How to Decrease Wait Times & Increase Patient Satisfaction

eGuide

The Doctor Will See You Now

Wait times have long been a critical measure of the patient experience. The longer a patient must wait—either to secure an appointment or once they’re in the office—substantially impacts patient satisfaction, healthcare outcomes, and the financial health of your practice. Unfortunately, physician and nursing shortages, combined with increased patient volumes, have made it even more difficult to reduce the amount of time it takes to see a healthcare provider.

THE DOCTOR

WILL SEE YOU NOW

HOW TO DEC RE ASE WAIT T IMES & INC RE ASE PATIENT SATISFAC TION

Wait times have long been a critical measure of the patient experience.

The longer a patient must wait—either

to secure an appointment or once they’re in the office—substantially impacts patient satisfaction, healthcare outcomes, and the financial health of your practice.

Unfortunately, physician and nursing shortages, combined with increased patient volumes, have made it even more difficult to reduce the amount of time it takes to see a healthcare provider.

Industry reports make clear just how concerning patient wait times are for private practices: Multiple studies have shown that the time spent in a private practice’s waiting room can drastically impact patient satisfaction. Research from Duke Health1 found that every ten-minute increase in time spent waiting to see the doctor was associated with a 3% decrease in patient satisfaction scores. Not only are patients spending too much time in waiting rooms, they are also waiting weeks just to get an appointment. In 2022, patients, on average, waited 26 days2 to schedule a visit with their healthcare provider.

According to a principal analyst at Forrester3, the healthcare industry is in dire need of improvements, specifically when considering how prolonged wait times are hindering access to care, negatively impacting patient outcomes, and tarnishing the patient experience. Fortunately, integrated practice management and patient engagement platforms offer private practices multiple solutions that can help reduce long wait times, giving healthcare providers the tools they need to increase patient satisfaction scores and improve the overall patient experience.

But before you know which solutions will offer the greatest impact, it’s important to understand how wait times influence patient perceptions on healthcare. In this guide from AdvancedMD, you’ll learn how extended wait times can adversely affect everything from patient satisfaction to the financial health of your practice.

You will also gain strategic insights on reducing the time it takes to schedule an appointment and best practices for shortening the amount of time patients spend waiting to see the doctor— enabling you to build a more patient-centric private practice.

THE RIPPLE EFFECT OF

REDUCED WAIT TIMES

With 30% of patients4 ready to abandon appointments due to prolonged wait times and another 20% at risk of switching providers after a negative waiting room experience,

a private practice’s long-term success hinges on its ability to address extended wait times.

Reducing the amount of time a patient has to wait creates a positive domino effect, significantly enhancing patient satisfaction, health outcomes, and operational efficiencies, and, ultimately, leading to measurable financial gains.

When patients experience shorter wait times, their overall satisfaction with the healthcare provider and the practice noticeably increases. This positive patient experience fosters trust and loyalty with the healthcare provider,

enhancing the practice’s reputation and potentially leading to an increase in patient referrals.

Additionally, shorter wait times for scheduling appointments are crucial for improving patient healthcare outcomes. Quick access to medical care enables timely diagnosis and treatment, particularly for conditions that require immediate attention.

It is also important for patients who suffer from chronic conditions to see their healthcare provider as soon as possible should their symptoms worsen.

Operational efficiencies enable reduced wait times and provide a more streamlined patient experience. By optimizing administrative tasks like appointment scheduling and patient

check-in processes, private practices can eliminate bottlenecks and ensure a smoother flow of patients through the office. Streamlining these admin tasks gives private practices the ability to improve the patient experience while also accommodating more appointments—a move that directly impacts a practice’s capacity to generate revenue.

High patient satisfaction scores, which are often a direct outcome of shorter wait times, contribute to the practice’s financial stability and growth. Satisfied patients are more likely to remain loyal to the practice, ensuring a steady flow of income and potentially attracting new patients through positive word-of-mouth.

STRATEGIES TO MINIMIZE WAIT TIMES & MAXIMIZE

PRACTICE EFFICIENCY

Long wait times can significantly tarnish a medical practice’s reputation, influencing patient choices and potentially impacting a practice’s financial stability.

Patient surveys consistently show that extended wait times often result in the patient seeking care elsewhere, or worse, delaying care altogether—leading to severe health repercussions that require urgent medical intervention. And it’s not just the amount of time spent waiting to get an appointment that has an adverse effect on the practice. Prolonged wait times in the office, including the amount of time spent alone in the exam room, can result in patients leaving their appointment prematurely. Not only do patient outcomes suffer, so does the practice’s reputation: a poor patient experience can spiral quickly, leading to negative reviews for the physician and increasingly low patient satisfaction scores.

To counteract these challenges, specific tactical steps can be implemented that expedite the patient’s full journey, from setting the appointment to entering the exam room.

SIX TACTICS THAT HELP REDUCE WAIT TIMES

Employ Waitlists Strategically

For appointments with high no-show rates, waitlists can optimize your appointment schedule, ensuring your practice operates at full capacity.

Also, being able to leverage double- and triple- booking strategies for appointments with high no- show rates can eliminate wasted downtime; just be sure not to overbook your appointments, which could result in even longer wait times.
Utilize Online Intake Forms

Transitioning from paper-based forms to online intake forms significantly reduces the time patients spend filling out paperwork in the waiting room, ensuring a more efficient patient experience.
Streamline Administrative Tasks with All-in-one Solutions

Implementing comprehensive EHR, practice management, and patient engagement solutions that seamlessly integrate minimizes the amount of time spent on administrative tasks, freeing up resources to focus on patient care.
Keep Staff Trained on Workflow Best Practices Develop onboarding programs and implement ongoing training to keep your staff up-to-date and informed on efficient workflow processes. To

minimize potential bottlenecks and ensure smooth patient transitions throughout the office, it’s important that your staff understands basic procedures.
Enable Patient Self-scheduling

Giving patients the ability to schedule their appointments online not only offers elevated levels of convenience and flexibility, it can also drastically reduce administrative workloads. For optimal results, be sure to leverage an online scheduling platform that allows patients the option to filter by insurance, location, and provider.
Optimize Payment Processes

Implementing online co-pay collections and no- card-present payment options advances operational efficiencies while also improving the patient experience. Expanded payment options can also improve wait times: The less time it takes to collect payments, the sooner you can get the next patient into the exam room.

USING TELEHEALTH

FOR TIMELY & EFFICIENT PATIENT CARE

Telehealth (also known as telemedicine) introduces a whole new level of flexibility and efficiency previously unattainable in traditional medical settings. This innovative approach to healthcare eliminates the time patients spend in a waiting room, directly addressing one of the most common patient grievances associated with healthcare visits. It also allows physicians more flexibility within their daily schedules, potentially reducing the amount of time patients must wait for an appointment.

Immediate Accessibility

Telehealth breaks down geographical barriers, allowing patients to connect with their healthcare providers from virtually anywhere. This immediacy in access not only caters to the patient’s convenience but also ensures that care can be delivered promptly.

Optimized Provider Scheduling

Telehealth offers a more fluid and efficient scheduling system for healthcare providers. It also allows healthcare providers to better allocate their time, in addition to providing healthcare services to patients who historically had limited access to primary care and specialty providers.

Enhanced Practice Efficiency

By integrating telehealth into their existing suite of services, medical practices can achieve a higher level of operational efficiency. The reduction in physical foot traffic within the practice translates to

less administrative burden, freeing up staff to focus on other critical aspects of patient care and practice management.

Building Patient Trust and Satisfaction

In today’s digital age, patients appreciate and expect convenience in all aspects of their lives, healthcare included. Telehealth responds to this demand, offering a patient-centric solution that not only reduces wait times but also enhances the overall patient experience. This increase in patient satisfaction is instrumental in building trust and fostering long-term patient-practice relationships, which are critical to a practice’s sustained success.

A DIRECT ROUTE TO MINIMIZING PATIENT WAIT TIMES

AdvancedMD is focused on creating operational efficiencies for private practices that help reduce wait times and increase overall patient satisfaction scores. Through a comprehensive suite of EHR, practice management, and patient engagement solutions, AdvancedMD directly addresses the common bottlenecks that lead to extended wait times, ensuring a smoother and more efficient patient experience from start to finish.

PRACTICE MANAGEMENT SOLUTIONS FROM ADVANCEDMD

Telehealth

AdvancedMD offers a world class telehealth platform that reduces the need for in-person appointments, giving your patients enhanced levels of

convenience and flexibility. Our telehealth solution not only helps physicians reduce patient wait times, it provides automated capabilities that drastically improve workflow processes across the practice, seamlessly integrating with our scheduling features, EHR platform, billing and patient engagement tools.

Rooming Feature

The AdvancedMD rooming feature allows staff to swiftly move patients through their visit, providing at-a-glance real-time updates on patient locations and statuses, sending alerts if a patient has waited too long, and optimizing your practice’s exam rooms so that your staff can treat patients faster. It also creates reports to track your practice’s wait-time metrics.

Integrated Scheduling

In addition to basic scheduling tasks, AdvancedMD scheduling software allows private practices to easily verify a patient’s insurance eligibility and send appointment reminders. It also offers complete visibility into the

practice’s daily appointment counts for each provider, resource, or practice location. The intuitive and easy-to-navigate scheduling system enables private practices to optimize their daily appointment schedule, minimizing patient wait times and maximizing patient satisfaction.

PATIENT ENGAGEMENT TOOLS

Self-scheduling

Empowering patients with the ability to schedule their appointments not only enhances their experience but also contributes to a more efficient appointment booking process, effectively reducing wait times.

Appointment Reminders

Through timely and automated appointment reminders, AdvancedMD helps significantly reduce no-show rates, ensuring that your private practice’s schedule remains fluid and that appointment time slots are optimized in real-time.

Virtual Check-in Processes and Online Forms

By allowing patients to check in to their appointment virtually and complete intake forms online, private practices can dramatically reduce the amount of time patients spend in the waiting room.

Elevate Your Practice with AdvancedMD

With the help of AdvancedMD and its integrated suite of EHR, practice management, and patient engagement solutions, private practices can substantially reduce patient wait times, increase patient satisfaction, and improve operational efficiencies across the business. The cumulative effect of these enhancements goes well beyond the patient experience, driving measurable financial gains and fortifying your practice’s financial health.

Are you ready to transform your practice’s patient experience and operational efficiency? If so, schedule a call with AdvancedMD today to see how we can reduce patient wait times, boost patient satisfaction scores, and revolutionize your approach to patient care. With AdvancedMD, the future of efficient, patient-centered care is at your fingertips.

References:

(800) 825-0224

advancedmd.com

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