There are things do we all do every day without really questioning them.
Hitting the snooze button out of habit, not tiredness. Brushing your teeth before you have coffee. Driving the same route to work.
It’s a reasonable way to go through life. If you stopped to question everything, you’d never get anything done.
BUT!
Have you ever thought about how many things are on your physicians’ to-do lists only because “We’ve always done it this way”?
And given how busy you and your physicians are, have you ever stopped to question those things?
Maybe it’s a workaround for something a prior version of your EMR couldn’t handle. Maybe it’s a cost saving measure from a time when money was tighter. Maybe it’s an effort to comply with a regulation that was released years ago and never revisited.
Your physicians’ time is incredibly valuable. Every minute spent doing something other than practicing medicine is costing your practice.
Your physicians should be spending their time doing things that require a medical education and residency/fellowship training.
So, I’ve got three questions for you:
- Do you know everything your physicians are doing during their clinical time?
- Are there things they’re doing that can be delegated to someone else?
- Are there things they’re doing that can be eliminated completely?
Everything on your physicians’ to-do lists needs a stronger justification than “We’ve always done it this way.”
Working through these questions will help you get rid of low-value tasks draining your most important resource, improve access and throughput, and earn your physicians’ everlasting thanks.
And I’ll tell you what …
If you set up a Practice Strategy Session, I’ll walk you through the steps to get this important work done in your practice. No cost, no obligation on your part. I do it because I want physicians to be free to do their best work and I want your practice to succeed.
Talk soon.
