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One of the best ways to strengthen your chiropractic business is by hiring a chiropractic assistant. These dedicated team members support your patients' well-being and ensure your company runs smoothly by responding to phone calls and emails, scheduling appointments, and preparing rooms for treatment. Their roles take on many forms depending on the size and needs of the practice they work for, making them an extremely versatile and valuable addition to your company.
If you want to make your business less hectic, have more time for patient care, and invest in long-term success, hiring a chiropractic assistant could be one of your best decisions. As such an integral part of your organization, this assistant has to be someone who's not just motivated but highly qualified for the role.
To set your practice up for success, this guide will walk you through everything you need to know about how to hire a chiropractic assistant, including qualifications to look for, writing a chiropractic job description, and conducting the right interviews.
Hiring a Chiropractic Assistant
You can recruit and onboard a new chiropractic assistant in five steps:
1. Identify your company's key needs.
2. Translate them into responsibilities for a future assistant.
3. Write and publish a job description online.
4. Screen and interview candidates.
5. Onboard your new hire.
While the chiropractic assistant hiring process can be straightforward, there are some common mistakes you'll want to avoid along the way, such as not fully verifying a candidate's credentials, hiring the wrong person too soon because you're desperate for help, and failing to onboard your new assistant in order to set them up for success.
We'll explore how to quickly hire the right person and avoid these pitfalls.
Identifying Your Organization's Needs
In small chiropractic businesses, chiropractic assistant responsibilities are generally a mix of administrative and clinical functions. They may be the front desk receptionist who greets patients and guides them to their rooms, as well as the primary point of contact for calls and emails. In some settings, they even assist with billing, handling insurance claims, and maintaining patient health records.
In medium to large businesses, the role may be more clinical or administrative depending on the company's needs. Practices that already have a billing department and front desk support are more likely to hire a chiropractic assistant to provide clinical assistance. Or they may need someone to take a greater role at the front, supporting patients and answering questions, resolving concerns and fostering a long-term relationship.
Common duties that chiropractors assign to their assistants include:
- Greeting and checking in patients
- Responding to phone calls and emails
- Setting appointments and sceheduling follow-ups
- Assisting or handling billing and insurance claims
- Preparing treatment rooms
- Assisting chiropractors with patient care
To find the right chiropractic assistant, first clarify what your practice needs. This can ensure that your job description is accurate and doesn't set false expectations or attract the wrong talent.
You may also consider implementing a medical answering service, which can help reduce patient wait times, redirect calls, and streamline office communications.
This versatile service is great for small and large chiropractic businesses that want to always be available for their patients. When your staff is busy, the medical answering service ensures they never face unanswered calls or endless ringing.
Creating a Valuable Job Description
Contrary to what many believe, job descriptions aren't just requests for resumes. They're advertisements, and good advertisements have to employ quality content writing and marketing to be effective. This means following the expected format for a job description, being clear about your organization's goals and needs, and offering clear information about required hours, projected pay, and key responsibilities.
When you write a chiropractic assistant job description, be sure to clarify what roles the person will perform in the office, what experience they need to succeed and what qualifications you're looking for. Otherwise, you may receive a large volume of resumes that are time-consuming to read, only to find that you haven't attracted anyone who fits your ideal assistant.
Here is a sample chiropractic assistant job posting to help you:
Our practice is seeking a hard-working, adaptable and friendly individual to become our new chiropractic assistant. You'll work closely with our chiropractor and patients, serving as a support before, during and after treatment.
What You'll Need to Succeed:
- Experience with customer success and patient care
- Proficiency with computers, medical billing and patient portals
- Strong written and verbal communication skills
- Valid CCCA or CMAA certification
Work Hours: This is a full-time, 40-hour per week position.
Salary: [List Offering Range Based on Experience]
Using this template can help you build a strong job posting that targets the right individuals for your practice.
What Types of Qualifications Should a Chiropractic Assistant Have?
There are two main certifications chiropractic assistants can hold: the Certified Chiropractic Clinical Assistant (CCCA), which is offered by the Federation of Chiropractic Licensing Boards (FCLB), and the Certified Medical Administrative Assistant (CMAA), which is offered by the National Healthcareer Association (NHA).
Here's a closer look at how they compare in chiropractic assistant hiring:
- CCAA holders have been specifically trained to assist in chiropractic care; their education covers patient interaction, clinical recordkeeping, ethics, and more. To maintain certification, they must complete formal chiropractic assistant training and pass an exam, as well as complete ongoing education.
- CMAAs are trained in various aspects of healthcare management, such as administration, medical billing, recordkeeping, insurance processing and patient communication. They are required to complete training and pass an exam, but they are not specifically trained on chiropractic care.
Which one is right for your business?
- The CCAA is best for businesses that have a stronger need for clinical support and expertise from their assistant.
- The CMAA certification is best for businesses with greater administrative complexity and a strong need for medical billing knowledge and proficiency.
Both types of certifications are valuable, and each can support an assistant in their role. Consider your organization's current needs and verify credentials before hiring a candidate.
Do Chiropractic Assistants Need Training?
It depends; chiropractic assistant training is part of the CCAA program, while candidates who don't hold certification have varying degrees of experience. Formal training is less common for employers to offer, but every employee, regardless of their role, needs some form of training to familiarize themselves with the nuances of your business and its best practices.
Seeking employees who already have at least 2 years of experience in a chiropractic setting can reduce the workload for staff who have to train the new team member. If you don't have the resources to heavily train someone, be sure to specify the importance of experience and interview candidates to ensure they're able to perform the job well.
Top Tips for Hiring a Chiropractic Assistant
Chiropractic assistant hiring is an important investment, and it's important to approach the process carefully. Hiring too quickly can result in major errors that damage patient trust and even harm your business's reputation or threaten healthcare compliance.
Finding the right assistant requires carefully screening candidates, conducting thorough interviews and verifying any information they provide. You should perform a criminal background check, confirm the validity of their certifications and education and make sure that their schedule aligns with your office's needs.
Be sure to:
- Set clear expectations during the job interview
- Ask direct, open questions about common scenarios to see if the candidate has the right knowledge for the job
- Assess candidates for soft skills (communication, empathy and adaptability) as well as hard skills (recordkeeping, billing and technology).
- Prepare training resources ahead of time to make the onboarding process easier
Helping Your New Assistant Succeed
Once you've brought the right candidate into your office, it's important to perform routine check-ins and ensure they're adapting well to the role. Integrating the right tools can also help them succeed and perform better.
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