Schedule Right the FIRST Time

We use a Triage Scheduling form in our EMR to help guide staff into doing the right thing when scheduling. Scheduling staff are asked to follow so many different scheduling preferences it can be overwhelming trying to remember them all. We took the “remembering” aspect out of it and built our Triage form to do the remembering for us.

Staff enter information such as; type of injury, date of injury, insurance information, body part, etc., the EMR calculates that information along with age and zip code and will auto generate a list of appropriate physicians that I can schedule with. The form can give “pop-ups” that help with specific preferences such as “30 min for all bilateral hips” or “prior authorization before scheduling 2nd opinions”.

Scheduling a brand new patient using this form takes approximately 3-4 minutes, which is a little longer than before we had the form; however, the minimal error rate that we now have is worth the few extra seconds it takes to schedule.

Our clinical staff enjoys the triage form as well, we have mandatory questions about where and when the patient had their last x-ray. Our medical records department then gathers that information, prior to the patient’s appointment, taking this time consuming job away from the clinical staff that used to have to gather this information the day of, while the patient was waiting in the hallway.

Scheduling patients correctly the first time around means less errors and Happy Physicians!!

By: Kylie Mills and Rhonda Draper | Ortho NorthEast