Kick clinic efficiency into high gear: reduce preventable visits

Do you ever have conversations with patients (or families) and think afterwards, “that was an unnecessary visit” as you watch your clinic efficiency slow? Or maybe it’s “why do I have to keep reassuring people this is normal”? 🙋‍♀️

Hello, opportunity.  

Step 1 – Think back on your average week, how many visits, phone calls or messages felt like they were purely reassurance?

The next great question: could you improve your clinic efficiency by preventing any of these with clearer communication, information sheets or instructions?

Answering patient questions and addressing common concerns before they reach out to your office can save a world of time for you and your admin. (Check out this humbled girl’s post-op sheet saga here.)

Step 2: Are there some visits that are routinely on your schedule that don’t add a lot of value for you or your patient?

Is there a way to reduce the frequency of these preventable visits but still maintain patient satisfaction and outcomes? Just like practice trends, putting the pieces together will kick your clinic efficiency into high gear.

Disclaimer: seeing patients is what we do (well most of us… 👀 Pathology). I’m not advocating trying to eliminate visits at the cost of patients feeling unsupported.

What I am encouraging is taking a good look at which visits could be prevented by giving patients the reassurance and information they want without needing to reach out to you.

My best example: I do a lot of carpal tunnel surgery. Many patients need both hands done. I always see patients back after the first hand.

But after switching to dissolvable sutures when I saw the same patients back after their second hand, we both looked at each other and thought “what are we doing here?”

The patients knew what to expect and how the healing should go. No sutures needed to be removed. I had previously gone through the return to activity and scar massage spiels. Sometimes patients were driving 3+ hours for a visit that really didn’t add any real value for either of us.

I quickly realized – there was no reason I had to see people back after the second hand (unless, of course, there were issues). So, I stopped booking routine follow ups for patients who had their second carpal tunnel done. I strongly encourage them to contact my office with any concerns but tell them that if everything is going as expected (and they’ve been through this before!), they don’t have to trek back in to see me.

And you know what? Not only did my clinic efficiency improve – the vast majority of patients love this. They don’t want to take another day off work or coordinate a drive. I’ve not had a single complaint about this approach.

For the few patients that do want a follow up, we simply book them back in. Overall, the number of carpal tunnel surgery rechecks has significantly reduced…on average 5-7 less per week.

This small change has been a huge win-win:

Save yourself time and sanity:

Looking at your practice, what are your “unnecessary” follow up visits or common patient concern?

Can you prevent that call, message or visit by adjusting how or when you communicate the information patients want? Can you minimize appointments that don’t add a lot of value for yourself or the patient?

What other tricks do you have to protect your time and prevent unnecessary visits and calls?