Title:
Keep Patients Waiting?
Not in my Office
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Class: MGMT 363
Productions and Operations Management
Date: Week 8 Research Assignment
December 12, 2011
The medical field is a very busy industry since people seem to always be very sick. There are many different doctors that are in need especially at different times of the year. In this one case, this doctor is all about making sure that his patients are being well taken care of and most importantly being taken care of on time.
Healthcare offices are under a great deal of pressure to reduce costs and improve quality of service. In recent years, healthcare organizations have concentrated on preventive medicine practices and have tried to reduce the length of time
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With this being said, we must keep in mid that there are laws and code of ethics that these doctor offices must abide by not to violate the HIPAA that was signed by each patient at the time of registration.
A big concern that most doctor offices will have is dealing with people who are never on time like me. Most offices handle late comers in many different ways such as: • Rescheduling the late patient • Making the person pay a late fee • Or giving them a choice of being seen but at a later time or by having them to simply wait
Many patients that are late must be made aware that they aren’t the only patients being seen and make it known that their chart will be notated for future references.
Lastly, we must not forget the no show patients which just makes it even harder for them since most offices are pretty busy and are trying to squeeze people in. Those that don’t show up will receive letters letting them know about their missed appointment and to be honest this is the best way to handle most patients. Most patients or any one in particular don’t like paying for services not being rendered so therefore once they receive a letter being threatened then they would eventually show up to their next appointment without any notice at all.
Moreover, the office visit length will be shortened due to the high demand of customers making it harder to provide good quality of care to patients as well . On the other hand, from the physician point of view it is predictable that doctors will change practice patterns from private offices to hospital services because the facilities pay salaries with less expectations in the number of patients seen per day. Furthermore, due to the elevated number of patients, time left for clinical documentation and record keeping will be nulle.
There are many factors to why appointments are delayed or re-scheduled that are beyond the structuring of time, however, there are some ideas that can help ease the annoyance of having to wait. The best thing to address is making sure the patient feels comfortable. Keep people abreast of the wait time and what’s going on. People understand things happen. However, they don’t want to feel forgotten. Some doctor’s offices have grasped the ideas of distraction, provide TV with news and valuable information, brochures and literature read, even hiring nurses or
The office would need to establish a goal to accommodate all post-discharge patients. When appointments cannot be made then an escalation process to the office manager needs to occur. In order to foster communication with professional partners, an investigation of the system failures. How can the transition to home be improved? The workflow should include a validation step that would entail hand-off communication between hospital rounders and office schedulers. If missteps occur, then the office staff could catch the near misses and call the patient at home. Care coordination among providers on an outpatient basis could be supported by the electronic medical record and having verbal care conferences. Next strategy could involve the hospital completing a call back within twenty-four hours to all patients discharged. This intervention could potentially catch some of the missed opportunities. Another approach involves face to face reinforcement of the patient-centered partnership with H. H. According to Counsil et al. (2012), “patient-centered care plans for complex patients changed the relationships with the health team” (p. 190). The development of this patient directed plan of care and partnership is
Another way to alleviate the overcrowded schedule is by making patient appointments for every other time slot. If a patient calls in for an
A lot of people don’t think this type of business is fair. I understand why they do this, if a patient and you make an appointment and don’t show up for or cancel the appointment at the last minute then that’s taking money out of the doctor’s pocket because that is an empty space for a paying patient. This is why doctor’s offices charge you or if you should have to cancel, they ask you to cancel within 24 hours.
Another issue that loyalty wraps itself around is the wait time in doctors’ offices, including the time between a call-in and appointment and the time spent in the waiting room. Studies show that America generally has some of the longest waiting times among other countries. Studies show that 26 percent of Americans wait six days or more for an appointment after calling, which is better than only Norway and Canada (Rosenthol). Because people find spending relatively long periods of time in waiting rooms unsatisfactory, they seek to find the healthcare provider that has little to no waiting room. If the efficiency of the medical staff proves to be poor, then the waiting time a patient experiences could be incredibly long. This could cause dissatisfaction towards the specific practice, harming a reputation and resulting in fewer patients in the future.
Disruptions in workflow may prevent prompt referral to specialists or surgeons and ultimately delayed treatment. Patients expecting service within a reasonable time, are not willing to wait weeks, or months, to see another provider, especially if the delay is due to inefficiency in a centralized referral office.
When a patient arrives to our clinic our secretary (PSSA) places the chart in a rack within the nurse’s station. At The Specialty Clinic, we are not routinely assigned to a particular patient. We basically go by the honor system, so to speak: Basically if you have time, then you take the next patient. Well, I’m pretty sure that on this particular day none of us felt like we had time or energy to take another patient at this exact moment. When this scenario occurs I have learned to reason that when a patient not previously scheduled comes to our clinic so late in the day, then it is most likely because they do not feel well and possibly need to lie down. More importantly, they don’t want to sit in a waiting room with other people around. Typically I keep in mind that if this were me
If a patient calls for any reason it is important to make sure they are calling the correct office.
When health care providers make changes to their existing practices, this can greatly impact the level of service a patient receives. When an office practice, such as the appointment system, is not working well, a change to a system such as “advanced access” can reap benefits for both the provider and the patient. According to Murray (2000) implementation of the “advanced access” appointment system requires a provider to completely change their way of thinking. Providers must work towards offering patients same-day appointments, for all conditions, which will mean eliminating the distinction between urgent and routine cases. This will in all likelihood only be achieved after a lengthy period when a skilled and motivated team focuses on eliminating the existing backlog.
Furthermore, although traditional patients appointment scheduling are still being utilized in some healthcare settings, there some innovation and best practices in healthcare scheduling that are use in various healthcare settings. As such, according to Brandenbur et al (2015), there are numerous different methods that are known to be best practices to schedule appointments in a medical office, and those best practices includes “time-specified, modified wave, and open booking”(p.10). For instance, most healthcare offices utilize the Time-Specified Scheduling or Stream Scheduling. This scheduling method is considered a best practice because it allows healthcare staffs to schedule patient’s appointments at a specific time and minimizes the waiting time for the patient (Brandenbur et al, 2015).Secondly, Brandenbur et al (2015) added that, the Modified Wave Scheduling method is another best scheduling practice. In fact, this method “allows healthcare staffs to schedule patients at precise times for the
For the example of the medication for the DVT not being administered upon Mr. Londborg’s admission into the hospital was an error on the doctor’s part. A preventative measure such as having another skilled doctor read over the medical chart and medication orders to catch any mistakes that may have been made to prevent any harm that could come to the patients later on in their treatment. Another example of an improvement would be to include options for standard medications and other therapies as part of the admission order set (a group of common orders that are grouped together, often in electronic order systems, to streamline admissions and prevent errors of unintentional omission). By including the option to easily order a common therapy for patients admitted to the hospital in the physician's workflow, the extra responsibility of remembering this relatively simple element of care is alleviated. Although not all patients in these situations should be on blood thinners, if the physician in this case had been automatically prompted to consider them, he would have been more likely to make a conscious decision regarding whether to use them.
Yes! Legal situations are a big deal when it comes to medical fields. If someone tries to overstep their abilities, they can seriously injury a patient. And if that patient decides to sue, the medical office could get a bad
Miscommunication is an issue here as well especially if a patient sees multiple doctors and does not document
Upon arrival a patient should have been made aware about a delay therefore he/she would not get inpatient. The appointment itself should not be rushed. A health proffessional should have explained everything in a clear and precise manner giving patient the opportunity to voice any concern or ask any additional questions. In regards to the appointment itself, the