Physician Business Ideas - Creating More Time for Patients

What can physicians do to create more time for patients and less time for hassles and paperwork?

Here’s a laundry list.

• Read The Successful Physician: A Productivity Handbook for Practitioners (Marshall O. Zaslove, MD, an Aspen Publication, 1998.)

• Buy a copy for each member of your staff.

• Read Managing Patient Expectations: The Art of Finding and Keeping Loyal Patients (Susan Keane Baker, Jossey-Bass, 1998.)

• Buy a copy for each member of your staff.

• Instruct patient to write top three questions in advance.

• Forbid interruptions.

• Consolidate answering of phone calls and emails.

• Encourage patients to ask questions about minor illnesses by email.

• Set aside “asymmetric” time to answer e-mails without interrupting patient flow and be paid for it too, a luxury you don’t have with phone calls.

• Have a nurse practitioner or physician assistant handle minor problems.

• Hire a “scribe” to take notes while you do the history.

• Get an electronic health record, and enter your findings via a touch screen or with key strokes.

• Install a piece of software, the Instant Medical History, so patients can narrate their history, guided by a clinical algorithm, before entering exam room.

• Ask your nurse how you could do things better and more efficiently.

• Delegate uncomplicated clinical tasks to others.

• Cross-train your staff to do different tasks.

• Re-engineer – go into a solo practice with a lean staff, lean IT systems, and a lean space.

• Cut overhead dramatically so you can spend more time with patients.

• Schedule group visits for patients with common problems.

• Become a concierge physician or go to a cash-only practice, charge a retainer fee for unlimited attention, slash overhead, eliminate third party payment, sharply reduce your patient load so you can spend more time with each patient.

• Reread The Successful Physician: A Productivity Handbook for Practitioners.

References

1. Nagourney, Eric, “Insight: The Ticking Clock in the Doctor’s Office, New York Times, February 6, 2007.

2. Drucker, Peter, The Effective Executive, Harper & Row, Publishers, 1966.

3. Zaslove, Marshall, MD, The Successful Physician: A Productivity Handbook for Practitioners, An Aspen Publication, 1998.

4. Baker, Susan Keane, Managing Patient Expectations: The Art of Finding and Keeping Loyal Patients, Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1997.

Dr. Richard Reece is author, blogger, speaker, and innovation and reform commentator. Dr. Reece’s latest book, Obama, Doctors, and Health Reform (IUniverse.com) is available at www.iuniverse and other book websites. For information on speaking fees and arrangements, call 860-395-1501.