Home Forums Discussions General Discussion Office Hours

I am interested in knowing what types of hours most standard offices are doing -- by standard I mean ones that take insurance, standard pt. bases, etc.

I work Mon-Tue-Thurs-Fri 0800-Noon and 1:30-5, as well as Wed 0800 to noon.

I also wondered how people are finding on how they keep up using Amazing Charts and if they think that this helps so that they aren't spending their nights doing dictation, answering hand scrawled phone notes, looking at sticky notes, etc.

Steven,
I am office-based entirely (gave up hospital 5 years ago). My hours are M-W 8-1 and 2-4, Thurs 7-1 and 2-7, Fridays 8-noon. My best advice to you to getting your work done, is do it in the rooms. Set up either PCs or laptops or carry around a tablet but, do not leave the room until your note is completed. No after hour dictations, no sticky notes. And your patients actually deserve to suffer along with you while you compete their note. They need to be aware of just what it takes to complete an encounter. Plus, it gives them a sense that your face-to-face time was less hurried. I cannot remember the last time I took work home. Life is too short.

Leslie

Sound Advice. Concur, but have slipped a few times. Our office is open 8:00 to 5:00 M-F with my Partner off on Wed. I'm off Thurs. (because my grandfather was off on Wed!!) and our associate is off on Friday. We are not open weekends or holidays. I am the only one that ever leaves a chart in my inbox until later. The other two finish up every day. I finish 99% while in the room. I agree the patient deserves to see the work, and it is faster for you if they are there to answer questions while you type.

Hi, interesting idea. I always wonder how other docs run their offices. I am part time..recently retired from my university position and now practicing only. I am in 5 half days and still do a hospital call practice with 4 peers. So I am on call for the community hospital one week out of five and take call every tuesday night. I have a CNP who shares my practice so together we make one FTE in outpatient clinic. Our hours are 8-5 M-F.d

Great topic, My office is due to open in less than 3 weeks now so I dont know totally how the schedule will work but this is the plan: M-Th 8:30-5 with stopping from 12-1 for lunch and Friday 830-2. No call and no weekends. I am guessing initally AC will take me more time but eventually it should flow, right???

Here is the flip side, my husband is in his practice (MD) in the same town (well really island). His hours are call every other night one weekend a month and his office is open M-S 830-5. He works on average 4 days a week but since the nearest hospital is over an hour away call can be difficult at times. He does not have EMR and is always doing paperwork.

Alexis,

I don't think AC should take you more time for long at all - particularly when you compare it to dictation or worse, handwriting your notes. It is extrememely fast for repeat visits. I get all of my notes done in the room and spend the end of the day doing phone calls, answering messages, etc.

Steven

working on Hatteras Island...absolutely one of my favorite places!! I am envious.

The hardest part about AC from the start for me was the coding. I was used to writing real english words and someone else figured it out. Now I had to find the right code or one close to it. Took one or two months to get a hang of what were the correct codes. Otherwise it is pretty intuitive (for a computer program!).
ds

Hours: Monday through Friday 8:30 AM to 4:30 PM, but will schedule patients same day up until all are seen, on average until 5:45 PM or so. Saturday and Sunday by appointment only generally between 4 PM and 9 PM. Mornings mostly call.

Call schedule: 24 hours a day/7 days per week/365 days per year. Started solo practice December 1, 2006, and have been on call every hour since then. (Oh, yes, the one exception was the three days Adam covered me when I was hospitalized for a SBO -- which the hospitalists treated with hypoxia and morphine -- those PCA pumps have a lockout for a reason).

Hospital: Admit all babies and patients. Do not use the hospitalist service unless patient in ED very late and did NOT call ahead of time.

Work philosphy: Get all notes, scripts, and referral letters done in the room. I am 100% on that unless the server is down. It is HP.

It's 12:20 AM, so I am going home early, lol. But, I spend a lot of after hours working with computers and on here.

Oh, and yes, Adam and I work in Brewer but basically we live in Bangor where the only claim to fame is it's the home of Stephen King who actually donated the money for the pediatric floor.

Coding was a HUGE problem for my partner and I at first. We just didn't get it. We used the old superbill, then I made a cheat sheet that is pretty handy, I'll post it if anyone wants it. We found a few useful terms for us, (probably not for you) and a few very general terms that allowed us to get into the right area. Then we got better at using Google and adding the Dx from that.

We are open Tuesday-Friday seeing patients from 8:30-12:30 and 1:30-5:00. Orginally I was going to open Saturday mornings...but that was nearly two yrs ago. I do my own call, which is pretty good for the most part.

In addition to the hours, how many people does everyone see per day. My ideal is 15 or so (I do spend lots of time with people), and the last few days it has been really busy at 20. (My population is 90% sick adults - no one has just a cold anymore!)

I remember when I worked with this other physician, and I had Wednesdays off and he had Thursdays off. Same amount of patients, just more work on the day that you were alone.

BUT, many what a difference a day makes. Tough day on Monday -- you know you just have Tuesday to get through, then off. Tough day on Thursday -- on Friday and then the weekend.

Rainy I am seeing between 22- 32 on four days a week. Before AC I was aiming for 40 per day, and saw 40+ on an occasional day each month with a pretty good average around 35. But what kind of patients? Usually 1-2 PAP smears a day. When I talk about scheduling I skip the days that we do a Biopsy as I usually block an entire hour just so I can relax. The vast majority of visits are geriatric follow up with little that needs to be done. The numbers are not as impressive when you consider that only a few per week are really any excitement. (And my goal is to have NO excitement!)