7 Tips for a Better Medical Practice Appointment Schedule

The Medical Practice Appointment Schedule is really the life blood of your practice. This is because the revenue a doctor makes is dependent on the number of patients he or she can see.

How a daily Medical Practice Appointment schedule is set up will have a major impact on your business. As the scheduling person in a medical office, you need to maximize your schedule in every way possible. This will lead to better time management and less stress in the practice.

Here are seven tips to help you run a better medical practice appointment schedule:

1) Start on time

When the first patient is scheduled at 8:00, but doesn’t meet with with the physician until 8:20 it begins a ripple effect that continues all day. When starting your day’s appointments, it is important to recognize the pre-visit work at the front office and clinical intake, and account for that. If you give that 8:00 patient a ‘7:40 arrival time’, that means the patient will be ready for their billable encounter at 8:00, which is then actually starting on time.

2) Plan for seasonality

Know your patient base and their seasonal needs. For example, a pediatric practice will tend to get a lot of wellness visit requests at the beginning of the school year and just before. Other practices find that access is most in-demand at year-end, when deductibles have been met. Make sure you’re analyzing your appointment slots year over year to maximize access for those who need it most.

3) Forge a Timeline

Answer these questions: How many patients will be seen weekly? How many days is it okay for a patient to wait to be seen? How many hours does a doctor want to work each day and each week? These factors will determine how many doctors a medical office will need and what the schedule will look like, as well as what protocols the schedule will follow.

4) Group Similar Patients

Some doctors appreciate seeing patients with similar conditions or medical histories in the same day. This method of appointment scheduling allows a doctor to remain in a more focused medical mindset, enabling quicker appointments and diagnoses. In addition, the clinical staff can maintain a rhythm through the appointment needs.

5) Make sure your schedule reflects your patient mix

If you have 70% Fee for Service (FFS) patients and only 30% are insurance based, then your schedule should reflect that. Block out only 30% of your daily schedule for capitated patients and leave the rest for open Fee-For-Service patients. Don’t schedule capitated patients in your same day appointments unless absolutely necessary. Leave those for your FFS patients who want more access.

6) Create organized triage

Providers often get interrupted by schedulers about working in patients. To help manage this, you can create a triage chart for the scheduler to use. The chart should rate your top 20 symptoms by a series of criteria. The criteria should include the symptom, appointment urgency, and appointment length. Create codes for urgency and for appointment length.

7) Be open all day

Use the rule that ‘If you aren’t open someone else will be’. Be the practice that has extended hours and more convenience. Ensure a team member is available at lunchtimes to answer the phone and provide appointments when people are able to get off work. And consider offering extended hours in the evening and weekends. You can stagger the starting times for staff and also doctors to have one start earlier and one finish later. A couple of extra hours a week can make a big difference in access for your patients and keep them coming back to your office.

These are 7 Tips that will help you create a better medical practice appointment schedule. Use them with common sense and ensure you are constantly aware of the fluctuating nature of the medical field, and the medical practice, so that you stay ahead of the curve.

[For more healthcare articles and news, visit the liveclinic blog]