September is one of the busiest practice months. Kids
are back at school and set off the start of the cough,
cold and earache season. Adults begin to question the
indulgences of summer and decide it's time for a checkup.
Exercise classes begin with renewed vigour and before
you know it the appointment book is backing up with strained
backs and sore knees. What better time than to give your
practice a once-over? Here are a few items to get you
started.
• Do you have enough
examination rooms? Practice consultants favour more,
not fewer. The reasoning goes something like this: patients
are happier in an examination room than in the waiting
room and they're closer to the billing process. What's
not to like? The rule of thumb is three exam rooms for
each physician. For many practices that may sound like
a lot and even if you buy into it, where are you going
to find the space? The answer is in the waiting room.
Before you start knocking down
walls you need to know how many you'll need to seat
in your waiting room. Here's a formula you can try on
for size: Take the number of patients you expect to
see in your busiest hour and multiply it by 2.5 to allow
for friends, relatives and pharma reps and deduct those
that would be in you examination rooms. Calculate about
1.4 square metres for each chair. If you see five patients
at your busiest you'd need to allow for 12.5, make it
13 chairs, less the three in the exam rooms, that's
10 chairs or 13.93 square metres. In other words, a
12m x 12m room would do it. If your present waiting
room is larger, or you think you could do with less
space, consider slicing a piece out for an extra examination
room.
• Waiting room update:
While you're at it, consider redecorating. An interior
decorator can do it for you but it can be pricey. The
best you'll do is the wholesale price of furniture,
rugs, drapes and so on, plus 25%. Go it alone and save
money if not time. Used office furniture stores sometimes
have bargains on waiting room furniture that comes out
of corporate offices.
• Telephone system
need an overhaul? Patients don't like to be kept waiting
anymore than you do. Is there anything you can do to
ease their pain? Begin by finding out how many calls
you get, what they're for, when they come in and how
long patients wait before they're answered. The simplest
way to do this is to have those fielding the calls keep
a check sheet for a week.
You'll likely find that calls
bunch up in certain periods � Mondays and mornings,
for example. You will also find that many calls are
for the same purposes. Making appointments and prescription
refills are the two big ones. Consider doubling up staff
in busier times � if you have the staff to do it. In
a larger practice it may pay to direct calls to the
appropriate person. An answer greeting could suggest
that callers wanting appointments press "1"; those wanting
Rx refills press "2"; others press "3." Don't go farther
than that though, for as everyone knows, long telephone
menus are a huge turnoff.
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