No one likes to waste time or money, especially in a busy retina practice. But sometimes, because you are busy, it’s hard to identify inefficiencies clogging up the workflow. Maybe staff members are spending extra time searching for patient charts or digging around in the supply closet. Maybe they are walking from one end of the office to the other to fetch patients from the waiting room … and then walking all the way back to notify the doctor when the patient is ready. These seemingly small inefficiencies could make a 1-hour appointment take twice as long and make patients cranky and staff members tired.
This is where a lean business strategy can help. Broadly speaking, the lean philosophy focuses on value as seen from the eyes of the patient. Bottom line: Whatever doesn’t contribute to effective delivery of care gets tossed out the window. That’s what Austin Retina Associates did, and, reportedly, they couldn’t be happier. A handful of lean analyses helped the practice leaders there realize that technicians were tramping around the office to the tune of 6 miles each day! By embracing a lean office design and investing in some new equipment, they cut that distance by more than half.
This month’s featured article details the impressive changes that a lean strategy brought to Austin Retina Associates—and lays out how you can achieve similar efficiencies in your office. Who knows, you might even have a little fun taking a waste walk with your technicians or creating a spaghetti map of patient movements. You might be surprised by what you find.
If you aren’t ready for lean, this month’s Practice Management column offers key pointers to help you think, not just plan, strategically when considering practice changes.
Elsewhere in this issue, you will find tips for implementing a cash balance plan to boost your retirement savings and a fun Q&A on coding modifiers.
No matter what help you may need to improve your practice, the articles in this issue are not going to waste your time.
