Waiting time is a prime factor in most patient dis-satisfaction reports. But long wait times create problems for the practice, as well as the patient.
Solving the problem begins with actually mapping your patient flow for the time spent on check-in, intake paperwork, insurance validation, move to the exam room, preclinical assessment, physician encounter, coding and check-out. Most agree that such mapping is an impossible task for every patient, but even if you track two or three patients for each doctor, you will get an adequate amount of data.
Once gathered, analyze the data for potential blockages. Once you determine where the problems exists, you are already on your way to solving them.
Key points that have emerged from practices that have undergone this data gathering and analysis include:
- Develop a signal to alert physicians to urgent calls in order to minimize the phone's disruption of patient flow.
- Prepare scripts and other standardized responses to potential problems in order to decrease the likelihood of patient bottlenecks.
- Mail out paperwork and contact new patients to see if they need assistance prior to their scheduled visit in order to cut down on front-office backups.
- Ask patients with multiple health problems to pick their chief complaints and save the rest for another visit is an effective way to direct and control patient visits.
Physicians also need to practice and become adept at ending visits with patients who might otherwise want to visit all day. Here are a few strategies that have stood the test of time:
- Give Free Samples. Offering free samples, that a nurse will provide after you leave the room, makes it easier to move on.
- Use Your Staff. If a patient is particularly chatty and you have made sure that everything necessary has been covered, explain that a nurse will be in to take a final blood pressure check even if it is not necessary so that you can move on.
- Hold On To The Symptom List. According to some physicians, "he who holds the symptom list, controls the visit". Holding on to the list allows you, not the patient, to be in charge of how quickly the subjects are covered.
These are a few ideas that may help you improve patient flow. But no matter how much you speed things up and head off problems beforehand, it is inevitable that patients will eventually have to wait. Never promise specific times, it’s better to set reasonable expectations that allow for the possibility of a bottleneck.
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