CUSTOMER STORY

How Appletree Family Practice are Saving Time and Boosting Revenue

Appletree Family Practice has been established for over 30 years and with its 19 doctors, serves a diverse range of patients, from children to elderly individuals. The team caters to a variety of socio-economic backgrounds including working professionals, retirees, and caregivers and continuously advocates for high quality clinical care and education.

“It’s just about focusing on what that benefit is to the patient.. You get it straight to your phone.. We’ll get it to you as quickly as possible.. Not focusing on yes we are charging more money.. But this is our practice policy now..Everybody gets everything that they need and it’s great quality health care for our patients.”

The Challenge

Appletree Family Practice faced several challenges in handling patient requests for repeat prescriptions, referrals, and other non-urgent matters:

1) Patients would call the reception desk repeatedly, leading to a high volume of incoming calls and follow-ups.

2) Receptionists had to track down doctors for these requests, disrupting their workflow and taking time away from other tasks.

3) Doctors were often doing these requests as unpaid work or inconsistently charging patients, leading to higher rates of burnout and longer work days.

4) Scheduling full appointments for simple requests was inefficient and took away appointment slots from patients with more urgent needs.

The Solution: Quick Consults

Appletree implemented Quick Consults, a feature that is free to use as part of a HotDoc subscription, allowing patients to submit repeat prescription and referral requests directly to their doctor for review.

How Did They Implement It?

1) A GP registrar who had used Quick Consults at a previous clinic introduced the idea to Practice Manager Sarah, citing the benefits she experienced using this feature.

“She talked to me a little bit about how she was quite happy in her lunch break to log in to the Sidebar and she might make $100 in that time”

2) Sarah explored the idea with the clinicians and got buy-in from all doctors, particularly by addressing concerns about control over requests and highlighting the compensation for their time. Getting all the doctors on board was important, to ensure consistency in the patient and staff experience and to create a formalised process for her team.

“It was really important to get everyone on board, the way that I overcame that barrier was to reinforce that the GP has complete control. They could reject any of the requests and their patient would get a message saying please make an appointment, and they (patients) were happy with that because that means they're still requesting it from their regular GP. I think getting that direct line of contact from their GP, not reception is really valuable”

3) Receptionists were trained with a blanket policy to direct all patient script/referral requests to the online platform, ensuring that the process was streamlined and consistent.

“We just implemented the blanket procedure of we don't accept script requests over the phone anymore, you need to go online and do your request and your doctor will review it and they'll let you know if you need to make an appointment”

4) Patients were educated on the process as well as its benefits, such as ensuring their requests wouldn’t get lost and freeing up appointment slots for those that needed them more urgently.

“Now we're actively advertising it to patients in our whole ethos so that they become aware of it. So rather than sit on hold and wait for reception to actually pick up that call, they're actually listening to it on the phone.. It's good for everybody.”

The Results and Benefits

After implementing Quick Consults across all practitioners, the clinic saw:

1) Reduced incoming phone calls and follow-ups for receptionists, increasing efficiency and freeing up the team to spend more time on other tasks.

2) Doctors were now compensated for time spent on non-urgent requests and now spend less hours working to catch up on ad hoc requests.

“They know that the five minutes it takes for them to log in, they can check the patient's file and see that they saw them a month ago.. And they get compensated for it”

3) Patients are pleased that their requests are being addressed in a timely manner and find direct communication with their doctor to be good quality care.

4) Automatic invoicing capabilities are streamlining billing for the clinic, with requests immediately paid off in their practice management software, meaning no double handling between the platform and the PMS.

And while Quick Consults is easy to use for the majority of their patients, regardless of age or demographic, Sarah also knows that educating their patients and explaining the benefits of using this service is part of the success of the rollout.

“It’s just about focusing on what that benefit is to the patient.. You get it straight to your phone.. We’ll get it to you as quickly as possible.. Not focusing on yes we are charging more money.. But this is our practice policy now..Everybody gets everything that they need and it's great quality health care for our patients.”

Conclusion

In summary, Appletree Family Practice saw tremendous success after implementing Quick Consults for handling non-urgent patient requests like repeat prescriptions and referrals. By getting buy-in from all doctors and implementing a blanket policy for receptionists and patients, they were able to streamline the process and reduce disruptions to their workflow.

With doctors reporting they could finish at 6:30pm instead of 8pm due to the time savings, whilst being able to offer good quality care to their existing patients, it’s clear Quick Consults was a win-win for the practice.

Other clinics should strongly consider using Quick Consults in conjunction with their current operations to experience the same positive results in managing non-urgent patient needs while optimising office efficiency and doctor compensation.