Staying productive when the schedule gets light

It’s easy to be productive with a full schedule.  As long as your office is booked solid and patients are showing up for appointments, there’s never a trouble when it comes to staying busy.  Just buckle up and get busy.

It’s trickier though when the schedule lightens up a bit.  Many aspects of healthcare are cyclical, and while it’s easy to for a caseload to diminish a bit here and there, it’s not as easy to flex your schedule so that you and your staff remain busy (er, “productive”)…that is, if productivity is measured solely on the number of patients seen.

Though revenues wane when there are less patients walking through the door, remember that the growth of a practice takes work, and the mental energy that it applied to patients on a busy day can (and should) be applied toward your practice on a lighter day.  Having a plan for slow days is important, and will allow you to quickly make the adaptation when dictated by your schedule.

This post by Dr. Schoor at the Independent Urologist Blog makes important mention of this, as well as a number of tasks to perform during your slower days.

While busy is great, an occasional slow is ok too; as long as it is only every so often. Here’s what to do on a slow day so that you can stay productive and proactive.