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Understanding the art of patient scheduling to
improve patient flow
Managing patient scheduling is a form of art. Patient scheduling requires maintaining a
healthy balance between patient inflow and outflow. If not managed properly, whether
on paper or online, it may lead to an uneven stream of patient flow leading to less
satisfied patients and frustrated staff members. Lack of a structured scheduling system
always results in dissatisfied patients and loss of revenue.
Industry fact states that only 49% of patients always see providers within
15 minutes of their appointment times
Effective patient scheduling to improve revenue
A structured appointment scheduling system can go a long way toward improving
revenue and increasing patient satisfaction in a medical practice. Traditional method of
patient appointment scheduling lacks many administrative qualities which prove
inefficient for patient scheduling and can hamper the patient flow. Hence, it is very
important for a physician to manage patient scheduling in order to improve patient flow
and enhance revenue.
Although patient scheduling looks like a simple administrative task, it cannot be taken
for granted. With an effective scheduling practice in place, you can see more patients
while reducing stress for both you and your staff and boosting profitability.
Few strategies which may help ensure an efficient patient scheduling system:
Set visiting goals for patients
Before putting the patient scheduling system in place, healthcare providers must set a
certain goal of patient visit on day-to-day basis. As a physician, you need to decide upon
how many patients, on average, you wish to see in your facility on a weekly basis. You
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also need to work upon the number of days your patients can wait for you to be seen in
order to optimize the patient scheduling effectively.
Strategy for patient visits
After setting the goal for patient visits, the next step is to place a scheduling strategy in
place to reduce patient wait time and make optimum use of the time spent in seeing the
patients visited. The most effective strategy for this is 'modified-wave scheduling'. In this
scheduling technique, patients are double-booked in the first slot of every hour. The rest
of the hour available can be utilized to catch up on patient visits in case you are running
behind your time schedule. Booking patient visits on an hourly basis can help effectively
manage the setback time in case you are running behind schedule.
Plan for downtime
In case you are planning for some downtime, be it a family vacation or an out-of-town
conference; be careful to schedule your appointments accordingly. If you are not careful
in scheduling patient visits when you are unavailable for longer periods, your practice
can be thrown into chaos. In such cases, make sure you begin to reduce the number of
patients you see, and also reduce the number of routine appointments for follow ups.
Coordinate with staff members
Once you've placed the scheduling strategy in place, make sure that your staff and
physicians are on the same page when it comes to patient flow essentials. It is
recommended that you put these policies in writing and distribute it amongst all your
staff members so that there is no chance of miscommunication. When it comes to
patient scheduling, it is necessary that your staff understands which patient needs to be
seen on an urgent basis and what kind of patients can be scheduled together.
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Plan your schedules ahead of time
The most important way to manage the patient flow effectively is to plan ahead of
schedule. Make sure that your scheduling staff has a clear picture of upcoming patient's
appointments and time requirements. Ensure that additional time requirements for
complicated cases and patient follow ups are addressed while scheduling an
appointment.
Medicalbillersandcoders.com has been successfully providing medical billing services for
over a decade now across all 50 US States. With a vast array of services available with
MBC, our clients can easily concentrate on patient scheduling to optimize their revenue.
Our clients rely on MBC for well informed decisions, improved communication between
physicians; tracking and reporting; assistance with medication safety and sustaining
quality of healthcare, so that they can concentrate on improved practice management
and stay fully committed to their profession.
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