Originally published on March 12,
2017 at www.lmshealthpro.com.
By Kristen Brady
Do you want more patients? It’s
possible to easily do this by simply making the commitment to be on-time as a
physician. This post provides you practical tips to make you an on-time
physician which will assist in generating more patients for your practice.
Are you able to imagine the response of the patient who was
forced to wait:
- 6 weeks to get an appointment
- 1 hour in the reception room to see the medical assistant or PA,
- One additional hour to see the physician who spends under 5 minutes with a patient,
- 2 more weeks to get an imaging study or lab work,
- An additional 2 weeks to assess the results with a patient, and, lastly
- several more weeks to get insurance authorization for medicine, or for a procedure that was medically necessary?
A physician may create an on-time
philosophy by committing to get to the office 15 to 20 minutes prior to seeing
patients at 9 AM. It’s the time to have a short meeting with your staff. Make sure
that all of the reports are inside the EMR, that patients who have special
needs are immediately taken care of, and all emergency or urgent calls be made
prior to seeing patients.
The team knows that the physician is on time and is going to
be placing patients inside a room before 9 AM in order for the patient and
doctor to start the day in a timely manner.
I then recommend that all practices reserve a 15 to 20-minute
slot each afternoon and every morning. These are for all emergencies,
urgencies, or new patients who have to be seen on the exact same day. The slot
can’t be provided to any other person, yet is reserved for any last minute
cases which are common in many practices.
Leading Management Solutions helps medical practice
leaders identify ways to improve operations to increase revenue, employee
engagement, and patient satisfaction. Learn more about us at www.lmshealthpro.com.
About the Author:
Kristen Brady is the
founder and owner of Kaboom Social Media, your social media marketing and content specialists!
Follow her on Twitter: @kb54927
