Premium Content Preview | Capturing capital for yourself and your practice

Time is the physician’s most important resource. Although healthcare is moving toward fee-for-outcome-based payment models, most physician income still depends largely on effective time use based on the number and intensity of services provided. Because reimbursements do not seem to be keeping pace with escalating costs, physicians need to focus on efficiency.

Harnessing time by creating workflows and processes can boost physician and staff productivity, increase revenue and improve patient care. But physicians face regulatory and administrative burdens on a daily basis that threaten their ability to use time most effectively. There are strategies doctors can embrace to improve productivity, and reduce these daily hassles.

“This is about taking decision-making out of a doctor’s hands, and placing it in the hands of a protocol,” says Frederick Turton, medical director of general internal medicine at Emory University Hospital Midtown in Atlanta.