The COVID-19 pandemic wreaked havoc with physician practices and healthcare in 2020, where many providers saw stunning declines in productivity and associated revenues. In general, physician productivity fell by over 8%, although this varied among specialties. Factors that contribute to limited productivity include providers being burdened with non-productive tasks such as searching for information, inefficiencies in patient flow, and others. In addition to lowered productivity, staff burnout and job dissatisfaction rose, causing up to 30% of healthcare workers to consider leaving their jobs.
Fortunately, modern technology has provided a number of solutions that can help medical offices streamline workflows, amplify productivity, reduce frustration, and begin to recapture lost revenues.
Medical Office Productivity: Pain Points and Solutions
The coronavirus pandemic highlighted several areas where medical offices struggle, including chronic workplace stress and burnout. While some of this is undoubtedly due to the unique issues raised by the pandemic, much of it was already impacting staff through antiquated and outdated record keeping and office management processes.
Below are three common medical office pain points and alternative solutions that can bring productivity back up to healthy levels and contribute to the alleviation of workplace stress.
- Pain Point: Patient Booking and Appointment Slow Downs
With the advent of Electronic Health Records (EHRs), doctors’ offices face a new administrative burden. Not only must appointments be transcribed, but often times patients don’t show up for the appointments they schedule, wasting millions of hours of general practitioner time — and revenue.
Solution: Use smart booking options that send out appointment confirmation emails and reminders before the appointment date to increase appointment attendance and automate scheduling using an online booking option.
- Pain Point: Organizational Backlogs and Efficiency Handicaps
When patient documentation and other important information is kept in various locations it can be difficult to pinpoint the correct information when it is needed. This slows down patient processing, increases the odds of errors, and puts a burden on administrative staff.
Solution: Consider a document management system (DMS) that allows files to be organized and easily searchable by words, phrases, full-text searches, and other indexing features. A DMS allows secure access to documents remotely and can integrate with other business systems for increased utility.
- Pain Point: Compliance Standards and Regulations
Compliance requirements and regulations such as HIPAA and others are quite complex and have strict security provisions that must be followed. Failure to observe stated guidelines can result in revocation of licenses and steep fines. But overburdened health care providers and their office staff often struggle to stay abreast of requirements.
Additionally, cybercriminals are increasing their focus on the medical community, putting patient records and other sensitive information at risk.
Solution: A document management system (DMS) can provide automated assistance with compliance for peace of mind. For increased cybersecurity, consider working with a Managed IT provider to ensure that your organization is protected from cyber threats.
Trust Doing Better Business to Help Solve Your Healthcare Pain Points
At Doing Better Business, we appreciate the hard work our front-line health care providers do. Even during a global pandemic, our intrepid health care professionals held the line — providing top-notch care to individuals in need.
That is why we fully support our healthcare clients in finding ways to alleviate workplace slowdowns and frustrations that contribute to burnout and stress and take away from productivity and profitability. Our suite of products and solutions are the perfect answer to many pain points plaguing modern day health care providers.
From state-of-the-art office equipment like printers, scanners, and copiers to leading-edge technologies such as document and print management and Managed IT services, we stand ready to help. Using these tools, medical offices can streamline their workflows, increase their productivity, and reduce employee frustration to create a better patient care experience — and higher profitability and satisfaction internally.
Get control of your administrative workload today. Contact a representative from Doing Better Business and learn how our products and services can bring higher levels of productivity and satisfaction to your medical practice.