5 Productivity Hacks For Physicians: Get Time Back In Your Day

Not only are there not enough physicians in the U.S., but most of them also face a growing load of administrative responsibilities. As a result, the natural response has been to work harder and longer hours. 

But what many doctors need is productivity strategies to help them work smarter, not harder.

As a physician, you have a lot on your mind on any given day. You simply can’t afford to waste it if you want to get more done and have happy and healthy patients.

If you’re ready to make a change and get time back in your day, then review these five productivity hacks for physicians that you can apply!

1. Set Priorities & Follow a Plan

Physicians are goal oriented and very efficient in managing patient care. However, sometimes, due to complexities of patient care, business priorities may not seem a priority.  One strategy you can employ is to follow a plan or checklist. However, don’t just make a plan for what you want to get done, but put tasks in priority order to make the best use of your time throughout the day!  You may have a short (5 min) stand-up meeting with your staff every morning to review business goals of the day.

If you fail to have a plan, you may not get everything done as intended and will feel like your schedule is chaotic and disorganized. 

Writing down your administrative tasks will make sure you don’t have to keep thinking about them and will help you see what you should be addressing first and foremost each day. Also, remember to schedule breaks in your day (if you have any control over your schedule, that is!) to regroup and refocus so you can do a good job.

2. Hire the Experts

By their nature, physicians are learners and like to tackle difficult issues.  For that reason, they try to manage most of their business problems themselves.  There comes a time at any practice that the ROI of hiring an expert significantly outpaces the ROI of the do-it-yourself approach.   Improve practice efficiencies and deficiencies by hiring experts to help you. By hiring and working with a consultant, they will take care of issues that you as a physician don't have time to (and should not) get into. 

Find a trusted healthcare advisor that can step in and assist you with the tasks that are taking up a lot of your time and are best suited for someone else. 

Perla has everything you need to grow and manage your healthcare business and professional life. Through Perla, you can get instant access to trusted expert advisors with experience in the healthcare industry and save yourself some time in your day.

3. Focus & Eliminate Distractions

Get more time back in your day by eliminating distractions. This is a productivity hack that’s been proven to work effectively. You may be wasting precious time on solving other staff’s problems or getting distracted by side conversations in the hallways. 

If you find that your time is significantly deviated from patient care to business issues that have been delegated, then you should consider training your staff to redefine their roles or hiring more effective help. By properly positioning your staff in a role that they are good at, you can avoid multitasking between clinical and administerial duties. Concentrating on one task at a time is a great way to improve productivity and efficiency.

4. Delegate to Your Staff

Delegating to your staff is a key productivity tactic that will help you get more time in your day. Identify your worker’s skills and talents then assign tasks and projects accordingly. One of the most important tasks of a business owner is to make sure that the right persons are managing the right tasks. It will take time to achieve this task, and this is especially difficult in healthcare with the shortage of quality employees. But, it is well worth it to aim for it because if your staff does what they are supposed to do, there will not be a need for time spent on managing them.

Proper assignment of tasks according to your staff's capabilities, personalities and skills will keep your staff challenged and free up some of your time to work on higher-level initiatives and business matters. In other words, you can have more time to work “on” your business as opposed to “in” your business. The more you delegate and get in the habit of it, the easier it’ll be and the better and faster results you’ll experience.

5. Confirm Appointments

There are many ways technology can help you get time back in your day as well. For example, it’s excellent to  confirm appointments either by having a staff call the patient or use automated services.

You want to make sure that your staff knows who is coming in each day and how long they’ll be in your office. You can waste less of everybody’s time when your practice is good about confirming appointments and rearranging schedules when cancellations come through.

Perla’s Top-Notch Healthcare Consultants 

Your office staff shouldn’t multitask. Instead, each team member should have a finite list of tasks that they must complete every day. 

This list improves your ability to track efficiencies and keeps the staff members informed about your expectations of them.

Suppose you don’t have anyone in your office specialized for unique and niche tasks like bookkeeping. In that case, outsourcing is a great way to reduce the burden on your staff and increase efficiency. 

With platforms like Perla, you can easily and quickly find qualified bookkeepers with experience in the healthcare industry or whatever else you need help with.    

Let Perla ease your healthcare organization’s pressure and help you find efficiencies. Find Trusted Healthcare Advisors by accessing our network at no cost to you and your organization.

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