Time Management Solutions through Improved Communications and Productivity Reports

Customer satisfaction and practice profitability
The very foundation of patient satisfaction and practice profitability is making the best use of your time, every clinic hour of every day in the office. Certainly, there is a minimum amount of time a patient needs to spend in your office to feel like they’re getting quality care. However, there has been research that suggests that if office visits drag on too long patients get anxious and want to get on with their day. Some are more patient than others, but when patients wait too long, their willingness to spend money in your practice starts to decline.

Running on schedule, reducing patient wait times and overall time in the office, along with increased capacity, create the perfect balance of what’s best for the patient as well as you practice.

What does this perfect balance look like?
Some consultants say that depending on the nature of the visit (a complete new patient exam versus a progress check) an office visit should probably last somewhere between 15 minutes and 60 minutes. Many of today’s consumers are pressed for time, multi-tasking jobs, kids, and life. There are studies that suggest that patients start getting anxious at about the 45-minute mark from when they walk in your door.
So how long should the total office visit last, even when you’re on schedule? The answer is important because research shows that consumer spending declines when impatience sets in.

Creating a baseline for improvement
The Comlite LAN4000 is a tool that can improve doctor-staff communications and overall efficiency. Targeted text and universal paging allow you to know where everyone is and where they need to be. Patient sequencing will allow you to track where patients are and what room needs to be seen next.

The LAN4000 has timing functions with reporting to provide analytics to some key questions and help you set comfortable goals for your practice.

How long should a patient sit in the waiting room?
How long should it take a technician to perform a full patient workup?
How long should it take a doctor to perform an exam and still create satisfied patients?
How long do specific procedures take to perform?

Answering these questions is the first step to setting and achieving your optometry practice productivity goals and attaining your “perfect balance”.