The holiday season is here, and its inevitable additional to-dos and responsibilities will find their way onto your list. As that list turns into a scroll, you find yourself searching your personal schedule like a Where’s Waldo book for additional time between now and the new year.
If you want to give yourself the best chance at avoiding this chaos within the practice, there are a few preparations to take into consideration that will help you navigate the months ahead. We want to make sure your office is prepared for this critical time of year and that you have a strategy to overcome employees’ vacations, fewer business days, patient flow, and other variables that can hold you back this time of year. Below are a few key points to assist the business and set your team up for success.
- Check your schedule blocks for the upcoming months to account for disruptions to normal operating hours.
- Ensure you have accounted for missing provider hours, and adjust your daily opportunity goals to match your business needs.
- Be forward-looking to ensure you reach your opportunity target.
- Revenue-generating appointments must have priority in the schedule.
- Identify and adjust your KPIs to align with the number of business days you will be open.
- Be mindful of your voice-mail message and your follow-up to messages received.
- Post on social media platforms any office closures and when you will return.
- Meet with your staff collectively to lay out your strategy to accommodate scheduling and business needs.
- Discuss strategy and actions you are planning, and make your team part of the discussion on how best to implement plans.
- Don’t forget to change the voice-mail greetings back to normal on the phone.
If you haven’t had a chance to discuss these actions with your SBU team, reach out to them to set your Q4 up for success.
Need more scheduling tips? Learn all about block scheduling including how your practice can implement one and understand all the benefits it provides including,
- Improved practice organization and patient flow
- Increased revenue through prioritizing revenue-generating activities (for example, private pay vs. third-party payer)
- Team-wide accountability to practice priorities
- Ability to proactively identify and correct gaps in scheduling
- Blocks tailored to your unique situation (for example, scheduling outbound-call blocks for the part of the day that is usually the most quiet)
Learn how you can harness the power of block scheduling
