Time-Wasting Activities In Medical Practices (And How To Avoid Them)
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Time-wasting in medical practices is the opposite of what you want. As the owner of the business, you want to ensure you’re processing patients, working efficiently, and maintaining your margins, but that’s easier said than done.
Fortunately, this post is here to help. We look at some of the most common time-wasting activities and how to avoid them.
Poor Scheduling
The first problem you often encounter is poor scheduling. Failing to manage appointment slots or under bookings can leave staff idle or lead to excessive patient wait times.
Double-booking is something you want to avoid. While it might be tempting to do this because of no-shows, it irritates patients and makes them trust you less, while also causing staff burnout.
Replace this outdated system with online booking and patient reminders. Tell patients they can call at any time to cancel to make room for someone else.
Manual Administration
Given technological advances, manual administration is fast becoming a thing of the past. Unfortunately, many medical practices still do things the old-fashioned way, wasting time and energy.
The solution is to get an AI medical scribe for all clinicians. These perform multiple administrative tasks from writing down patient information discussed during consultations to arranging appointments. These tools prevent you from constantly having to divert staff time from patient care, allowing you to get more done.
Poor Communication
Poor communication is another issue. When staff and patients don’t understand each other, it can lead to delayed responses.
For example, a lot of medical practices have issues with front-desk staff failing to relay patient information to clinicians. Then, referrals are wasted and doctors don’t have the data they require to offer the best treatment.
The trick here is to integrate systems that permit better communication between front-of-house and back office. Cloud-based EHRs and other approaches are now in use, making it less likely that patient experience will suffer.
Joined-up systems like these aren’t just nice-to-have. They’re actually critical for keeping patients safe and enabling them to thrive long-term.
Too Many Meetings
Meetings are another time-waster you often find in medical practices. Poorly structured gatherings that don’t add anything to productivity are the bane of many healthcare professionals’ lives.
For example, many practices insist on weekly staff meetings. However, most of these just rehash known issues and don’t really introduce anything new. A single half-hour meeting is equivalent to a whole day’s pay if you have 16 people on your team.
To fix these, get people focused on patient care again. Don’t allow meetings to become a regular occurrence.
Patient No-Shows
Finally, patient no-shows are a massive time-waster. These can disrupt schedules and leave doctors feeling under-utilized.
The best way to avoid this is to use patient reminder systems. Giving patients an easy way to cancel appointments up to a couple of hours beforehand can be highly effective. Also, reminding them that you’ll still charge them can be another great way to ensure that they continue showing up for their appointments with you every time.
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