It’s true that an efficient practice can increase your work satisfaction and boost patient retention. Optometrists are just like other healthcare specialists who will ever cut out all undesirable office work. According to Medscape National Physician Burnout Report, 42 percent of healthcare workers are burned out. Normally too many bureaucratic tasks and spending too many hours at work are the reason for their burnout.
Making Things Easy
This article has ideas for optometrists to make it possible to improve their practice’s performance to make routine tasks less burdensome. The solution lies in efficiency and a little bit of management. It is unlikely you will ever cut out all undesirable office work but efficiency can increase job satisfaction and even boost patient retention.
No reason to put pressure on staff
As an owner of your practice, you may think efficiency only depends on staff performance but this is not completely true. Rather than putting pressure on staff to do more work, you should be making it easy for patients to visit. The greater the income the more chance for you to grow your optometry practice efficiently.
How?
Let’s see some tricks an optometrist can make their practice more efficient.
Offer Online Patient Scheduling
In this internet era, the patient should not have to pick up the phone to book an appointment. According to research, more patients want online patient scheduling than calling the practice.
Why?
Online scheduling is no doubt very beneficial for patients and staff. The patient can have the chance to get a quick insight into doctors availability and they can easily book appointments anytime from anywhere (by anywhere I mean anywhere with an internet connection). This lowers the burden, now staff can spend less time answering patient calls and more time serving patients and your practice.
Integrate the medical software with your website calendar
There are benefits of integrating your online calendar with your EMR appointment calendar. When your optometry practice is integrated, patients can see your real-time availability on your calendar and can easily request help and make appointments.
Here is the catch
There are industry-leading software solutions that can be integrated with widely used EMRs to help your staff accomplish more in less time. This benefits your practice and streamlines your operations. These solutions can send post-visit surveys to help you collect valuable feedback and improve your online reputation.
Send Intake Forms Prior to appointments
Before the patient arrives at your doorstep on the appointment day, you must have the information from patients like insurance coverage etc. Waiting to get this information on appointment day is inefficient because backups occur when the patient doesn’t show up early. Using your website for this is a good idea, your patients can fill out forms from there when booking an appointment.
Hold Regular Staff Meetings
Communication is crucial and your entire staff should be on the same page. Research shows that morning and weekly staff meetings play an important role in the efficiency of employees. Use your meetings to understand the chores of your practice like the need of patients coming into the office or a plan to manage time and resources as efficiently as possible.
Invest in Staff Education
Technology is constantly changing and a wise optometrist knows it well. Staff at your practice needs training and development throughout their career to keep up.
Learning is the key
Those employees who are not given opportunities to update their skills, they’re more prone to leave. Investing in your staff will bring innovative ideas that will make your optometry practice more efficient. The educated staff makes your practice well-organized, and help accomplish more while delivering an elevated level of care.
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