If you followed the patient scheduling steps outlined by Fuel Medical during the shutdown, you should be able to return to a fairly normal schedule without a huge surge of urgent needs. This is the time to start prioritizing revenue-generating appointments on the schedule as you open back up. You will want to give priority where available to new hearing aid evaluations and other revenue-generating appointments. This will allow you to have the fastest uptick in working capital when your business resumes function and full staffing levels.
It is more important than ever to have efficient block scheduling management during your practice restart.
- Reschedule all routine follow-up visits, such as checks, six-month, clean-and-checks and annuals. Call patients who are scheduled in the next month to reschedule them for the following month. That will then require you to push more patients out.
- Repeat this process as needed if the shutdown is extended another month.
- Once the patients scheduled in the next month are rescheduled, you will want to start calling everyone within your database that you’ve seen in the past 12 months.
It’s critical that this is done now on a patient-by-patient basis, so the schedule doesn’t get out of hand and overbooked when your office reopens.
