Staffing Challenges: No one solution

Staffing challenges continue to be the top challenge for medical practices in 2022. While the problem is faced by virtually all industries today, its impacts have been significantly worse in healthcare which has been on the frontlines of the pandemic for the past two years. The MGMA predicts that these challenges will continue through the end of this year. Front office staff at medical practices have been among the hardest hit, which impacts practice’s ability to provide acceptable patient care. Practices continue to increase hiring, offer pay increases and retention bonuses to keep their front [...]

By |2022-03-16T17:48:55+00:00March 16, 2022|Appointments, Medical Practice, Phone System, Scheduling|0 Comments

Why Patient Engagement Really Does Matter

The practice of great medicine includes a hefty dose of patient engagement because excellent medical care requires a partnership to achieve the outcome. The patient and/or the caregiver must be active participants in the care plan. Unfortunately, the phrase patient engagement has been hijacked. Many physicians feel as though they must engage their patients just to fulfill arbitrary rules. Don’t look at it this way. Instead, recognize it for the opportunity it is to enhance the business and optimize patient care. Make Patient Engagement Matter Guard against patient engagement activities with no value beyond fulfilling some [...]

By |2021-11-12T13:25:29+00:00November 12, 2021|Medical Practice, Patient Engagement|0 Comments

Best Practices for Patient Appointment Scheduling

Scheduling is at the heart of healthcare. Poor, or even mediocre, scheduling processes can cost a small clinic hundreds of thousands of dollars. Creating and using meaningful appointment types to optimize scheduling for your practice is important for the bottom line and decreasing stress and burnout. This is a challenge for any practice. First and foremost, the scheduling system needs to integrate all facets of care. The goal is to simultaneously optimize patient care, the patient experience, the provider experience, and finances. Anything less than this is unacceptable. The schedule needs to integrate all individuals and [...]

By |2021-08-24T15:42:41+00:00August 23, 2021|Appointments, Medical Practice, Scheduling|0 Comments

Do you know what your Medical Scheduler really does?

Patient Scheduling. Most physicians think is it’s so simple. A patient calls the practice, talks to a scheduler who enters the information into the scheduling application and poof - it’s done. The reality is that medical scheduling is one of the most complicated and stressful positions in a medical practice with one of the highest turnover rates. Here is what really happens during - a day in the life of a scheduler… A dynamic system of many moving parts When a patient calls a clinic for an appointment, the medical scheduler first collects some basic information [...]

By |2021-08-23T14:08:08+00:00August 20, 2021|Appointments, Medical Practice, Scheduling|0 Comments

Voice Assistants in Healthcare

Voice assistants are computer programs that receive audio inputs and respond with audio output in a manner perceived as listening and “answering” questions from a person. A user can ask “What is the weather going to be for today?” and the voice assistant will respond with a weather report for the user’s location for that day. Voice Assistants in Healthcare is a rapidly evolving area that is poised to dramatically change healthcare as we know it today. The use of voice assistant technology from Amazon (Alexa), Apple (Siri), Google (Google Assistant), and Microsoft (Cortana) are becoming mainstream.    According to the 2019 NPR [...]

By |2021-08-22T19:12:00+00:00June 22, 2021|Medical Practice, Scheduling, Voice Assistant|0 Comments

Appointment Reminders

Almost every office and hospital use patient appointment reminders. Some are poor, others mediocre, and some do a relatively good job. In the present climate, we cannot stand for anything less than great. Appointment reminders increase appointment attendance and early cancellation when needed, which opens the slot to be refilled, or at least decreases no-shows in most cases. Although these systems may work, they can be annoying–especially when the reminders do not interact with individual patients in the manner that is best for them. We must respect individual preferences and deliver on lofty expectations from both patients and providers. [...]

By |2021-08-22T19:27:24+00:00June 21, 2021|Appointments, Medical Practice, Scheduling|0 Comments
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