5 Hacks to Make Your Day-to-day Practice Easier
Running a medical practice can be a challenging and time-consuming task, leaving little room for relaxation or personal time.
As a medical professional, you’re tasked with taking on many responsibilities—and many of them have to do with patient care and legal matters.
With patients to care for, records to maintain, and staff to manage, it’s easy for a doctor to feel overwhelmed.
In fact, overwhelm can be a common issue for doctors—especially for
But don’t worry – there are some simple hacks that can help make your day-to-day practice easier. Here are five of them:
1. Use Technology to Your Advantage
Ah, the joys of living in the digital age!
We may not have flying cars yet, but we do have a plethora of software programs and apps that can make a doctor’s life so much easier.
No more sending carrier pigeons to schedule appointments or etching patient records onto stone tablets!
With that being said, don’t be afraid to take advantage of the many digital resources at your disposal to save time and improve efficiency.
With the help of appointment scheduling software, patient records management programs, and billing apps, you can focus on what really matters—helping your patients stay healthy and happy.
One example of a useful app is Medici, which allows doctors to communicate with patients via text, video, and voice calls.
This app can be especially helpful for busy doctors who want to stay in touch with their patients outside of office hours.
Note that if you need some money to add some of these types of tools to your practice, you can make use of physician loans to get the capital you need to actually get ahead of the game from a business/capital perspective.
2. Organize Your Workspace
A cluttered workspace is going to be minimally effective at best.
Take some time to organize your desk and office space.
Consider investing in some filing cabinets or storage boxes to keep your papers and supplies organized.
This will not only make it easier to find what you need, but it can also help you stay focused and reduce stress.
You know what they say—the state of your office is really a metaphor for the state of the inner workings of your consciousness.
Not to get all ‘Jungian’ on you—but clutter in places like your office can be a symptom of overlooked priorities—priorities that could cost you in the months and years to come.
3. Automate Your Administrative Tasks
Administrative tasks like appointment scheduling, billing, and patient record management can be time-consuming and tedious.
As a practicing physician, you really shouldn’t be spending your valuable time on these types of tasks. (And if you are, odds are good that you’re pretty stressed out, overworked, and unhappy about it.)
One way to streamline these tasks is to automate them using software or online tools.
For example, you can use a scheduling software like Acuity Scheduling to automatically schedule appointments, or a billing software like SimplePractice to simplify your billing process.
4. Outsource Non-Essential Tasks
As a doctor, your time is valuable, and you don’t want to spend it on tasks that can be handled by the rest of your employees and staff.
Consider outsourcing non-essential tasks like data entry, bookkeeping, or even social media management to a virtual assistant or freelancer.
Honestly, when you really get down to it—anything that isn’t essential to your doctor/medical duties (or the bigger picture of planning out the future of your practice) should probably be outsourced.
This will empower you to spend your time focusing on what you do best—providing top-level care to your patients.
5. Prioritize Self-Care
It’s important to remember that you can’t take care of others if you don’t take care of yourself.
You know what they say—you need to save yourself before you can save anyone else.
Make sure to prioritize self-care and set aside time for yourself every day. This can include taking on (and prioritizing) more activities like exercise, meditation, sports, and other hobbies. In addition, simply taking a break to read a book or watch your favorite show could also be massively beneficial.
Taking care of your physical, emotional, and mental health will not only benefit you, but it will also help you be a better doctor for your patients.
It’ll also set your practice up to be more sustainable (and an overall happier place) for the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
Running a medical practice can be a challenging task, but there are simple hacks that can help make it easier.
By using technology to your advantage, organizing your workspace, automating administrative tasks, outsourcing non-essential tasks, and prioritizing self-care, you can streamline your day-to-day practice and reduce stress.
Remember to take care of yourself, both physically and mentally, so that you can provide the best care possible to your patients.