Re: Scheduling Patients

[Guest guest]

,

We have our front desk do all the scheduling. They need to be trained well

and told exactly how to schedule (# per hour, new patients, what type of

patients, when etc.) They are can be an excellent tool to keep on track (along

with the PT's) the patients that are non-compliant, have challenges

rescheduling, moving people around to accommodate schedules etc. I'd imagine

that this

could save you cancellation lost income and give the PT's a chance to

monitor the patients, but also now get more time to work on the patient, do

notes,

billing etc. My only suggestion is to come up with a format, pilot it, train

the front desk and then get them to try it out.

Vinod Somareddy, DPT

In a message dated 12/30/2008 3:38:51 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

kristinferreira@... writes:

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

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[Guest guest]

,

We have our front desk do all the scheduling. They need to be trained well

and told exactly how to schedule (# per hour, new patients, what type of

patients, when etc.) They are can be an excellent tool to keep on track (along

with the PT's) the patients that are non-compliant, have challenges

rescheduling, moving people around to accommodate schedules etc. I'd imagine

that this

could save you cancellation lost income and give the PT's a chance to

monitor the patients, but also now get more time to work on the patient, do

notes,

billing etc. My only suggestion is to come up with a format, pilot it, train

the front desk and then get them to try it out.

Vinod Somareddy, DPT

In a message dated 12/30/2008 3:38:51 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,

kristinferreira@... writes:

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

**************One site keeps you connected to all your email: AOL Mail,

Gmail, and Yahoo Mail. Try it now.

(http://www.aol.com/?optin=new-dp & icid=aolcom40vanity & ncid=emlcntaolcom00000025)

[Guest guest]

Hi there - we do it both ways and both are imperfect. Peds OP is set on

schedule templates and the front desk staff do it all which leads to

some consternation on staff side - when they think they have an opening

tomorrow at 2 and a patient gets slotted in. But in that setting with a

constant waiting list we have block eval times for all professional

staff to keep the engine running. In the Adult clinic the therapists

are constantly up in the office " in the book " which causes another set

of issues. We are preparing to begin using Appointments Pro - we'll see

if that strikes a nice balance but what we will be doing is giving

visual access to all schedules on all computers but the user access will

still flow through the front desk.

________________________________

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On

Behalf Of kristinferreira

Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 8:37 AM

To: PTManager

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

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[Guest guest]

Our therapists fill out a small slip of paper after the eval that

details # of times/week, length of treatment(these are preprinted and

therapist just circles option), who else might be able to see the

patient and gives it to office, or pt hands it to office, and the

office does the scheduling. If the office has trouble making it work

they contact the therapist to see what can be done. Therapist directs

the scheduling but the office does the nuts and bolts of it. We

generally limit evals to two per day per therapist so they can follow

the same people they evaluated and so we can properly treat all we have

started on therapy. We use a Cerner scheduling system, have 6 PTs, 2

PTAs, 2 OTs, one COTA and a speech therapist. Works well.

Pierre H. Rougny, PT,OCS, MTC

Director of Rehabilitation Services

Sebasticook Valley Hospital

141 Leighton St.

Pittsfield, ME 04967

(207)487-9293

________________________________

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On

Behalf Of kristinferreira

Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 8:37 AM

To: PTManager

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

Our therapists fill out a small slip of paper after the eval that

details # of times/week, length of treatment(these are preprinted and

therapist just circles option), who else might be able to see the

patient and gives it to office, or pt hands it to office, and the

office does the scheduling. If the office has trouble making it work

they contact the therapist to see what can be done. Therapist directs

the scheduling but the office does the nuts and bolts of it. We

generally limit evals to two per day per therapist so they can follow

the same people they evaluated and so we can properly treat all we have

started on therapy. We use a Cerner scheduling system, have 6 PTs, 2

PTAs, 2 OTs, one COTA and a speech therapist. Works well.

Pierre H. Rougny, PT,OCS, MTC

Director of Rehabilitation Services

Sebasticook Valley Hospital

141 Leighton St.

Pittsfield, ME 04967

(207)487-9293

________________________________

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On

Behalf Of kristinferreira

Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 8:37 AM

To: PTManager

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

Hello -

We have similar staff as you list below. However, we do have more tech

support.

The techs do the scheduling for all the departments. They also know the

patients and therapists schedules.

We use scheduling slips to help the front with co-treats and duration of

treatments.

We did use Appointment Pro for computerized scheduling and now are on

paragon Resource Scheduling.

I would be more than happy to speak to you about pro's/con's.

Ann Heiman

Ann Heiman MS, MPT

Director of Rehab Services

Spencer Hospital

1200 1st Ave E

Spencer, IA 51301

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On

Behalf Of kristinferreira

Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 7:37 AM

To: PTManager

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

Hello -

We have similar staff as you list below. However, we do have more tech

support.

The techs do the scheduling for all the departments. They also know the

patients and therapists schedules.

We use scheduling slips to help the front with co-treats and duration of

treatments.

We did use Appointment Pro for computerized scheduling and now are on

paragon Resource Scheduling.

I would be more than happy to speak to you about pro's/con's.

Ann Heiman

Ann Heiman MS, MPT

Director of Rehab Services

Spencer Hospital

1200 1st Ave E

Spencer, IA 51301

From: PTManager [mailto:PTManager ] On

Behalf Of kristinferreira

Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 7:37 AM

To: PTManager

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

Krtistin,

What we have found is that the front desk scheduling all appointments has

actually saved the therapist's time. It takes the therapist away from having to

worry too much about how a certain appointment time clashes with their hair

appointment! Yet again, the therapist always has a say and can just walk over

to tell if they want some extra one on one time on the schedule with a

particular patient.

Also, having the front desk schedule (we actually use a central scheduling

system) helps in insurance verification, co pay collection and also an automatic

scheduling of recertification evals.

Our scheduling system is not the best either and we are still unable to schedule

recurring appointments.

Please feel free to call me if I can be of further assistance.

Tapan

Tapan Kikani PT., PhD

Holy Redeemer Health System

________________________________

From: PTManager on behalf of kristinferreira

Sent: Tue 12/30/2008 8:36 AM

To: PTManager

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

Krtistin,

What we have found is that the front desk scheduling all appointments has

actually saved the therapist's time. It takes the therapist away from having to

worry too much about how a certain appointment time clashes with their hair

appointment! Yet again, the therapist always has a say and can just walk over

to tell if they want some extra one on one time on the schedule with a

particular patient.

Also, having the front desk schedule (we actually use a central scheduling

system) helps in insurance verification, co pay collection and also an automatic

scheduling of recertification evals.

Our scheduling system is not the best either and we are still unable to schedule

recurring appointments.

Please feel free to call me if I can be of further assistance.

Tapan

Tapan Kikani PT., PhD

Holy Redeemer Health System

________________________________

From: PTManager on behalf of kristinferreira

Sent: Tue 12/30/2008 8:36 AM

To: PTManager

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

Again, I have to go with PTOS on this one, It all boils down to comunication

with the therapist staff, how you set up the schedules in the system to book the

therapist.  I would say it would save you cost wise as well to have the

therapist treating the patients and the office staff scheduling.

 Diane McKeon " McKeon Services " Medical Billing/ Business Office Manager

cell http://www.jobfox.com/people/dmckeon07

________________________________

To: PTManager

Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 8:36:38 AM

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

FYI

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

**********************************************************************

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and

intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they

are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify

the system manager.

This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by

MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.

www.clearswift.com

**********************************************************************

This message was scanned with MIMESweeper.

[Guest guest]

FYI

Sent from my BlackBerry® smartphone

Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

**********************************************************************

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and

intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they

are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify

the system manager.

This footnote also confirms that this email message has been swept by

MIMEsweeper for the presence of computer viruses.

www.clearswift.com

**********************************************************************

This message was scanned with MIMESweeper.

[Guest guest]

Pros & Cons to both--from my experience...

I am all about preserving clinical time for clinicians -- and having clerical

staff do clerical things.  But scheduling is an issue that you might want your

therapists to have more involvement in...

I've seen it work best when the office staff are given relative parameters when

scheduling patients for new evals...like blocking off 'x' time for 'x' diagnosis

and 'don't schedule more than 'x' evals in a morning.' etc.  After the new eval,

I like for the therapist to walk the patient out to the front desk, look at the

upcoming schedule, and negotiate a preferable time & frequency with the patient.

 This increases commitment/decreases no-shows and enables the therapist to

anticipate their daily caseload and coax the patient to come at a time when he

can have more attention relative to the other patients on the schedule that day.

 The therapist then turns the patient over to the secretary for the appt. book

inputting.  

When therapists actively participate in the scheduling, you should also notice

less bitching (excuse French) about the front office... " Why the hell did she put

3 rotator cuff repairs back-back-back? "

The bad side about having therapists actively participating in the

scheduling process is sometimes the PTAs or less senior therapists can

get dumped on.  Is the new eval patient bariatric and verbally nasty?  The PT

can put them on the PTA schedule (claiming, of course, a number of

bogus reasons).  The PT then ends up with 18 easy-to-treat, independent

exercisers and gets a end of year bonus, while the PTA gets all the old, slow

ladies that want heat, massage, ultrasound, and 1:1 exercises.  (Allow some

levity on the issue).

If you trust your team members and don't rely too heavily on individual

statisics to judge performance (vs. a clinic goal, per se) then I would

encourage the therapists to take an active role in scheduling.

Subject: Scheduling Patients

To: PTManager

Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 1:36 PM

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

Pros & Cons to both--from my experience...

I am all about preserving clinical time for clinicians -- and having clerical

staff do clerical things.  But scheduling is an issue that you might want your

therapists to have more involvement in...

I've seen it work best when the office staff are given relative parameters when

scheduling patients for new evals...like blocking off 'x' time for 'x' diagnosis

and 'don't schedule more than 'x' evals in a morning.' etc.  After the new eval,

I like for the therapist to walk the patient out to the front desk, look at the

upcoming schedule, and negotiate a preferable time & frequency with the patient.

 This increases commitment/decreases no-shows and enables the therapist to

anticipate their daily caseload and coax the patient to come at a time when he

can have more attention relative to the other patients on the schedule that day.

 The therapist then turns the patient over to the secretary for the appt. book

inputting.  

When therapists actively participate in the scheduling, you should also notice

less bitching (excuse French) about the front office... " Why the hell did she put

3 rotator cuff repairs back-back-back? "

The bad side about having therapists actively participating in the

scheduling process is sometimes the PTAs or less senior therapists can

get dumped on.  Is the new eval patient bariatric and verbally nasty?  The PT

can put them on the PTA schedule (claiming, of course, a number of

bogus reasons).  The PT then ends up with 18 easy-to-treat, independent

exercisers and gets a end of year bonus, while the PTA gets all the old, slow

ladies that want heat, massage, ultrasound, and 1:1 exercises.  (Allow some

levity on the issue).

If you trust your team members and don't rely too heavily on individual

statisics to judge performance (vs. a clinic goal, per se) then I would

encourage the therapists to take an active role in scheduling.

Subject: Scheduling Patients

To: PTManager

Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 1:36 PM

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

,

We seem to be comparable in staffing to you and have transitioned to

Spectrasoft's Appointments Pro over the last year. Our ST is only part

time, so wasn't included in our current schedule, otherwise we schedule

all PT and OT patients and staff with this software.

We currently use 2 receptionists/schedulers to make patient

appointments from 6:45 to 1730. We found that it is a waste of

therapist's time to sit at the desk with a receptionist to pick out

times for their patients. We use a half sheet , circle and fill in the

blank, to give guidelines to the scheduler to find appointments. Can

the patient be seen by a PTA?, when PT wants to recheck?, Can the

patient be doubled up?, etc.

Of course, at times the therapist needs to be consulted due to

challenges to availability/full schedule to work things out, but this is

rare.

Repeated appointments are easy to make, changes are easy, etc.

One drawback in the product is that the database is shared between

disciplines so some discipline-specific reporting isn't readily

available. For instance, tracking referrals over time by discipline

includes referrals for both PT and OT.

We just found out that Spectrasoft has software, Appointments CS, which

can split out the data into " domains " or departments/clinics. This

would be another significant investment for us, but would allow

individual department tracking for reporting to Admin, etc.

We liked the Spectrasoft product for the easy transition away from the

" salon book " because it looks on screen about the same as our book. Ten

resources or therapists can appear on a screen and several pages can be

accessed with a click.

We have also decreased our error rate significantly with patient

appointment cards since the system will print the appointments exactly

as made in the system. It eliminated the human error component of

transferring the appointment info by hand from the book to a card.

Feel free to contact me if you have more questions.

Dan , PT

PT Manager

Vernon Memorial Hospital

Viroqua, WI 54665

dnelson@...

From: PTMtanager@... [mailto:PTManager ] On

Behalf Of kristinferreira

Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 7:37 AMi

To: PTManager

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

,

We seem to be comparable in staffing to you and have transitioned to

Spectrasoft's Appointments Pro over the last year. Our ST is only part

time, so wasn't included in our current schedule, otherwise we schedule

all PT and OT patients and staff with this software.

We currently use 2 receptionists/schedulers to make patient

appointments from 6:45 to 1730. We found that it is a waste of

therapist's time to sit at the desk with a receptionist to pick out

times for their patients. We use a half sheet , circle and fill in the

blank, to give guidelines to the scheduler to find appointments. Can

the patient be seen by a PTA?, when PT wants to recheck?, Can the

patient be doubled up?, etc.

Of course, at times the therapist needs to be consulted due to

challenges to availability/full schedule to work things out, but this is

rare.

Repeated appointments are easy to make, changes are easy, etc.

One drawback in the product is that the database is shared between

disciplines so some discipline-specific reporting isn't readily

available. For instance, tracking referrals over time by discipline

includes referrals for both PT and OT.

We just found out that Spectrasoft has software, Appointments CS, which

can split out the data into " domains " or departments/clinics. This

would be another significant investment for us, but would allow

individual department tracking for reporting to Admin, etc.

We liked the Spectrasoft product for the easy transition away from the

" salon book " because it looks on screen about the same as our book. Ten

resources or therapists can appear on a screen and several pages can be

accessed with a click.

We have also decreased our error rate significantly with patient

appointment cards since the system will print the appointments exactly

as made in the system. It eliminated the human error component of

transferring the appointment info by hand from the book to a card.

Feel free to contact me if you have more questions.

Dan , PT

PT Manager

Vernon Memorial Hospital

Viroqua, WI 54665

dnelson@...

From: PTMtanager@... [mailto:PTManager ] On

Behalf Of kristinferreira

Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2008 7:37 AMi

To: PTManager

Subject: Scheduling Patients

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

Pros & Cons to both--from my experience...

I am all about preserving clinical time for clinicians -- and having clerical

staff do clerical things.  But scheduling is an issue that you might want your

therapists to have more involvement in...

I've seen it work best when the office staff are given relative parameters when

scheduling patients for new evals...like blocking off 'x' time for 'x' diagnosis

and 'don't schedule more than 'x' evals in a morning.' etc.  After the new eval,

I like for the therapist to walk the patient out to the front desk, look at the

upcoming schedule, and negotiate a preferable time & frequency with the patient.

 This increases commitment/decreases no-shows and enables the therapist to

anticipate their daily caseload and coax the patient to come at a time when he

can have more attention relative to the other patients on the schedule that day.

 The therapist then turns the patient over to the secretary for the appt. book

inputting.  

When therapists actively participate in the scheduling, you should also notice

less bitching (excuse French) about the front office... " Why the hell did she put

3 rotator cuff repairs back-back-back? "

The bad side about having therapists actively participating in the

scheduling process is sometimes the PTAs or less senior therapists can

get dumped on.  Is the new eval patient bariatric and verbally nasty?  The PT

can put them on the PTA schedule (claiming, of course, a number of

bogus reasons).  The PT then ends up with 18 easy-to-treat, independent

exercisers and gets a end of year bonus, while the PTA gets all the old, slow

ladies that want heat, massage, ultrasound, and 1:1 exercises.  (Allow some

levity on the issue).

If you trust your team members and don't rely too heavily on individual

statisics to judge performance (vs. a clinic goal, per se) then I would

encourage the therapists to take an active role in scheduling.

Alan Petrazzi, MPT

Rehab Manager

Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System

 

Subject: Scheduling Patients

To: PTManager

Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 1:36 PM

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan

[Guest guest]

Pros & Cons to both--from my experience...

I am all about preserving clinical time for clinicians -- and having clerical

staff do clerical things.  But scheduling is an issue that you might want your

therapists to have more involvement in...

I've seen it work best when the office staff are given relative parameters when

scheduling patients for new evals...like blocking off 'x' time for 'x' diagnosis

and 'don't schedule more than 'x' evals in a morning.' etc.  After the new eval,

I like for the therapist to walk the patient out to the front desk, look at the

upcoming schedule, and negotiate a preferable time & frequency with the patient.

 This increases commitment/decreases no-shows and enables the therapist to

anticipate their daily caseload and coax the patient to come at a time when he

can have more attention relative to the other patients on the schedule that day.

 The therapist then turns the patient over to the secretary for the appt. book

inputting.  

When therapists actively participate in the scheduling, you should also notice

less bitching (excuse French) about the front office... " Why the hell did she put

3 rotator cuff repairs back-back-back? "

The bad side about having therapists actively participating in the

scheduling process is sometimes the PTAs or less senior therapists can

get dumped on.  Is the new eval patient bariatric and verbally nasty?  The PT

can put them on the PTA schedule (claiming, of course, a number of

bogus reasons).  The PT then ends up with 18 easy-to-treat, independent

exercisers and gets a end of year bonus, while the PTA gets all the old, slow

ladies that want heat, massage, ultrasound, and 1:1 exercises.  (Allow some

levity on the issue).

If you trust your team members and don't rely too heavily on individual

statisics to judge performance (vs. a clinic goal, per se) then I would

encourage the therapists to take an active role in scheduling.

Alan Petrazzi, MPT

Rehab Manager

Veterans Affairs Pittsburgh Healthcare System

 

Subject: Scheduling Patients

To: PTManager

Date: Tuesday, December 30, 2008, 1:36 PM

We are a hospital based outpatient facility with about 10 PT's, 3

PTA's, 5 OT's, 1 COTA, 1 tech, and 2 SLP's. We currently have our

front office staff scheduling new patients for their evals based on

times given by each therapist on a weekly basis. (They are each

required to reserve slots for at least 5 new patients a week). Each

therapist then schedules their own patients for treatments. We are

considering utilizing our front office to schedule all appointments

including treatments.

I was hoping others could give some input on this. I have multiple

concerns including the software we use to schedule (not ideal), and

the inability to most effeciently schedule patients. I believe the

therapist knows best about who can be doubled, who can be

dovetailed, etc. They are the ones who know when timed and untimed

codes will overlap. Having the front office schedule will limit the

ability to do this.

However, each therapist scheduling their own patients is becoming

time consuming. Any thoughts or input would be appreciated.

Michigan