What critical important information is needed to schedule patients for procedures?

Q: What items of information are needed to schedule an appointment?

It usually contains the patients names, telephone number, and reason for their visits. According to HIPAA, the daily appointment schedule should never to posted in an office area accessible to patients.

Whether a medical office sees a steady stream of patients every day or just a trickle of patients here and there, appointment scheduling is the key to running smoothly. It ensures that no patient becomes “lost” in the system. Not to mention that a smoother transition from patient to patient can allow doctors more quality time with each individual, answering questions and being more sensitive to each case file. In turn, patients are happier and have more peace of mind.

Inhaltsverzeichnis Show

How to Effectively Manage Medical Office Appointment Scheduling
Forge a Timeline
Avoid Double-Booking
Designate an Appointment Scheduler
Modified Wave Scheduling
Group Similar Patients
Out of Office Planning
Clinical Collaboration
Recognize Patient Needs
What 3 items must be considered when scheduling appointments?
When scheduling a patient procedure which information is important to have before scheduling?
What items of information are needed to schedule an appointment?
What is the importance of scheduling of patients?

How to Effectively Manage Medical Office Appointment Scheduling

The satisfaction of patients and medical office staff alike is well worth the effort to revamp current appointment scheduling practices, especially if the current practices are creating chaos and losing revenue. The most efficient and effective medical offices follow these eight guidelines for appointment scheduling:

Forge a Timeline

How many patients will be seen weekly? How many days is it okay for a patient to wait to be seen? How many hours does a doctor want to work? These factors all cohesively determine how many doctors a medical office will need and what the schedule will look like, as well as what protocols a scheduler will follow.

Avoid Double-Booking

New and difficult patients should never be double booked. However, if double booking needs to take place with other patients, there should be a health professional in the office that is able to welcome and make the initial consultation with the patient prior to the doctor entering the exam room.

Designate an Appointment Scheduler

Even if your medical office is large, it’s important to designate only one or two key appointment schedulers. Limiting the number of employees in this position enables a more regimented appointment scheduling procedure. The scheduler can learn the doctors’ individual preferences, hours, repeat patients, etc. and how to appropriately handle all of them combined.

Modified Wave Scheduling

In this type of appointment scheduling, more than one patient is scheduled toward the beginning of the hour and the end of the hour is left open as a buffer in case the doctor needs to catch up from long appointments or other unforeseen situations. It reduces the amount of patient build-up later on in the day. Reduced wait times make happier patients.

Group Similar Patients

Some doctors appreciate seeing patients with similar conditions or medical histories in the same day. This method of appointment scheduling allows a doctor to remain in a more focused medical mindset, enabling quicker appointments and diagnoses. In addition, the clinical staff can maintain a rhythm through the appointment needs. For example, a doctor can be speaking to the next patient while the first is having a radiograph.

Out of Office Planning

Before and after a doctor will be out of office, reduce the number of follow up appointments. If the time is reserved for new patients and patients with new symptoms, there will be less chaos in the appointment scheduling process and less stress on the doctor.

Clinical Collaboration

An appointment scheduler usually does not have clinical knowledge to ascertain things like patient priority by symptoms or conditions. It’s crucial for schedulers to be able to collaborate with clinical staff on appointment scheduling in order to meet patient needs most efficiently.

Recognize Patient Needs

The patients set time aside and even take off work to make an appointment. Doctors should be punctual and keep the appointments that are set as well as try to maintain appointment times.

Appointment scheduling may appear very basic and these guidelines may seem simple, but that does not make any of them easy. Once the medical office gains a reputation for efficiency and exceptional care, more patients will be calling and walking in. The sheer volume can make appointment scheduling and other medical office tasks a nightmare. It might indicate that another doctor or more clinical staff needs to be hired.

In addition, a medical office might be bogged down with paperwork. Instead of hiring extra help to sort out complicated patient coding and medical billing, outsource the task to Billing Advantage.

Richard Kaufman

Richard Kaufman LICSW has performed and overseen medical billing activities for over 30 years. Being a mental health provider himself,...

Bay Medical Family Practice Scheduling Guidelines

Attn: Administrative and Clinical staff members

Below you will find guidelines covering our organizations policy and procedures for scheduling primary care appointments within our EMR system. All policies must be adhered to so that we may ensure our clinic is functioning at an optimal level of care. If you are having any issues with our scheduling system, please contact Alyssa Jules, our office coordinator. P:567-789-3465 ex. 3244.

Method:
All appointments will be scheduled in the EMR via NextGen. To access the appointment book, you must login to Enterprise Practice Management (EPM). If you are having login issues, contact Justin Harvey, IT specialist at P:567-768-9584 ex. 3267.

Physicians:
We have four primary care providers within our practice, each with a separate appointment book within EPM. To navigate between providers, utilize the drop down menu and locate the accurate provider. You will launch their appropriate appointment book by clicking on the provider name. To make this process even easier and to minimize scheduling error, each provider’s appointment book has been color coded. The color for each physician is as follows:
Dr. Spencer Andrews- Blue
Dr. Jennifer Smith- Red
Dr. Jonathan Marcel- Yellow
Dr. Patricia Handy- Green

Appointment Slots:
Each physician has both 30 minutes time slots, as well as 60 minute time slots. All established patients will be slotted into standard 30 minute timeframes. The 60 minute time slots are designated for new patients and annual physicals. Unless otherwise directed by the provider, nurse, or practice manager, do not deviate from these policies. EPM has already been setup to only display available start and end times that coincide with our office hours. All providers will see their first patient no earlier than 0800, and the last patient no later than 1600.

Appointment Confirmations:
Notifications for appointments to patients must be conducted 24 hours prior to the scheduled appointment. It is the responsibility of the Medical Assistant to confirm all appointments and annotate these actions in the EPM system. If for some reason you are unable to confirm the appointment, detail must be annotated on the patients chart. Please flag each chart that may have a disconnected number or incorrect contact number. Once the chart is flagged, a popup will appear at check in for any of the front office staff to see. Patient data information can then be reviewed at time of appointment.

No-shows/ Cancellations:
If you encounter a patient who calls to cancel an appointment, always offer to reschedule the appointment immediately. If the patient is unable to reschedule, annotate in the EMR system the reason for the cancellation. If you are able to reschedule the appointment for the patient, do not cancel out the previous appointment. To change this appointment, right click on the original date and time within the appointment book, then select the reschedule feature. A box will appear for you to enter in a new date and time. All notes and appointment specifications will then carry over to the new date and time. If a patient is more than 60 minutes late, without any notification, we will be forced to reschedule the appointment. We currently do not have a fee for no-show patients, but a chart note must be added reflecting this.

Tip: Always verify that you are in the correct provider appointment book when scheduling. Memorize the color coding, it will reduce scheduling errors.

What 3 items must be considered when scheduling appointments?

The appointment schedule must take three variables into consideration: the scheduling system, the physician's preferences and needs, and the facilities and equipment requirements.

When scheduling a patient procedure which information is important to have before scheduling?

1. Obtain detailed information about the procedure and the patient information from the patient's medical record. 2. Call the appropriate surgery center at the request facility, and identify the procedure you need to schedule and preferred dates.

What items of information are needed to schedule an appointment?

It usually contains the patient's names, telephone number, and reason for their visits. According to HIPAA, the daily appointment schedule should never to posted in an office area accessible to patients.

What is the importance of scheduling of patients?

Proper patient scheduling allows front-desk staff to avoid spending all of their time and energy on patient management. This allows staff members to focus on other tasks, such as handling patients who are already in the office while simultaneously reducing the number of calls that the practice receives.