How to improve medical office efficiency

Medical office managers are responsible for using their leadership skills to direct and coordinate the day-to-day operations of – you guessed it – medical offices. A key goal of effective medical office management is to improve efficiency, but sometimes this is more easily said than done. To improve efficiency in your workplace, follow these tips:

Create process guides

To ensure that you can focus on your leadership role instead of being forced to micromanage all aspects of the medical office, create process guides that explain the steps involved in completing each office task. That way, when staff are scheduling patients or sending prescriptions, they will be able to refer to your guides to refresh their memories rather than asking you to retrain them.¹

Have weekly staff meetings

Managing an efficient medical office is all about identifying bottlenecks in your current processes and remedying them. Maintaining open lines of communication with your staff is a key way to accomplish this goal. Use weekly staff meetings to address immediate and long-term problems, and ask for recommendations that may help improve the work environment. Simply having staff members who are happy to come to work may help increase efficiency.²

Confirm appointments

Last-minute cancellations can be a huge waste of time. To reduce the likelihood that your carefully planned schedule will be interrupted, call patients a day or two before their appointments to confirm. That way, if they have to cancel or reschedule, you will have enough time to fill their empty slot.

Consider online software

While there’s no need to completely automate your processes – patients appreciate person-to-person contact – consider whether online software may be able to free up some time for staffers who are responsible for repetitive tasks, such as patient reminders. Something as simple as online scheduling software can streamline processes and improve efficiency.

¹ Business Tips, ‘Proven Solutions To Improving Medical Office Efficiency,’ March 19, 2013 – http://bint.info/proven-solutions-to-improving-medical-office-efficiency/
² Burling-Phillips, Leslie, EyeNet Magazine, ‘Boost Practice Efficiency, Part 15: How to Improve Office Flow,’ June 2009 – http://www.aao.org/publications/eyenet/200906/practice_perf.cfm