hire]

On average, physicians spend nine hours a week on EHR tasks. These are tasks that pull focus away from patients and practice growth.

Nearly half also report signs of burnout, which is often a consequence of operational overload.

For physicians running their own practices, the pressure runs even higher. A medical practice manager (MPM) takes off this operational weight and enables you to focus more on patient care.

Let’s break down what medical practice managers do, how they help, and when to bring one on board.

What Does a Medical Practice Manager Do?

Your medical practice manager handles everything behind the scenes, from the front desk to financials. Here are the three main areas that their role covers:

1. Operations

These include the day-to-day operations of your practice management, like scheduling, billing, compliance, supply chains, and technology. They make sure your appointments run on time, patient records remain secure, supplies never run out, and your clinic complies with regulations.

In other words, your medical practice manager is your operations lead. They build, maintain, and improve every non-clinical system behind the scenes. Here’s what they’re responsible for:

• Overseeing daily clinic operations like walk-ins, room setups, appointments, and patient flow
• Ensuring rooms remain clean, safe, and accessible for patients and staff
• Developing and maintaining a practice manual, as well as updating it over time
• Ensuring regulatory compliance with HIPAA, OSHA, and other healthcare accreditation bodies like PCMH, NCQA, and RACGP
• Implementing emergency protocols in clinical emergencies and ensuring staff readiness
• Reporting faulty or unsafe equipment and ensuring repair or replacement
• Maintaining working knowledge of all clinic equipment and ensuring staff are trained on usage
• Controlling inventory and managing assets. This includes tracking supplies, ordering medical consumables (like gloves), maintaining an equipment register, and scheduling maintenance
• Ensuring your practice has property insurance, malpractice insurance, and other types of insurance as needed
• Developing disaster recovery protocols and preparing for interruptions
• Maintaining and regularly updating an asset register
• Overseeing and updating EHR/IT systems, spreadsheets, and backups

Your MPM serves as the main contact person between your clinic and outside vendors. This includes suppliers, bank contacts, accountants, legal and insurance advisors, pharmaceutical reps, and security personnel.

2. People

Practice managers usually oversee all non-medical staff, which includes administrative, clerical, and some clinical support personnel, like medical assistants or nursing staff. But this depends on the practice structure.

They do not manage licensed medical providers like physicians, nurse practitioners, or physician assistants. But they do coordinate with them for coverage, leave, or training when needed.

Here’s what their responsibilities look like across staffing, human resources, and leadership:

• Hiring, onboarding, and rostering staff, as well as coordinating with providers for after-hours coverage or leave
• Evaluating staff performance, identifying training and certification needs, and organizing professional development training
• Addressing staff grievances and performance issues and maintaining a positive culture through HR support
• Creating provider and nursing rosters (including after-hours shifts) that meet patient demand
• Maintaining HR systems and documentation like staff files, employment records, contracts, and leave tracking
• Organizing and chairing regular meetings to keep their team on one page
• Coordinating training programs for temporary staff, including medical students, residents, and locum physicians

3. Performance

Performance is what keeps your practice thriving, and practice managers manage much of what makes your practice perform well.

They keep an eye on the numbers, understand what’s working (and what isn’t), and make changes that help your practice grow while remaining profitable.

Here’s how they manage performance on a daily, monthly, and annual level:

• Preparing monthly, quarterly, and annual financial reports
• Managing payroll, retirement benefits, workers’ compensation, and salary allocation for all staff and providers
• Overseeing debt collection and payment of accounts
• Handling taxation, bank reconciliations, and budgeting
• Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as accounts receivable (AR) days, collection rates, patient volume relative to operating hours, return on investment for services, and appointment scheduling efficiency
• Identifying inefficiencies in consumable usage or staff workflow
• Providing practice owners or partners with budget forecasts, market insights, and growth strategies
• Helping with service expansion and community outreach
• Keeping up with regulatory and legislative changes that could affect your practice
• Managing relationships with local health providers, pharmaceutical reps, and business vendors

Why Physicians Need a Medical Practice Manager

If you own or lead a practice, a medical practice manager will take the weight of daily operations off your shoulders, manage your team for you, and keep an eye on your finances.

This means you have:

1. More time for clinical work. Without a practice manager, you might find yourself buried in admin work like staff rosters, payroll questions, or reporting. A manager will absorb these tasks, which means more appointment availability, less burnout, and better continuity of care.
2. An accountable team. Your MPM will make sure the right people are in the right roles and that everyone is trained. This means fewer staff conflicts, higher morale and retention, and clear expectations for everyone on your team.
3. Clearer financial insight. Your manager will track your revenue, expenses, and any potential issues to keep your business profitable. This means fewer missed claims or billing errors and more control over how and where to invest.

When Do Physicians Need a Medical Practice Manager?

You should hire an MPM when you’re consistently being overwhelmed by your healthcare administration responsibilities and they’re intruding into your personal life. Here are five signs to publish a practice manager job post:

1. When you’re spending more time managing than practicing. If you’re staying regularly after hours to fix schedules, handle payroll, and put out fires in general, you’re slowly becoming the office manager, not the doctor. This is when you need to make a change.
2. When your practice is growing, but it’s messy. Growth is great, but it makes things complicated. You have more staff, more patients, and more systems to coordinate. If your systems can’t handle the workload at your medical office, it’s time to hire someone to do it for you.
3. When you don’t know where the money is going. If you’re unsure how profitable you are or if you’re being reimbursed correctly, a manager can help. They’ll track all transactions, vendors, and external (and internal) financials to give you a clear idea of what’s happening in your practice.
4. When you’re feeling burnt out but can’t slow down. You might have hit burnout without knowing it because you’re doing the work alone. If you’ve hit the point where you only go through the motions, something has to give.
5. When you’re preparing to scale or sell. If you’re thinking of expanding your services or selling your practice, you need systems in place that aren’t dependent on you. An MPM will help you make this a reality.

Find a Practice Manager Who Helps You Achieve Long-Term Growth With Physicians Thrive

When running your own physician practice, every hour spent on admin, operations, or staffing issues takes away from patient care and practice growth. If you’re constantly juggling more responsibilities than you can comfortably handle, it’s time to bring in a healthcare management expert.

And that’s where we can help.

At Physicians Thrive, we connect doctors like you with the support needed to build a medical practice that you enjoy working in. Our team walks you through your options, helps you understand the changes you could expect, and puts in place plans for your practice’s financial growth.

Ready to stop managing and start focusing more on your patients? Give us a call today!