Customer Service
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 Reducing the Patient Wait Time with a Smile  
 One of the most telltale signs of a successful clinic is their level of customer service. A fundamental component of successful customer service is the patient wait time. Now this involves much more than how long the patient waits in the front waiting room. It is a measure of the length of the total patient visit is as well as how much time the patient actually spends with the doctor and staff. Ideally, the patient is never waiting unattended for more than 5 minutes for any part of the office visit. Think about how long you are willing to wait for service anywhere without getting inpatient or frustrates. Successful businesses such as Nordstrom’s or the Hilton develop such strong client base because of their excellent and prompt customer service.  Successful practices make a patient feel that they are the most important person in the practice because they are. Show them they are important by respecting their time and providing excellent service. The secret of time efficiency in the practice can be assessed by looking at a few of the various sections of the practice. 

Call Center (Scheduling)
The essential key to reducing the patient wait time in your practice is effective planning and patient scheduling. The person responsible for scheduling your patients is a very integral part of the practice. Their competency and foresight can have a large impact on the success of keeping your clinic on time. Watch their scheduling process, compliment them when they schedule correctly and constructively comment on how important they are to keeping the clinic on track even six months from now and how they could possibly do their job better. There are a few methods to schedule patients.  The waterfall method involves scheduling comprehensive exams or contact lens fittings intermittently with contact lens checks or short follow-up visits. It seems to be the most appropriate for most large, busy clinics.  The grouping method places all exams of one type, such as contact lens fittings in a cluster on maybe one to two days week while all post-ops may be scheduled in a cluster on another day of the week.  This method is a rather inefficient use of time and is putting the clinic needs before customer service. All other styles are essentially modifications of the two listed above. The appropriate timing for your staff and your clinic style are crucial to being on time and staying on time. Modify your schedule until your practice runs smoothly on the average day.

Front Desk (Check-In)
The front desk becomes the initial focus point of most patients regarding the time they have to wait to be seen. The key to preventing unneeded frustration is to utilize their time in a way that will add to the efficiency of their visit.  One tip is to have them fill out their patient history questionnaire to save time in the exam lanes.  Another idea is to put marketing materials such as promotional materials (videos), menu of services and quarterly newsletters out for display in addition to other current reading materials.  However, in reality you really don’t want them to be sitting in your waiting room. If they are, you need to reassess the status of your customer service. We must remember your patient’s time is valuable too.  How much time are you willing to spend in a restaurant waiting for service or waiting in your doctors or dentists waiting room? Use that as a good rule of thumb.  One way to track this timing issue is to have the patients sign in when they arrive with their time.  This is the first step in your time study. Then have the front desk write the time arrived on the super bill. From that point the invisible timer starts with the goal being for the technicians to pick up the chart, introduce themselves and walk the patient back into the office within 5 minutes. Every step along the way documentation of the time each person starts and completes their responsibilities with that patient.  If there are gaps between times the patients are seen this may be indicative of an inefficient part of a practice. It is then the responsibility of the front desk to monitor the amount of time that a patient waits.  If the patient waits more than the allotted time the front desk personnel should notify the technical staff.

Technicians & Practice Flow
Once again the technicians should document the time they start and complete their component of the patient exam. You can also help to increase the efficiency of your staff by having up-to-date equipment and an efficient practice to move your patients through.  Concentrate on how you can arrange your office to increase efficiency and prevent the patient feel like they are being constantly moved from one station to another. Try to concentrate all of your preliminary equipment on one place.  By eliminating hidden wait times and transfer times patients have more contact time.  The next step is to fully utilize your staff. The technicians should be gathering most of the information to allow more face-to-face doctor time and increase practice efficiency. Responsibilities that should be delegated to properly trained technicians include the following tasks:

History Taking & Patient History Questionnaire Review
Corrected/uncorrected acuity
Confrontational visual fields
Pupils Size and reaction
Motilities
Manifest Refractions
Tonometry
Dilation
Both the efficiency of their responsibilities and the way in which they treat the patient will have a prominent role in the impression that the patient has towards your practice.

Doctors
Balancing both time efficiency and excellent customer service is a difficult task for the doctors as well. Our time is spread thin. Interestingly the quality of time spent with a patient is usually much more indicative of the patients impression than is the actual quantity.  For example spending 30 minutes performing refraction, accessory testing, tonometry, slit lamp exam and documentation are appreciated approximately equal to 5 quality minutes of explaining the diagnosis and discussing the patients needs. In other words, train your staff to do various tasks and spend your precious time doing face-to-face with the patient.  The old saying that patients don’t care how much you know but they do know how much you care is still applies. Times saving tips include developing or purchasing informational brochures that discuss diagnosis such as those listed below. Many of these are commercially produced but can be compiled and informally published by your office as well.

• PVD and Floaters
• Retinal Detachment
• Diabetic Retinopathy
• Macular Degeneration
• Glaucoma
• Cataracts
• Dry Eyes
• Allergic Conjunctivitis
• Bacterial Conjunctivitis
• Myopia
• Hyperopia
• Astigmatism
• Presbyopia

Check-Out
Last but not least the check out procedure should be both efficient and customer friendly. Suggestions to aid in this process would be collection of the co-pay during the check-in process, a streamlined future appointment process including appointment cards, and a friendly smile.

Remember the platinum rule:  Treat people the way they want to be treated. Your patients are not only your best referral source but also the key to developing and building your practice.  Streamlining your practice, reducing patient wait time and increasing not only the efficiency but also the productivity of your practice.