Primary Care Access
In today's health care environment many factors contribute to quality care. As a medical practice manager it is important to provide the best medical service for patients in addition to excellent levels of service. Appointment scheduling is a very important aspect of a smooth running medical practice. Appointment cancellation, no shows, and long waiting time by patients have a negative impact on the efficient running of the practice not only in lost revenue but the practices professional reputation as well (Kruse 2010).
Goals
To improve services at the ABC Physician Practice Group, we decided to analyze appointment scheduling to increase patient access to the providers. This was achieved by measuring the Third Next Available appointment system using the following steps:
1. The project approach utilized the 3NA process and analysis of data by using the PDCA methodology.
2. Ensure that effective measurements and monitoring mechanisms are in place to determine whether implemented solutions have yielded predicted benefits and to drive continuous process improvement.
3. Utilize a piloting approach for implementing clinical practices (pilot first, evaluate, then deploy practice-wide).
4. Increase percent of patients who see their primary provider or team member in their absence.
5. Reduce appointment availability time to within 5 to 7 days by optimizing a team approach.
6. Compare ABC Physician Practice Group 3NA system to Denver Multi-Site Primary Care Access data
Processes
An acceptable outcome is measured by a decrease in number of days to third next available appointment to zero days increasing patient satisfaction. The 3NA system is an open scheduling program developed to remove the ran...
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...February 10, 2011 from http://www.patientvisitredesign.com/techniques/simplified_patient_scheduling.html
Institute for Health Improvement (IHI) (2011) Third next available appointment, Retrieved January 25, 2011 from http://www.ihi.org/IHI/Topics/OfficePractices/Access/Measures/Third+Next+Available+Appointment.htm
Kruse, B., (October 28, 2010) Patient scheduling benefits medical professionals, Retrieved January 25, 2011 from http://www.buzzle.com/articles/patient-scheduling-benefits-medical-professionals.html
Project Planning and Implementing Tools (2011) Plan-do-check-act cycle, Retrieved February 7, 2011 from http://asq.org/learn-about-quality/project-planning-tools/overview/pdca-cycle.html.
Solomon, M., (2003) Instructions for measuring third next available appointment. Retrieved January 25, 2011 from http://www.nasconsulting.biz/aboutus.shtml
The Implementation Committee must clearly identify the desired results for this project. The ultimate goal is to improve customer satisfaction as a result of the leader adoption of the rounding process and timely identification and resolution to patient issues. In order to do this, nurse leaders must adopt and be held accountable to the Orchid technology and standardized rounding script. This process will improve efficiency of rounding, recording and reporting process. Meanwhile this robust reporting will identify, track and trend data collected during the reporting.
Patient care is the core of any hospital, without patients and hospital would be unable to operate. In this discussion board, I am going to describe patient experience model in my organization; including standards, measures, staff training, reward and recognition programs. Next I will discuss how well the customer service model works and provide 2 examples illustrating the effectiveness of the model. Following this I will describe the customer service model on my department, the role that nurses play, and how the nursing manager is involved. Finally, I will discuss how customer satisfaction is measured on your unit, and how it is maintained. Lastly I will describe why customer satisfaction is now tied to reimbursement.
There has been a shortage of physicians, lack of inpatient beds, problems with ambulatory services, as well as not having proper methods of dealing with patient overflow, all in the past 10 years (Cummings & francescutti, 2006, p.101). The area of concern that have been worse...
The number of doctors that present in the United States of America directly affects the communities that these doctors serve and plays a large role in how the country and its citizens approach health care. The United States experienced a physician surplus in the 1980s, and was affected in several ways after this. However, many experts today have said that there is currently a shortage of physicians in the United States, or, at the very least, that there will be a shortage in the near future. The nation-wide statuses of a physician surplus or shortage have many implications, some of which are quite detrimental to society. However, there are certain remedies that can be implemented in order to attempt to rectify the problems, or alleviate some of their symptoms.
Buchbinder, S., & Shanks, N. (2012). Introduction to health care management (2 ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
The person pursues healthcare service with great expectations such as quality health care, latest technological interventions and low cost for their service. Nowadays, one of the challenges facing by the health care providers is providing appropriate care and identifying their needs in a cost effective and comprehensive way without compromising the quality of care. Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) reported “an rise in healthcare spending from $2.34 trillion in 2008 to $ 2.47 trillion in 2009, the largest one year increase since 1960” (Pickert, K, 2010). “The action to improve the American health care delivery system as a whole, in all of its quality dimensions such as efficiency, effectiveness, equitability, timeliness, patient-centeredness, and safety for all Americans” (IOM, 2011).
From my own experience, physicians over-book their schedules and have the patients spend more time in the waiting room than they actually spend with the doctor. The cost of healthcare is thought the roof, especially for the patients over the age of 65 who have United Healthcare Medicare Complete or Blue Chip of Medicare and have co-pays of $50 a visit and see 5 different specialist a month. In my opinion, I do not think that is fair and it is poor patient-centered care. As part of my job I have to fill the doctor’s schedule when there is a cancellation, but I can only fill it with the people on the cancellation list who can generate a procedure. How about the other individuals? The physicians only care about generating procedures because it is more money in their
The balance between quality patient care and medical necessity is a top priority and the main concern of many of the healthcare organizations today. Due to the rising cost of healthcare, there has been a change in the focus of reimbursement strategies that are affecting the delivery of patient care. This shift from a fee-for-service towards a value-based system creates a challenge that has shifted many providers’ focus more directly on their revenue. As a result, organizations are forced to take a hard look at the cost of services they are providing patients and then determining if the services and level of care are appropriate for the prescribed patient care.
Recommendation: Pate Memorial Clinic should expand office hours from an opening time 7:00 am to a closing time of 7:00 in order to increase patient visits.
Blum,J.,(2011). Improving quality, lowering cost: The role of health care delivery system: U. S Department of health and human services.
Ease him into agreeing to screen more carefully what each appointment is for and schedule a specific time appropriate to need. Having a PA or NP in the office will help ease the load for the physician and free up the wait time when he/she is unable due to an emergent situation to physically be in the office or if an appointment takes longer than expected. Show your provider that you have done a time-study of the type of patients he/she sees and if they are scheduled according to problem/reason it will free up at least 10 – 15 minutes in his/her day giving lee way instead of having to rush with an
Today, many Americans face the struggle of the daily hustle and bustle, and at times can experience this pressure to rush even in their medical appointments. Conversely, the introduction of “patient-centered care” has been pushed immensely, to ensure that patients and families feel they get the medical attention they are seeking and paying for. Unlike years past, patient centered care places the focus on the patient, as opposed to the physician.1 The Institute of Medicine (IOM) separates patient centered care into eight dimensions, including respect, emotional support, coordination of care, involvement of the family, physical comfort, continuity and transition and access to care.2
In order for primary care practices to be successful they have to arrange their office setting and scheduling to satisfy their consumers’ needs. Bodenheimer (2003) advocates for improving primary care accessibility by arranging their offices into teams. He explains each team would have “one primary care physician, two non-physicians clinicians (nurse practitioners or physician assistants), three nursing staff, and a receptionist” (p.797). He states patients will be greeted by their team who knows their h...
To begin with, efficiency, with the aim of maintaining time for doctors to take care of patients. Efficiency is the optimum method for getting from one point to another. For general out-patient clinics, making an appointment is necessary before you get a consultant. Doctors only spend around a few minutes consulting with a patient, and one case at a time in order to manage large number of patients who were waiting. In addition, there is an accident and emergency service provided for the public.
Primary care should be the first point of contact with the healthcare system for many individuals. The primary care physicians, however, are not as patient-centric as they should be. There was a Commonwealth Fund project that determined 11 patient-centric care practices, with only 22% of the physicians’ offices being in the high range (6-11 practices adopted) of patient-centric practices met (Murphy, 2011). This could easily change if more physician offices adopted more automation within the office.