By Melody Huang, OD
March 18, 2020
Your practice workflow impacts both staff and the patient experience. Streamlining your practice workflow assures that each workday runs smoothly and that everyone (patients, staff and optometrists) is happy.
Here are six tips based on my work as a freelance optometrist in several practices to help improve your practice workflow and increase efficiency.
Maximize opportunities when scheduling patients. When a patient schedules an appointment, collect demographic and insurance information. Once the patient arrives for the appointment, your staff will already have this information available. They can also verify insurance beforehand, saving even more time.
This is also an excellent opportunity for the receptionist to ask the patient about needs that may require extra time or special accommodations during the appointment, such as a patient who uses a wheelchair or a patient requiring a language translator. Making sure your appointment book is organized properly helps doctors run on schedule and reduces patient wait time. A win-win!
Use practice management software to free up time. If your front-office employee is using a traditional appointment book, they could be spending valuable time on the phone scheduling appointments. Scheduling software allows your front-office employee to spend more time helping patients in the office.
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Additionally, an electronic practice management platform offers your patients a way to send medical records and fill out patient history forms ahead of time. This saves your technician and doctors significant chair time.
Ensure all employees know their roles. When a patient arrives at your office, they encounter several staff members during their visit. You can start by observing patient flow from beginning to end, starting from the moment someone checks in. Take note of how much time the patient spends with each employee, and observe the transition between one staff member to the next. You may be able to identify potential bottlenecks.
For example, you may notice that your patients are finishing paperwork quickly with the receptionist, but are having to wait a long time before the technician can pretest them. Perhaps the technician is behind because taking patient histories and chief complaints is slowing them down. Or maybe the receptionist is not letting the technician know that a patient is ready to be pretested. Taking the time to identify these issues can make all the difference in your practice workflow.
Ensure staff can work together. Once you confirm everyone knows their roles, you can put the pieces together. If you find that patient flow is getting stuck at a particular point, implement a protocol for your support staff members to help each other out.
When your practice gets busy, it is easy for employees to get “tunnel vision” and only focus on their specific roles. Help them understand that paying attention to the overall flow of the practice ensures everyone’s day goes smoothly.
For example, if the receptionist is tied up on the phone, and multiple patients are trying to check-in, another staff member can assist with paperwork. This way, the technician can pretest them sooner, and the optometrists can see the patients on time.
You can cross-train employees to perform more than one role in case of these situations. However, it is important to make sure these staff members are not spread too thin. They should only step into their cross-trained roles when necessary.
Make transitioning easier. A seamless transition between receptionist, technician, optometrist and optician ensures efficiency and patient satisfaction. Conveying information verbally in front of the patient is excellent for customer service. Your patient will be happy to know your support staff is listening and acknowledging their needs.
However, if you run a busy practice, there may not be opportunities to convey everything verbally. On top of that, your staff can forget important information you tell them when things get hectic.
Implementing a system to transition between employees is helpful. If you already use an electronic health record (EHR), you can easily input your lens recommendations, follow-ups that need scheduling and other information. Your staff can also leave important messages about the patient in the electronic record.
If you do not have an EHR, you can get creative. At one practice I filled in at, a doctor used a dry erase marker and a laminated sheet with a checklist of tasks she wanted the support staff to perform. She attached a laminated sheet to each patient’s file and checked the specific items each patient required. Simple and environmentally friendly! I have also seen some doctors use a similar checklist using pre-printed sticky notes.
You can add any tasks you like to the list, such as:
● Schedule follow-up for: 1 week, 2 weeks, 1 month
● Perform additional testing: retinal imaging, visual field
● Order contact-lens trials
● Order glasses: single-vision, bifocal, progressive. Plastic, polycarbonate, high-index
This way, anyone can easily glance at a patient’s file and know what they need.
Designate breaks. Encourage all employees to take breaks. Regular breaks during the workday help relieve stress, increases efficiency and reduces burnout rates. Staff retention is crucial to a growing practice. Making sure everyone takes time out during the workday keeps staff members happy and helps them recharge so they can focus on their work.
Melody Huang, OD, is a freelance optometrist and writer practicing in Los Angeles, Calif. To contact her: mhuang.opt@gmail.com
