If you are using a screen reader and are having problems using this website, please call 908-288-7240 for assistance. Show Cheri Berkley for Yahoo! Health News shines the light on why we wait so long at the doctor’s office and what we can do when we’re fed up with waiting. The wait time to see a doctor isn’t COMPLETELY out of your control. Few things are more frustrating than
waiting at the doctor’s office. Anxiety grows as an appointment time comes and goes. Each passing moment of lateness serves as a reminder of all the other places you’re supposed to be: at school to pick up your kid, at a work meeting, at yoga class. Unfortunately, waiting for the doctor seems to be an experience virtually all Americans have to suffer through — and according to the results of a new national survey, the average time you have to wait is 19 minutes. But
not every kind of doctor has the same average wait time. The Sixth Annual Vitals Index shows that psychologists have the shortest wait times — at 11 minutes, on average — while, not surprisingly, emergency room physicians have the highest at 24 minutes. And as for location, Portland took the prize for the city with the shortest average wait time at 15 minutes, followed closely by Minneapolis and Seattle. El Paso had the longest wait time for the fourth-straight year, clocking in at 26
minutes. Memphis, Miami, New York City, and Las Vegas were also big wait-time offenders. (You can see the complete report here.) There are a number of reasons patients end up waiting despite having an appointment. Much of it is linked to inefficiencies in the practice, says Heyward Donigan, CEO of the doctor review website Vitals. “In general, wait times have been historically driven by lack of efficient administration of a particular practitioner’s office, combined with a significant amount of volume and unpredictability of patients who show up late or not at all,” she tells Yahoo Health. Inefficiencies include overscheduling, understaffing, and doctor emergencies. Still, Donigan emphasizes that patients have rights, too. “We all work or have family commitments, and we should expect that we don’t have to wait a half an hour to see a provider when we schedule a service at 1 o’clock.” The good news is that while wait times are not ideal, they are getting better. Even with more insured people in the pipeline after the Affordable Care Act, the average overall wait time has dropped by one minute since last year, according to the Vitals survey. Donigan attributes improvements to increased use of minute clinics, nurse and physician practitioners, andconcierge medicine. All, she says, have helped ease patient load in emergency rooms and doctor’s offices. Many factors affecting wait times are out of your control, but there are ways you can take charge to shorten your wait. Here are five to consider the next time you need some medical care:
 How long would you wait on hold? For many people, any amount of time is too long. In fact, a survey indicated about one third of people said they’re unwilling to wait on the line, and 27.6% said they would hold for 1 minute. A lack of patience is associated with age groups. As the below infographic shows, younger individuals are less likely to wait than their older counterparts, proving the increasing sense of immediacy will put growing pressure on businesses that aren’t responsive. Source: Velaro Why is this important? An “Impatient Patient” is Expensive Additional data shows 60% of customers will hang up after 60 seconds, with about 32% that will actually call back. When you do the math, that is a decent amount of potential revenue that is lost from not booking new appointments. And when considering the cost of a lead (or the marketing cost required to get the patient to call your practice) runs at a minimum of $32-50 per patient, the practice is actually throwing away a significant amount of money. It’s About to Get Worse Practices that allow phone calls to hold will continue to lose out. Mobile phone calls to businesses are predicted to surge to around 162 billion by 2019, more than double the amount businesses received in 2014. In the age where you can schedule an appointment online, this may be hard to believe. The majority of mobile users call a business when they’re in the purchase phase of the buying cycle because they find it faster to get a quick answer or they simply want to talk to a human being. The need to talk with a live person increases when it comes to making expensive, or high-risk decisions (ahem, like a medical procedure). Furthermore, now that online technology integrates seamlessly with mobile communications, consumers can more quickly and easily “click to call” based on search results. But Alas, Many Practices Won’t Change This isn’t new news. Patients have become increasingly impatient and more demanding of exceptional customer service for decades. Yet, a big reason practices won’t improve their phone handling: they don’t know they need to. They are unaware of how often they put calls on hold. They don’t know how long new leads are waiting on the line. They aren’t tracking their calls and they aren’t monitoring performance. Get A Hold of Your Phones (see what we did there?) A simple practice assessment is the first step to understanding where your practice is falling short. OptiCall offers free phone assessments that provide actionable information you can use to identify gaps in your phone processes. From there, you can train your staff and improve workflows. OptiCall’s First Contact program has also been a go-to solution for many practices that are doing away with hold times and missed calls. We serve as an extension of your staff, answering phones for you with a focus on converting leads to booked appointments. Consumers will continue to demand more personalized customer service at the click of a button, pressuring businesses to adapt in order to be successful. The question is, will you be one of them? How long should it take to room a patient?The rooming process can take up to thirteen minutes which leaves only seven minutes for the physicians with their patients to assess and diagnose them, talk to the patient about prevention and healthy eating etc.
What is the longest wait for an emergency room?Which states have the longest wait times?. Maryland. 228 minutes.. Delaware. 195 minutes.. Massachusetts. 189 minutes.. Rhode Island. 185 minutes.. New York. 184 minutes.. Arizona. 176 minutes.. New Jersey. 173 minutes.. Connecticut. 166 minutes.. Why do doctors waits take so long?Because doctors need to document a patient visit either in real time or immediately after the visit, this can cause a backlog in the waiting room. On average, medical documentation takes about 16 minutes per patient. Phone calls: Doctor's offices receive a lot of phone calls.
What does a scheduling system do?Scheduling software helps individuals and businesses across all industries operate more efficiently by enabling them to manage and track their own and employees' time, create and maintain employee schedules, assign workers to shifts or jobs and track everything in real-time.
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