|
Urgent care centers offer patients many benefits over standard emergency room medical care and even over the traditional family doctor roles of the past. As more people are beginning to see the potential benefits for themselves, more people are beginning to turn to medical urgent care facilities in lieu of private physicians and emergency rooms. All-in-all, this is creating new problems for these facilities when it comes to physician scheduling and overall shift scheduling.
Which brings about the point that clinic scheduling software can be extremely valuable to the facility and the patients it serves. These are just a few reasons why you might want to consider emergency medicine scheduling software for your medical urgent care clinic.
The Affordable Care Act’s Impact on Emergency Medicine
There’s no denying that the ACA has had an impact on emergency room visits among the population in general. People who avoided hospitals and doctor’s offices for years due to a lack of insurance are now slowly beginning to use these facilities. Unfortunately, long wait time for traditional physicians have left some turning to emergency rooms for non-emergency medical needs leading to longer wait times and greater exposure of all to injuries and illnesses.
Now that the word is getting out about urgent care clinics and the fact that they offer many of the same features as hospital emergency rooms with lower overall costs (even to the insured), people who do not yet have primary care physicians, or do not have life-threatening emergencies are beginning to recognize the value of urgent care medicine – which unfortunately, places a bigger strain on urgent care facilities too.
Handling the Overflow
While most urgent care clinics do have the facilities to house all the patients, what you may be short on is staff to meet the growing needs. While hiring new staff is a great place to begin – as your practice grows – it’s always wise to invest in shift scheduling software to help manage the new physicians and support staff.
Another consideration worth adding to your list is the one of allowing urgent care patients to schedule appointments in advance for things like suspected ear infections, cold, flu symptoms, asthma symptoms, and minor skin rashes. This way you can see the potential for high volume ahead of times, or at least notify people who are checking in that there could be a wait ahead of them – though generally much less of a wait than at a hospital emergency room.
Urgent care clinics are play a role of rising importance in modern health care. That’s why it’s so important to take advantage of small moves you can take to take control of your clock and your calendar. Emergency medicine scheduling software is one small way you can do just that so that you can give even more to the patients who visit your clinic.
|