From their training at school and residency, medical practitioners are natural time-keepers. They are prompt to every appointment and schedule their patients in a manner that can allow them to serve them adequately. The assumption is always that every patient would keep to the time allocated and show up on time. But that only happens in a perfect world. There is a substantial number of patients who don’t keep to their appointments. Some contact the office with an emergency that requires their attention while some are no-shows.
With introducing technology, patient scheduling software could be the answer to this problem. Private medical practitioners and health administrators might be able to schedule and also reschedule patients within brief notice whenever a slot opens up. Such software can offer several benefits to you. For starters, you can improve on the quality of service and satisfaction of your patients. You can also reduce the losses that the company accrues from every cancellation.
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Tips for scheduling patients more effectively
- Patient self-scheduling. With the help of a management system, patients have the ability to schedule an appointment for themselves. This would ensure that the patients can choose a time that best suits them instead of changing their times to fit the doctors.
- Immediate patient consultation. The typical scenario in most scheduling software is first come, first served. However, there might be a critical case that requires your immediate attention and diagnosis. With the use of your management system, the patient can forward documents and other medical scans (in an applicable format) that would allow you to make that decision.
- Reminder software. Appointment reminder software has become the savior of most medical clinics and practices. The software captures the patient’s contacts. These include their email address and phone number. Emails and messages will be sent as well as a phone call place to strategically remind the patient of their appointment.
- Have an active waiting list. No-shows are something even the most prudent and assertive medical practitioner cannot avoid. It will still happen due to some variables that cannot be predicted. An active waiting list should be kept open at all times. This will allow you to fill in any slots. Besides, you can have a disclaimer to your scheduled patients about this waiting list to avoid any issues in the future.
- Buffer time. Medical practitioners are still humans. You need time to refresh and prepare yourself for the next client. You might also need time to refresh yourself with the client’s case file. This can be done by setting up a buffer between appointments to avoid a pile-up of information or paperwork at the end of your endless day.
