Thursday, September 17, 2009

Primer on Patient Flow

Improving your efficiency with patient flow increases your patients' overall satisfaction. Let's face it, no one wants to go to the doctor. To the extent we can improve the patient's office visit experience, the more likely you'll have better patient satisfaction. You will also improve your patient retention and gain more referrals...and that's good for business.

There are many traps in patient flow and efficiency. Too often physicians automatically think consultants suggest, "Book more patients." Nothing could be further from the truth. There are cases where more patients make sense, but only after fully understanding the capacity of the practice. That is to say,
  • How many patients does the doctor feel comfortable seeing each hour?
  • Is the staff adequately trained to manage the patients?
  • Is your staff allocated correctly?
  • Is your office layout optimized for improved flow?
These are but a few of the areas a good flow and efficiency analyst will observe in an on-site study.


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