Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Time Management in a Busy Clinic
119 Plays1 day ago
In this episode, Miranda and Josh discuss practical strategies for managing a busy clinic schedule and making the most of your time throughout the day. They share tips on prioritization, workflow efficiency, patient scheduling, documentation habits, and ways to set yourself up for success before the clinic day even begins. Whether you're a new therapist or an experienced clinician looking to improve productivity, this episode is packed with actionable ideas you can start using right away.
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Purpose
00:00:05
josh MacDonald
Hi, I'm Josh McDonald.
00:00:06
Miranda Materi
And I'm Miranda Materi and we are Hand Therapy Academy.
00:00:10
josh MacDonald
Let's talk a little bit today about managing our time in a busy clinic.
Challenges in High-Volume Clinics
00:00:14
josh MacDonald
We've all got days when we have just a roll of people coming through and sometimes it's hard to juggle everything and make sure we're doing good quality of
Preparation and Caseload Management
00:00:22
josh MacDonald
care. So let's talk about how we manage ourselves and our caseload on ah on one of those super busy days.
00:00:27
Miranda Materi
Okay. Yeah, I think um for myself, one thing that really helps me to make sure I'm managing it well is coming in prepared for the day or spending the first like 20 minutes by myself reviewing my caseload, kind of what I'm planning to do with each patient or kind of have a ballpark idea of what I'm doing. If I've told patients, I follow up with all the things I told them I was going to do, like ordering them splints, I'm making sure that's done. I'm checking their authorizations, all those things
Importance of Early Preparation
00:00:57
Miranda Materi
that... um
00:00:58
Miranda Materi
we also worry about as business owners.
00:01:01
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. Coming in prepared. i don't like to walk in even like, cause I'm the one unlocking the clinic, but I don't want to be there exactly when my first patient arrives. I want to be there early. And in my area with the retired community that's near me, that's sometimes 20 minutes before their, the first scheduled time that patient's rolling in saying like, oh I can wake my car if you're not ready. So it's getting there sometimes early just to kind of be mentally ready to go and not scrambling and feeling like I'm already behind. So i think showing up
00:01:31
josh MacDonald
early, even if it's not like, well, I'm not technically on the clock yet. My day goes better if I'm if I'm ready to hit the ground running. That's amazing.
00:01:38
Miranda Materi
Way better. Yeah, way better.
00:01:39
josh MacDonald
Yeah.
00:01:40
Miranda Materi
And what for like what patients need to fill out quick dashes, who needs optums, you know, that way you're not scrambling when you see them there or a new eval. Have you reviewed what you're going to be doing for this new eval? Do you have all the paperwork you need?
00:01:51
Miranda Materi
Or are you going to be calling the doctor in the middle of it?
00:01:55
josh MacDonald
and And knowing who's a progress report and who's not, because more than once I've almost finished with a session and realized when I looked at my screen, oh, that was supposed to be a progress report today. And now I'm all thrown off. So just kind of getting that like in my head ready to go, whether that's on the clock or not, that makes my day go better. That's a quality of life thing for me.
00:02:13
Miranda Materi
Yeah, me too. And saves me, I feel like, a lot on the back end.
00:02:15
josh MacDonald
Yeah.
Intentional Treatment Planning to Prevent Burnout
00:02:17
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah. but One of the things I'm doing because I have someone helping me as a tech right now, just for the summertime while I'm between students, is in order to give her notes on what to pull out for patients the night before or the morning of, I'm taking some time just to like treatment plan. And it's been a long time since I did like dedicated early ahead of time treatment planning. And it really makes me much more intentional. So I don't always have time on my busy clinic days in a busy life.
00:02:43
josh MacDonald
But it's been interesting how it it makes me much more intentional with things and not just kind of grabbing what's convenient and maybe what they did last time and guessing it's made me more intentional.
00:02:55
Miranda Materi
Yeah, same.
Staying Engaged with Latest Practices
00:02:56
Miranda Materi
And I think it's also helped me with a little bit of burnout because now I'm like, oh, I'm seeing this patient now with tennis elbow. And last week he was asking me all these other questions like of other things. So I'm like, I'm like looking stuff up and I feel like I'm more engaged in their treatment now. So with, oh, I know this is new research or new evidence. So we're going to try this new exercise or whatever it might be. i think being prepared and really being kind of into your patients and wanting them to improve and seeing their progress as opposed to just kind of going through, oh, last week we did these exercises. I'm going to maybe go buy one pound. You know, like I think I get so much more out of it, like when I'm intentional, like you said.
00:03:34
josh MacDonald
Yeah. Yeah. I like that.
Balancing Multitasking and Patient Connection
00:03:36
josh MacDonald
um One of the things I do when trying to manage a busy day is make sure that every single patient that I'm doing manual with, which is the vast majority, whether it stretching or scar tissue or whatever, that I am connected with them in a one-on-one way that they feel valued and they're getting personal attention from me. That doesn't mean I'm ignoring the other people and I'm still kind of multitasking and corner of my eye is watching what other people are doing to making sure they're doing it right. And they they know that Josh has eyes in the back of his head, but I want them to know that they have my undivided attention, maybe a little bit divided, but, but pretty much undivided attention.
00:04:12
josh MacDonald
And so I can connect with them on a personal level and not just like skimming across the top of my day, trying to stay above water.
Adjusting Care for Trauma Patients
00:04:19
Miranda Materi
Right. And so when your patient, so in my clinic, i don't know about you, but sometimes we'll have two or three people. Like some people come like 10 minutes late and then other people are like 30 minutes early. So we kind of just work with people and get them in when we can. But um do you try to like check in with your patient before you like start them on the hot pack and start them with stuff?
00:04:39
Miranda Materi
You know, because sometimes you'll be doing manual with someone and then your patient walks in and you notice the text getting the hot pack. And you're like, dude, you know, like for me, I'm like, I kind of changed things around where I've tried to like check in with that patient first thing, you know, just saying, has anything changed? Do I need to be aware of anything?
00:04:56
Miranda Materi
And, you know, telling my tech before you get their hot pack, make sure i can check in with them if there's any changes.
00:05:02
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah. Certainly for those trauma patients where things change more frequently and things are more up in the air, I'm always asking, how are you doing any changes? I shouldn't say always. Most of time I'm asking that. There's some patients for whom I'm intentionally not, and maybe that's a different podcast about not asking the pain patient,
00:05:20
josh MacDonald
how are you doing every single time? Cause you know, the answer you're going to that's a different podcast. We think we've done that one already, but yeah, I i do like checking in with them. Um, certainly more so some patients than others. Um, the ones that, you know, did you see the doctor? How is your splint fitting? Is your wound healing? Okay. do You know, do we have sensation issues? Do we need to watch out for heat? All those kinds of things.
00:05:40
Miranda Materi
Yeah. Yeah.
00:05:41
josh MacDonald
Yeah.
00:05:42
Miranda Materi
That's yeah. I found that just like, okay, well this patient has all the swelling now and then we put them in a hot pack anyways. I'm like, this is just not, you know, like, that's not how I want to do care. I want to like check in and make sure everything's good before I just go through the status quo.
00:05:54
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah.
Using Visual Aids for Patient Engagement
00:05:56
josh MacDonald
um It's almost kind of a silly thing we have in our clinic, but we have and really all three of of our clinics, we have this blackboard in some capacity and we have like questions of the week or two weeks, whatever, and they stay there for a while. And it's something to talk about.
00:06:10
josh MacDonald
But in addition to it being something to help us generate conversation. Rather than just what you do this weekend. It also helps patients to communicate with each other. And I think that takes the pressure off of me as a therapist to have to always be keeping everybody engaged and all of that direct back to me because Sue and Dan can talk to each other.
00:06:31
josh MacDonald
and be engaged in their time and not have to rely on me keeping that conversation going because we've got, you know, would you rather questions and whatever on the board. And so that helps kind of allow me to focus my time on things that are more technically necessary and they can have conversation rather than just sitting there in silence.
00:06:48
Miranda Materi
Yeah, that probably really helps with the time management too, because you don't feel like you have to devote all your attention to that, you know, that one person if they can chat while they're waiting or whatever it might be.
00:06:59
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah.
Technological Solutions for Clinic Efficiency
00:07:00
josh MacDonald
Um, are your activities, the stuff you pull out, putty, all that stuff, are they pretty well organized? Do you know what to grab, when to grab it, where it is you're grabbing stuff fast?
00:07:11
Miranda Materi
Yeah, pretty fast. I mean, we have a tech who basically goes through and gets all the exercises ready for each patient. And then that's after I've done their check-in, I might say, hey, going to do this instead because of this. And I think the more experience you have with the tech, the better they are at getting your exercises and kind of knowing what you're going to do as a therapist. So that's really helpful. And she cleans them and puts them away. So like if we didn't have her, it's or when she's gone, it's much harder. we kind of I kind of forget like, oh, I need to clean.
00:07:37
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah.
00:07:39
Miranda Materi
I need to schedule the patient. So...
00:07:41
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah. It's all those little things that when I'm on my own in a clinic, it's remembering to take co-pays and schedule patients and make sure there's no change in their number of visits. Do I need to get like an opt-in form filled out or all those kinds of extra things?
00:07:55
josh MacDonald
The tech is certainly hugely helpful for that, but it's just something that when I come into the start of the day, like we talked about at the beginning, knowing like my target for like, oh, we remember that Sue needs this, but Dave doesn't.
00:08:07
Miranda Materi
Yeah.
Efficient Scheduling Strategies
00:08:08
Miranda Materi
And the other thing I think that's a big time saver for us is when I schedule patients. So, you know, I'll look at the prescription, kind of look and see what I think, how many visits they need and ask the patient what sounds good to them as well. So it's kind of like this three part equation of when we're scheduling the appointments. And then I always try to get patients to schedule out at least through their prescription period or their authorization period, because then I'm only scheduling them one time and giving a printout to them one time. But if they want to schedule every single time they come in,
00:08:36
Miranda Materi
you know, that's just time you're kind of way. And then that doesn't, you know, we don't always have the luxury of scheduling everyone out that far, but if I can, I try to do that. And I try to always make them at the, around the same time too.
00:08:47
josh MacDonald
Yes.
00:08:47
Miranda Materi
So they always remember their appointment. They get the time they want.
00:08:51
josh MacDonald
Yeah, yeah. um I agree. If you can schedule people out and make it a repeating thing, it takes less times of me having to schedule them and then they're less likely to forget. Unfortunately, again, in different areas, but in my retirement area, the vast majority of my retired patients want to come between nine and one o'clock.
00:09:10
josh MacDonald
And so they all like, well, I'm super flexible as long as it's between nine and one o'clock. Well, I can't fit 20 of you today between nine and one o'clock. That just doesn't fit.
00:09:18
Miranda Materi
right
00:09:19
josh MacDonald
Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:20
Miranda Materi
Yeah.
00:09:21
josh MacDonald
But patients have learned if they want to get the time they want, they have to either schedule early or schedule out. And then they're in charge of remembering to renew that. If we schedule it out a month, you're in charge of remembering that because that spot may not be there next time.
00:09:34
Miranda Materi
Yeah, that's true too. And then i but I think too, when they have a routine, they're more likely to follow through and come to those times. Right. And then once it becomes a part of their routine, it's like, okay, this is a lot easier now and manage.
00:09:41
josh MacDonald
Yeah.
00:09:45
josh MacDonald
Yeah. Yeah.
Encouraging Feedback and Contact Information
00:09:48
josh MacDonald
So hopefully those are some helpful tips to get you maybe a little bit more efficient with your busy clinic. There's always things we can add. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment below, or you can reach us if you have any questions at info at Hemp Therapy Academy.