3 Things You Can Do Today to Decrease Provider Wait Time

The benefits of decreasing provider wait time include increased revenue and reduced physician burnout.

Minimizing provider wait time increases revenue and alleviates frustration. We’re sharing three steps you can take now to reduce wait time.

Patient wait time is a hot topic in healthcare—but what about provider wait time?

When patients are late, rooms aren’t available, or there are schedule issues, providers are also left waiting. This non-productive time is not just frustrating; it turns into lost revenue.

Luckily, there are some tangible steps your practice can take to reduce the time providers spend standing by. And technological advancements, like artificial intelligence-based scheduling systems, make it easy to implement these changes.

The Benefits of Reducing Provider Wait Time

Why do providers end up waiting? Here are just some of the reasons:

• Late patient arrivals

• No-shows

• Exam rooms are full

• Tasks like paperwork or check-in aren’t complete

• Uncertainty or miscommunication about the schedule

Regardless of the specific cause, provider downtime is costly. Each minute a provider spends waiting is a minute they could use to see patients and earn revenue.

When you optimize a provider’s schedule, you directly increase your profits.

Aside from revenue, the unnecessary wait time is just plain frustrating for the providers themselves. In fact, a 2021 study found that workflow inefficiencies are a key factor in physician burnout. The study confirmed that workflow optimization, which may include reducing wait time for clinicians, can mitigate burnout.

In many cases, provider wait time is linked to patient wait time. If a doctor is delayed because there are no exam rooms ready, patients are left sitting in the waiting room. A long wait leads to dissatisfied patients, which also hurts your bottom line.

3 Actionable Steps

Ready to spend more time seeing patients while boosting your revenue? Here are three ways your practice can decrease provider wait time.

 1. Tell patients when to arrive

Suggest a time for patients to arrive. Take into account steps like new patient paperwork and pre-appointment checks since not all patients are aware of these requirements. If you need patients to come in 10- or 15 minutes before their scheduled appointment time, let them know! As long as you ensure the timing will allow patients to be seen efficiently (and not have an extra hour wait), it can keep the queue running smoothly.

You can send reminders to the patient before the appointment date, but our data shows they’re most effective when sent on the same day.

Sending manual reminders according to a set schedule is one option. Better yet, use a solution like automated schedule updates, which provide real-time info so patients can adjust accordingly. Automatic updates also save staff time, letting them focus on other tasks.

Telling patients when to arrive saves provider wait time because fewer patients miss their appointments or show up late. When patients arrive on time, the provider’s day stays on schedule with limited delays.

2. Queue patients in order

By sticking to the patient's schedule, all appointment times can be kept on track. Even if a patient arrives early, they should be seen in the original order. 

This way, providers won’t need to wonder whom they’re seeing next or waste time reviewing the schedule. The queue keeps everything in order to streamline movement between appointments. 

Sticking to a schedule is easiest and most effective with the help of technology. An efficient, technology-based scheduling solution allows you to optimize appointment times—instead of scheduling a standard 15- or 30-minutes for every patient.

Once patients have been scheduled, use artificial intelligence (AI) to keep track of the patient queue and keep appointments flowing.

If a patient misses their appointment or a visit ends early, AI can fill in queue gaps using real-time appointment stacking. Providers and staff won’t be scrambling to fill the extra time.

3. Stop rooming patients early

When patients arrive early and have been waiting a while, moving them to an exam room seems natural. However, this instinct can actually cause several problems.

When patients are moved to the exam room too early, the number of available rooms is reduced. Then, when a patient who shows up on time is ready to be seen, there may not be a room available for them.

 Basically, the early patient disrupts the queue and causes on-time patients to have an extended wait.

This causes a headache for providers, who end up abandoning the schedule to treat patients out of order so they can free up rooms. They also waste time reviewing unexpected charts to prepare for early patients.

Rooming patients early also disrupts the queue, which leads to confusion about which patients to see next.

Using AI-based scheduling and real-time, automated appointment updates, you can avoid most early arrivals. Then, there’s no need to usher patients into an exam room ahead of schedule. No extra wait time for providers or patients—now that’s a benefit everyone can agree on!

AI-optimized scheduling offers relief

If these changes sound like a hassle to implement, don’t worry! DOCPACE can help you optimize your patient queue, automate appointment reminders, and much more.

DOCPACE plugs into your practice management system and learns from your real-life data— there’s no need to start from scratch.

Visit DOCPACE.com to start a free 30-day trial. And if you have any questions, send us a DM here on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you!