Practice Management
Summer 2024
by William Rabourn Jr.
In today’s competitive market, keeping patients engaged is a critical piece of your practice or ASC’s overall financial health and success. Whether it’s no-shows, cancellations, or follow-up care, missed appointments can cost money, create a revolving patient base, waste valuable staff time, and reduce the effectiveness of care.
To avoid these pitfalls, it’s essential for ophthalmic clinics to maintain proactive scheduling practices that keep patients engaged long term. Here are a few ways you can improve scheduling and boost your bottom line.
Follow-up appointments
Regardless of the reason patients visit your clinic, many times there is a need for a follow- up appointment to maintain good eye health. It may be to monitor an existing condition, administer additional treatment, or just a routine check-up. Whatever the reason may be, always make sure staff schedules a follow-up appointment with patients before they leave your practice. Don’t leave it to the patient to arrange. Most people are busy and will probably forget to come back until there’s a problem. Routine eye exams and monitoring of existing conditions are essential to maintaining good vision and avoiding problems before they cause permanent damage. Take the initiative and schedule a convenient time for the patient to return before they leave your practice.
Appointment reminders (recall)
It’s a fact of life that unexpected circumstances will arise that make keeping every appointment 100% of the time an impossibility. Research studies on healthcare scheduling show cancellations and no-shows cost clinics between $200–$400 per instance, disrupt schedules, and waste staff and doctors’ time. In addition, patients who do not maintain an ongoing relationship with a doctor are far more likely to jump to another practice the next time they need eyecare. That’s why it’s important to ensure patients remember their appointments and to fill any vacancies that may arise as soon as possible.
A proven way to reduce no-shows and cancellations is by using appointment reminders. These can take the form of patient phone calls, text messages, emails, or all of these. Be sure to schedule reminders to be sent at least 4–7 days prior to the appointment date. This will help ensure appointments times are kept, or if a patient needs to cancel, staff will have time to fill the slot with another patient.
Use scheduling software
Juggling a clinic schedule can take valuable staff time. To avoid this, consider investing in a patient management software package that can automate this process. These software solutions have many capabilities such as sending out automated appointment reminders via phone call, text, or email. This is a great way to keep your patients on track with minimal staff time devoted to scheduling tasks. Just be sure the package you choose is HIPAA compliant. Also, invest the time to train staff on the new software to avoid any scheduling disruptions.
The benefits
Taking the time to develop and implement a proactive scheduling process can significantly benefit your practice in many ways. The most obvious benefit is a reduction in no-shows and being able to fill cancellations with other appointments. At $200–$400 per case, this can quickly add up over the course of a year.
Another benefit is patient satisfaction. Being able to keep a regular check-up schedule with patients helps doctors monitor ongoing conditions and overall eye health. Better care also leads to an ongoing and positive patient relationship, which means patients are far less likely to visit another clinic when they have vision problems because they feel comfortable working with a doctor who knows their history. Establishing this relationship also leads to more procedures over time, which leads to more revenue.
Finally, using HIPAA-approved scheduling software can maximize doctor and staff efficiency without losing the benefits of proactive scheduling. It’s worth the investment in time and resources to utilize this technology so that staff can spend their time on more important activities that benefit the practice.
The end result of proactive patient scheduling and recall is higher patient satisfaction, better care, and increased revenue. With so much to gain, it’s worth taking the time and effort to make sure your practice scheduling is operating at peak efficiency.
Article Sidebar
I wish I had …
John Hovanesian, MD, Cornea Editorial Board member, shared what he wishes he had:
- I wish we had a simpler process for prior authorizations when insurance companies reject claims for the drugs patients need.
- I wish we had office automation that could eliminate the need for doctors staring into a computer while with a patient.
Kevin Miller, MD, Cataract Editorial Board member, shared what he wishes he had:
I wish there were more ways to bill anterior segment OCT imaging procedures to medical insurance. There are many new and useful devices on the market, but without the ability to recoup the investment and ongoing operational costs, these devices become prohibitively expensive for the average practitioner to acquire.
About the author
William Rabourn Jr.
Managing Principal
Medical Consulting Group
Springfield, Missouri
Contact
Rabourn: brabourn@medcgroup.com
