6 Proven Ways To Improve Clinical Efficiency

As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, many physicians’ practices have been significantly impacted, with 55% of them expecting a reduction in income over the next year. Physicians and practice managers are increasingly seeking ways to tackle the formidable task of improving clinical efficiency.

Why is improving clinical efficiency important?

Maximizing clinical efficiency is critical to ensuring the physicians’ time with patients remains unimpacted by the administrative functions of the practice. In the current environment of decreasing revenues and escalating costs, practice efficiency is one of the best ways to increase medical practice revenue without compromising on quality of patient care.

Clinical efficiency also caters to the wellbeing of the staff at the practice, ameliorating physician burnout from having to do too many different tasks at once. With physicians feeling happier and more purpose-driven, they are able to deliver a high quality of care to their patients.

Whether you are new to the field or an already established practice looking to make things run more smoothly, these six strategies can help you increase clinical efficiency.

1. Implement integrated technology solutions

Today, most practices use Electronic Health Records (EHRs), with over 80% of office-based physicians implementing an EHR system. EHRs are real-time patient-centered records that provide authorized users with instant and secure access to patient information.

A fully functional EHR allows for more efficient coordinated patient-centered care by providing healthcare providers with the latest information pertinent to the patient’s health. This includes patients’ clinical history, medication, lab results, and clinician notes from the patient’s hospital stay.

Newer EHR platforms provide a patient portal as well. To improve medical office efficiency, consider activating this portal. It allows patients to log onto their own records, where they can schedule appointments, make payments, and see the trends of their lab results.

With a good EHR system in place, patient records are made more accessible and easier to update, cutting down the time physicians would spend on manual patient records.

2. Streamline scheduling for improving clinical efficiency

Proper scheduling can have a huge impact on practice efficiency for both the patient and the physician. However, getting appointment bookings right can be a daunting task, especially when you are scaling up your practice to take on more patients.

Instead of spending valuable time that could go to direct patient care on appointment scheduling, you could consider outsourcing the task to a company that offers medical billing, scheduling, and registration services. 

Because scheduling is so important for patient satisfaction and retention and needs more attention than your practice staff may be able to provide, an external company can serve as a dedicated team to smooth out the entire process. They can do this by managing patient calls, bookings, rescheduling, and cancellations.

3. Train existing staff to become more efficient

In some cases, the answer to improved practice efficiency lies in training existing employees to make them more efficient at their jobs. With the help of a billing management company, you can access data on denial trends and coding correlations, and by sharing these insights with your staff, you can identify areas that need improvement and work on making them better.

For instance, you could provide additional training to your front-office staff to empower them as patient educators. They can guide patients on how to interpret their medical bills from the practice, information about review dates, and other non-medical questions.

By empowering other staff to take on patient education duties, you are reducing the physician’s workload and ensuring they have more time for direct patient care and more patient visits.

4. Delegate tasks to non-physician practitioners (NPPs) and start improving clinical efficiency

Non-physician practitioners like nurses, midwives, and physician assistants can be very valuable when it comes to increasing practice efficiency. NPPs should always work at the top of their licensure. This means they must see and treat patients, not focus on administrative functions like answering phones and booking appointments.

To further leverage NPPs, practices can create NPP-specific schedules for booking patient appointments. This allows physicians to focus on physician-specific services that generate separate revenue.

When you decide to delegate tasks to NPPs, it becomes imperative that your NPP staff are well-trained and qualified to do the tasks they are allocated.

5. Open communication lines

Good team communication is vital for clinical efficiency. Ensure you are on the same page with the rest of the team at all times. This can be done by having routine morning meetings to address any potential concerns and challenges. What does the schedule for the day look like? Have there been any adjustments? How will the team tackle these adjustments?

Starting off the day on the same page ensures practice efficiency.

6. Outsource administrative work

According to the 2021 Medscape Physician Compensation Report, physicians spent an average of 15.6 hours per week on administrative work. These are valuable hours that could go toward seeing patients instead. Consider outsourcing administrative work to an external medical practice management company. These companies cover tasks like billing and coding, compliance, claims, staff training, credentialing, documentation, and marketing.

With these tasks in expert hands, physicians can now devote most of their time to patient care. Additionally, these companies will often do a better job at running the practice since they are better equipped to do so. By saving time and error-related costs, outsourcing administrative functions improves clinical efficiency.

Professional Reimbursement Managers is an advanced revenue cycle management company dedicated to optimizing independent and group physician practice revenues and accounts receivables management amid constant and increasingly complex insurer reimbursements.

Trusted by Florida practices since 1994, our team of dedicated experts focus on the full range of medical billing and revenue cycle management services, exceptional customer service, and physician practice satisfaction.