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Same-day scheduling, also known as “advanced access” or “open access” scheduling, allows medical practices to dramatically decrease patients’ waiting times for appointments. Very simply, it requires that practices do today’s work today by offering a same-day appointment to all patients who call. The result is more timely care, increased patient satisfaction and improved practice efficiency. While the concept has great potential and has garnered much interest, it is often misunderstood. The key mistake practices make is thinking of same-day scheduling as a ready-made product or a specific solution guaranteed to reduce a practice’s waiting time. In reality, there is no such product or solution; however, there is a proven process and a set of proven principles, which if applied in a customized fashion to each environment, will result in improved access to care. The course of action is similar to any quality-improvement process and involves four steps:
The principles to apply throughout this process are fairly simple:
Same-day scheduling, then, is really all about the process and the principles, not about a specific product or solution. It will require some thought, customization and experimentation to apply these principles to your specific environment. If you’re ready to embark on that, read on. What follows are commonly asked questions about open-access scheduling submitted by FPM’s readers. KEY POINTS
Getting startedAn appropriate panel sizeStandardized appointment lengthsThe trouble with carve-outsReducing backlogScheduling patients in advancePatient preferencePart-time physiciansPreparing for visitsKeep your appointment bookGoing it aloneDealing with vacationsA team approachReady, aim, fireThe secret to failure
Optimizing patient schedules is a continuous process that is critical to physician efficiency and satisfied patients. Tools such as flow mapping and cycle-time management provide a means of gathering data to assist practices in addressing scheduling issues and streamlining the process to increase productivity and proficiency. Taking inventory of the scheduling trends in your practice can have a positive influence on tackling appointment templates, which determines patient flow that affects your revenue. Appointment TrendsThere are tools available to help you identify appointment trends; flow mapping and cycle-time measurement are two of these tools. Flow mapping is an organizational process designed to help businesses decrease inaccuracies and find opportunities to increase productivity. The flow-mapping method requires you to walk through your practice as if you were a patient and take detailed notes about the entire visit, from check-in to check-out. If you find a problem during any step of the process, it is vital to identify how you can streamline the process. Creating an action plan and sharing it with your staff will help your practice implement these changes. Practice expert James Womack advises organizations to challenge each step of a process and consider whether it is valuable, capable, available, adequate, and flexible.1 It’s not sufficient to simply state that it is important to know if each step of your process creates value for your patients. Cycle-time measurement is the actual time it takes to complete a process. This time measurement procedure builds on flow mapping and involves measuring and recording the time associated with various tasks within your practice. Total cycle time is generally considered to be the number of minutes from the time a patient signs in at the front desk to when he or she checks out. The best thing to measure, especially for better patient flow, is the practice’s high- to medium-level patient visits. Keep in mind that the cycle-time measurement should differentiate the wait time from check-in and the face-to-face visit time. Identifying the cycle-time measurement for your typical patient visits will help prevent bottlenecks that delay your schedule. The information gathered from flow mapping and cycle-time management will identify inefficiencies that result in longer visits, leading to staff having to work overtime, a decreased number of office visits per day, increased wait time for patients to get an appointment, increased no-show rates, and reduced revenue. Once problem areas are identified, discuss concerns from both staff and physician perspectives and collectively discuss recommendations. All practice staff, managers, and physicians should be encouraged to think outside of the box and focus on increasing patient volume and improving patient flow. SchedulingAn important contributing factor in optimizing patient schedules is to understand the various types of scheduling methods and apply the one best suited to your practice. There are a variety of schedule methods:
Physician practices should establish an appointment matrix to help staff schedule patients more efficiently. This matrix should have an accurate and up-to-date record of all appointment slots filled and times that are open for patient visits. This matrix can be accessed through a paper system or electronically through your practice-management software; either way, it should be accessible and visible for all staff to reference as needed throughout the workday. TrainingProviding continuous training for your staff and tracking scheduling errors is critical for optimizing patient scheduling. Schedules are only effective if your staff is trained and equipped to maximize them. Tracking scheduling conflicts—whether they are overbooking, incorrect scheduling, or underbooking—at certain times of the day can help address inefficiencies. What is it called when two patients are given the same appointment time?On the other hand, double booking is giving two patients the same time slot for an appointment. Double booking can be used effectively in certain circumstances such as when a patient calls with an acute illness or injury, or when one patient can be scheduled around another patient who is undergoing a procedure.
What are 2 methods used to schedule patient appointments?Examples of common methods used for scheduling doctor appointments include time-specified scheduling, top of hour scheduling, wave scheduling, modified wave scheduling, integrated scheduling, double-booking scheduling, and clustering scheduling.
What type of scheduling allows for more than one patient to be scheduled at the same time slot?Having more than one appointment at the same time is called double booking.
Which appointment scheduling is also called categorization scheduling?Which appointment scheduling system is also called categorization scheduling? Cluster scheduling.
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