Using a boilerplate letter can help practices cut down on the cost per letter from as high as $15, to as low as $1. It increases efficiency and keeps the referring doctor at the center of the healthcare journey of the patient.

This is just one simple way practices can increase efficiency and cut costs. In today’s demanding healthcare environment, physicians are finding it necessary to wring out as much efficiency as possible from their practices. Here are 5 easy ways to do just that:

1. Reducing operating expense

Ongoing expenses can build up over time, gradually draining a practice’s resources as they attempt to expand and serve more patients. Fortuitously for physicians and practice owners, these costs generally don’t show up in the shape of one large and unavoidable expense, but rather as a bunch of tiny costs that add up to a massive whole. To improve efficiency and cut down on those costs, practices can examine all of them individually, in order to remove, or replace, any that are unnecessary or overly expensive.

• Transcription: Typical practices end up spending large amounts on dictation and transcription on a monthly basis. These costs can be cut down by a great deal by investing in voice recognition software, which can handle the transcription at the same time as the patient encounters.
• Phones: Practices often find themselves in possession of more phone lines than they need. While the costs of a single extra line might not seem very high, altogether these can end costing a pretty penny. A watchful eye should be kept so any out-of-use phone lines can be canceled, and that bills don’t contain payment for canceled lines or any other erroneous charges.
• Advertising: Advertising through traditional means such as billboards, tv, or phone books just isn’t as effective as it used to be. Practices should focus most of their marketing budget on the internet.
• Supplies: The cost of supplies can be reduced in a variety of ways, such as getting printer cartridges refilled rather than buying new ones. Using the postal service can also save a great deal of money.
• Website: A website that allows patients access to bill payment, appointment scheduling, prescription refills, and filling forms can save both time and money on administrative processes.
• Payment: Implement a policy of collecting patient shares of payment upfront. A quick and easy way to boosting your collections, and saving time following up with patients who haven’t paid yet.

With falling reimbursements and rising overheads, physicians today are faced with the seemingly impossible task of seeing more patients than ever before, with the patients themselves demanding more time and attention. With these tips, practices can begin to cut down on their overhead, mitigating a part of the problem, at the very least.

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2. Better manage to schedule

Start off by setting what you feel is a realistic rate of patients seen per hour. Measure the average time spent on patient encounters, in detail. This includes a breakdown of time spent in the waiting room, in the exam room, with physicians, and time taken for the patient to leave. Collecting these statistics will give you a clearer picture of where time spent is more important, and where time is being wasted. Now you can begin to shift duties, in order for each member of the practice staff to make the most of their time.

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Next, start categorizing patient visits by type of care, such as new patient visit, postop visit, routine exam visit, etc. the categories will vary by specialty. Doing so will give you a better idea of how long each category of the visit will last, allowing you to more effectively manage your schedule. It will also allow you to build a specific time for emergency visits into your schedule, in such a way that they don’t interfere with scheduled appointments.

Try and limit the time patients spend in the waiting room, to limit the amount of patient dissatisfaction your practice generates. Do keep in mind that certain delays are not in control of the physician, in which case they should contact the office immediately so that patients may be informed of the change in schedule.

3. Using scribes

Having a dedicated scribe can help physicians save on time doing tasks that they do not specialize in, spending more time doing what’s more important to them: caring for patients.

Ascribe can handle all the initial patient intake paperwork, such as medical histories and current symptoms, while the physician treats other patients. This information can then be presented to the physician so that they have all the knowledge about the patient that they need before the encounter even begins. Once the diagnosis is complete, the physician can discuss the care plan with the scribe, and go back to caring for other patients. The scribe can then handle all end of visit paperwork, such as prescriptions and receipts, and then the physician can come back in and hand over and explain the already prepared care plan to the patient.

By simply adding one extra staff member, physicians can free up a lot of their time, and use that time more productively by using it to see more patients.

4. Streamline educational content

Rather than repeating the same things over and over again for every new patient, physicians can save time and energy by simply creating a short, educational video that can be played for each patient with a similar complaint.

All it takes is a camera, a tripod, and a script. While writing a script is not necessarily an area where many physicians will be comfortable, they will already have all the necessary tools. Think about the most common subjects that are brought up when educating patients. These will most likely correspond with the most common type of visit.  You can also add them to short creative slides and use the best AI presentation makers to inform the patients since the combination of written and visual content makes the essential information more memorable.

The script is the hardest part. Once that’s done, the physician will simply record themselves reading the script. A video editor can be hired to trim the video down, and maybe add some flair to the presentation.

Just like hiring a scribe, this is another way physicians can save time that they would otherwise have spent on the patient, using it to see other patients, instead.

5. Revamping referrals

Improving your response time when receiving a referral can go a long way to getting more referrals, on a more consistent basis. Using electronic fax instead of traditional will allow you to respond in a quicker, more efficient manner.

As mentioned at the start of this piece, a boilerplate letter also helps. It can have gaps for diagnosis, medication, and treatments that have been provided.