When you run a medical practice, you are obviously more concerned with ensuring that your patients are well looked after than your bottom line, but unless your practice is making money, you will be unable to offer the high level of care that you would like to. That’s why it is so important that you take steps to make your practice as efficient as possible, not only will it benefit you, but it’ll help your patients too.
Here are four simple things you can do to make your medical practice more efficient:
Train Your Staff to Do More
As a medical professional, it makes sense that you concentrate on taking care of patients and doing the things you were trained to do, allowing the rest of your staff to take care of things like data collection, patient liaison, and education. However, you should not just dump these tasks on them blind – invest in the relevant training they need to complete these tasks well, and you will see that your business becomes more efficient, and thus more profitable, in no time at all.
Use a Medical Answering Service
As a physician, you are going to want to work hands on with patients one-to-one as often as possible. This means that you can’t always get to the phone to take calls from worried patients, who are looking for help and advice unless you leave the patients at your practice alone to do so. You also cannot take calls easily outside working hours. That’s why the benefits of medical answering services for physicians cannot be understated. You can use such a service to ensure that your patients are always dealt with quickly when they call, ensuring their satisfaction, and since you only have to pay for the calls that are handled, rather than having to pay for idle service time, it’s a very affordable solution, which will help you to run your practice more efficiently, too.
Use Technology
If you are still using paper systems for things like form-filling, generating bills and getting in touch with patients, simply switching to computer-based programs could save you a whole lot of time, allowing you to automate many tasks and cut down the amount of time spent doing others. Using computers for the majority of tasks also helps to boost efficiency by ensuring that all writing is clearly legible and does not have to be rechecked to ensure accuracy. Sure, you’ll have to cover the costs of installing such technology upfront, but the money will easily be recouped in efficiency savings within months.
Get Your Patients in Early
In the medical practice business, time is money and one thing that can waste your time and put you behind schedule like nothing else is patient tardiness, especially if they are going to need to fill out forms upon arrival. If this is the case, instead of telling them that their appointment is at 3, but you need them to come in at 2.45 to complete paperwork, just tell them that their appointment is at 2.45. That way, they won’t be tempted to just show up at 3 anyway, expecting that the doctor will be late to see them, thus speeding up the process and ensuring that your practice stays as efficient as a medical practice can ever hope to be.