Navigating the medical landscape can often feel confusing and overwhelming if not managed correctly. From physical ailments to prescription medications, it's important to be educated on best practices in healthcare and how to ensure the health needs of your patients and your practice are properly addressed. A large part of creating an efficient office is providing the utmost quality in service to your patients. To give you an edge in making decisions about your health practice, we’ve gathered advice from experienced practitioners who have been providing care for years - allowing you to optimize your practice with their wisdom! Keep reading for valuable insight into managing wellness that will help ensure you get the care necessary to live a healthy life.
Map Out The Ideal Patient Journey
One incredibly simple way to make your practice more efficient is by assessing your medical office workflow and mapping out your patients’ journeys.
A patient journey includes the steps and scenarios from the first appointment that a patient goes through in their time coming to your office, hopefully for as long as you are in business! Carefully assess how you interact with each patient from the moment they walk into the office to when they leave each time. Think about how you want to set up this experience to keep them coming back. This assessment of the patient journey can help you identify areas that can be adjusted to improve the patient’s overall experience. Giving them reasons to trust you and your staff will keep them coming back for a lifetime.
Give more autonomy to patients
The current trend in medical office management is giving the power of healthcare ownership in the hands of patients. This practice ensures security and peace of mind to the patients. In doing this, you can also give back time for your staff to handle other tasks.
Examples include:
Giving patients the option to schedule their own appointments online
Providing an online portal for patients to view all of their personal medical information, prescriptions, and previous and upcoming medical visits
Giving patients the option to receive notifications via voice, text, or email
As the digital landscape has evolved, your patients are likely very comfortable with online interactions, communications, and profile management. Providing patients private access to their information and scheduling online 24/7 will absolutely improve the overall patient experience.
Move to the cloud
Moving electronic medical record (EMR) systems to the cloud can free up your office staff's time from entering, tracking, and managing patient files and data manually.
On-premise EMRs are slower in operation and can crash. Cloud-based EMRs will increase your medical staff’s productivity, which allows you to see more patients.
A cloud-based EMR system helps medical offices cut down on costs since there is no need to keep up with an expensive on-premise server.
Learn to Delegate
While evaluating the patient journey for your office, evaluate which steps can be completed by your administrative staff, nurses, and you. Identify the tasks only you can complete and outsource the rest, freeing up more time for you to serve more patients in a workday.
Automate processes
Technology is your friend! Finding the right software to organize your office and systems will save you time. The most optimal tasks to automate in a medical office are:
Automatic prescription dispensing services
Patient schedule reminders
Schedule keeping
Employee timekeeping
Payroll
Survey Your Patients
Improving efficiency takes outside feedback. Make necessary changes to your practice depending on how often patients bring up certain issues. Take constructive criticism from anonymous surveys and find out where to prioritize improvements.
Sending out surveys and inviting your patients to write reviews on Google, Yelp, and Nextdoor will help new patients find you.
At Expert Medical Solutions, we understand the importance of providing top-quality medical advice and services. Our team consists of experienced professionals who are dedicated to consulting medical practices to improve their patient journeys. Through our expertise and commitment to support, our clients can rest assured that they are receiving personalized consulting based on their individual needs. Whether you’re in need of healthcare consulting guidance or a comprehensive review service, our team is here to help.
About Scott A. Berger, M.D.
Dr. Scott A. Berger, M.D. has been one of South Florida's premier pain management specialists for the past 30 years. A board-certified, fellowship-trained anesthesiologist, Dr. Berger is a graduate of the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and The Mount Sinai Medical Center of New York City for his residency in anesthesiology and fellowship in pain management.
SBerger@ExpertMedicalSolutions.com