A Guide to Optimizing Scheduling Templates for Outpatient Practices

The goal of outpatient practices is to keep patient schedules full, which increases provider utilization, revenue, and patient satisfaction. One way to achieve this is by empowering patients to self-schedule as much as possible. When patients are empowered to use self-scheduling and registration functions, practice staff can focus on patient care. Patients also prefer having control over their scheduling and are more engaged in their care when they have self-service tools available.

There are several questions to answer before you develop your patient self-schedule strategy:

• Are new patients and/or existing patients allowed to schedule their visit or request an appointment?
• How will self-scheduling be determined – by visit type, practice, provider?
• What timeslots will patients be allowed to view and schedule within?
• Will patients be allowed to reschedule and/or cancel appointments?

To optimize scheduling workflows, scheduling templates should be configured for both appointment schedulers and patient self-scheduling. This can be achieved by ensuring that the templates are built effectively, with a balance between slots driven by appointment or visit type and open slots. Scheduling workflows are built for each appointment or visit type to meet demand. Some appointment or visit types include physicals that can be performed at specific times of the day or restricted by the number of physicals the practice can offer each day.

Automating scheduling workflows can help schedulers be more efficient. To improve scheduling efficiency, use technology such as waitlists, recalls, and appointment reminders. Recalls are useful for annual appointments. Review schedules by specialty to ensure appropriate blocks are released or switched to another type, such as switching a physical block to an urgent block if not used within two days. Explore all options for automation and keeping schedules full.