Manual tasks office managers can do away with

As an office manager, your task list is endless. You have to manage appointment scheduling, patient intake, billing, and so much more. On top of this, you have to ensure that these specific processes —and the practice operations as a whole— are continuously optimized to cut costs and grow the practice. Accordingly, you’re likely on the lookout for ways you can replace manual processes with more efficient, technology-driven ones.

Here’s a list of manual tasks you don’t have to handle anymore:

Paper-based patient intake

Manual, paper-based patient intake processes are energy and time inefficient. They require manual (and sometimes double) entry of patient information. They also increase the likelihood of errors making it onto your system.

Instead, you can get online intake forms automatically sent to patients ahead of their appointments. The forms can collect demographic information, insurance details, payment information, and so much more. This helps save time, reduce errors and improve the patient experience. What’s more, Many technology solutions allow you to customize the type of information you want patients to fill out, to suit your practice’s needs

Alternatively, you can set up check-in ‘kiosks’ in your practice’s waiting room that serve the same function. They could, for example, be iPads loaded with software that collects demographic information. And patients can use them to check-in while waiting to see the doctor.

Manual rep visit management

If your practice regularly meets with life science reps to gain new information about therapies and patient programs, advanced technology can help you eliminate manual tasks. You no longer have to expend time and energy on scheduling meetings via calls or email, tracking visit history, or communicating practice protocol. Platforms like RxVantage allow you to automate these processes while retaining complete control over your interactions with the life science community. The platform also goes further to provide you with insights that help guarantee the continued relevance and productivity of your meetings with life science reps.

Patient feedback requests

Collecting patient feedback after visits is essential to improving the practice’s operations and service delivery. It allows you to measure how successful the steps you’re taking to enhance the patient experience are. But what if you didn’t have to obtain this feedback verbally or through paper forms (which you then have to type out and organize)? Instead, you could use automation software to send out surveys in emails to patients right after their appointment ends. With it, no opportunity for feedback slips through the cracks because you forgot to ask for it. These software types also often have the functionality to extract and present the patient feedback in easily digestible and actionable summaries or reports.

Extra tip: Your role is central to the practice’s success, and this guarantees that you will always have a lot on your plate. So you should definitely use technology to lighten your workload as much as you can. But be careful not to replace these manual tasks all at once. Do it bit by bit, and see how patients and staff respond to the changes.