Medical Practice Patient Flow Improvement

Improving your general operational processes can lead to greater patient satisfaction, happier staff and financial benefits.

Many medical practices are aware of the symptoms of inefficiency as it relates to patient flow. Inefficiency is best observed by patients not being seen at their scheduled appointment time and the back office staff rushing to complete the morning or afternoon clinic sessions on time. There are a number of factors that contribute to these inefficiencies and every office is different. One this is for sure, failure to address patient flow inefficiencies leads to poor patient retention and makes getting referrals more challenging. I have said many times in this blog that delivering excellence in customer service is always good for business. As such, improving your patient flow is a key metric of customer service.

The three key elements that have the greatest impact on your patient flow and efficiency are:

• Physician capacity
• Staff capacity
• Physical space and layout

Making sure you have these elements optimized will improve your efficiency. A client of Primoro recently conducted a Practice Performance Survey. The patients reported that the check-in/check-out area was confusing. In their case, check-in and check-out areas were poorly marked and patients did not easily recognize which area did what. This is a good example of how a less than optimal physical space hampers efficiency. It also created a less than optimal customer service impression. A simple, and relatively inexpensive, fix was to construct a new welcome station kiosk to check-in patients. This solution afforded better flow, and, improved patient privacy. I suspect, it also provided a better customer service impression.

Take a look at your office from your patients' point of view. Does the flow really work? Sometimes a simple fix is all it takes!

If you need more information on this topic, please contact Primoro, Inc.