We likely all know the misery of waiting for a doctor. Wait times are often horrible and as many magazines or TVs you put in the space, it doesn’t help. At least now we have our cell phones, but something just feels wrong about waiting such a long time to see a doctor.
Some of the other challenges of wait times was highlighted really well in this infographic created by Health Revenue 360.
One of the best things you can do for patient wait times is creating a digital check-in service that helps notify patients of where they’re at in the queue. In my work with CareCognitic’s Digital Check-In solution, it’s been amazing to see how the patient’s experience changes dramatically by just being informed about how many people are in front of them. It’s all about managing expectations to create a great experience.
What’s even more fascinating to consider is Health Revenue 360’s recommendation to offer telehealth services as a way to reduce wait time. I don’t disagree with the recommendation. In fact, I’ve seen exactly what they’re talking about. What’s confusing to me is why can we keep telehealth visits on time, but we can’t keep in person visits on time? Is it harder to end an in person visit, but a telehealth visit is easier to stop? Is there something about the nature of patient requests on telehealth that are different than in-person? I’d love to hear what you think makes the difference. It feels like we should learn something from telehealth’s ability to stay relatively on time so we can apply that to in-person visits.
The good news is that most patients now expect some sort of digital check-in experience. While in the past many may have been more reticent, thanks to COVID we all now almost expect there to be some digital check-in process. We do it for restaurants, the barber, groceries, etc, so why not our medical visits?
What have you done in your healthcare organization to reduce wait times?
