Every practice wants to be known for its quality of care, but few practices actually take the time to map out, implement and follow through on the rigorous level of quality assurance that it takes to create a truly outstanding practice. The reasons are obvious: measuring quality is complicated...following up with staff is time-consuming...and confronting staff members who are not meeting quality standards can be awkward.

Fortunately your AppointmentsPRO system can power a quality assurance program that covers many of the factors crucial to your success. Coupled with a common sense approach, you can quickly establish a QA program that will convert referring physicians into raving fans of your practice.

Step 1: Implementing the QA Program

This QA program is simple to put in place and once you do, the entire program will take up as little as 2-4 hours per month of your office manager’s time. Here is what you will be doing:

Step 1: Measure your current state of quality. This program focuses on three key elements of quality: (1) patient satisfaction, (2) referrer satisfaction and (3) outcomes. You will find instructions below on how to use AppointmentsPRO to track, measure and report on all of these aspects of quality. Of course there may be other key aspects of quality you nwill want to measure that are unique to your specialty and approach. If you need help, take advantage of your SpectraSoft Support Agreement to talk with a scheduling expert about how you can use the system to measure your practice-specific goals.

Step 2: Meet with your staff and practitioners to review the numbers. You will probably want to hold two separate meetings -- one for each group -- with the supervisor of each group leading the meeting. Highlight areas that could be improved on or that simply have to be improved upon. For instance, look at the number of patients who have to wait beyond their scheduled appointment time and the average amount of time they have to wait. Then discuss with your staff if these numbers are acceptable. What would the numbers be at a truly outstanding practice? Then discuss how this issue affects patient satisfaction, referral rates, company morale and profitability. In some cases, the numbers you need may not be available because your staff is not inputting them into the AppointmentsPRO system. If so, make sure your people start to input that information into the system.

Step 3: Establish goals and consequences. Once you have reviewed the numbers and how they affect your practice, (1) set measurable goals for improvement, (2) establish any new procedures required to meet those goals, (3) create strong incentives to reach those goals and (4) put it all in writing. In most cases, your incentives should be positive, such as a small cash bonus to an individual or a pizza party for the team. If quality has become a serious concern, you may need to communicate that failure to meet a goal will lead to a poor review, a smaller Christmas bonus or some other negative consequence. Then put the goal, the reason for the goal and the consequence in writing and have each person involved sign a copy.

Step 4: Post weekly status reports. Let your people know exactly how they are doing on a regular basis by printing weekly reports that update them on their progress. To ensure that these reports are printed promptly, schedule a time in AppointmentsPRO for the appropriate person to run the reports.

Step 5: Meet monthly to review the results. Put the meeting time in AppointmentsPRO well in advance so that it will be a priority and everyone will be able to attend. If your team has made its monthly goals, this will be a real morale-builder for your practice. If they have come up short or could do better, review the results and work as a team to figure out what must be done to meet the goals in the future. Of course it is crucial that you follow through with any promised consequence and remember – you have it in writing!

Step 6: Continue to meet each month, always raising the bar. As your team continues to improve, keep raising the bar, striving for absolute practice excellence. Your people will soon discover that a practice-wide commitment to quality leads to greater career satisfaction, increased job security and an energized work environment.

Step 2: Tracking and Reporting Quality

One of the marvels of AppointmentsPRO is its ability to take in vast amounts of practice information and convert it into easy-to-read reports. It would take hours to track these statistics on a computer spreadsheet or an old-fashioned paper and pencil; but using the Reports feature in Appointments,™ you’ll find the entire process takes as little as 15 minutes.

All of the reports below cover a specified date range, so you will follow the same instructions below to print both your weekly updates and the monthly results that you will review at your monthly meetings. Here’s how to track the quality numbers you will need to power your QA program...

How your patients feel about the way they are treated affects virtually every aspect of your practice, from the number of future referrals you will get to the level of compliance you can expect with home exercise regimens. Here are a four measures that can help you gauge patient satisfaction.

• Average wait time
• Cancellations
• No-shows
• Late arrivals

Your referring physicians put their reputation on the line every time they send a patient to your office. So, the number of referrals you get is a direct reflection of how the quality of your practice affects the profitability of their practices. Here are some easy ways to measure your referrer satisfaction.

Total physician referrals. By tracking your referrals each month, you will quickly get an idea of what type of feedback referrers are getting from their patients. Click on Reports > Referral Patterns > Primary Physician to track your total number of referrals, as well as a breakdown of referrals by physician. If you see a sudden drop-off, this may be the result of a poor patient experience. Follow up with the physician -- and if appropriate the patient -- to identify the problem. If it is a recurring issue, set goals with your staff to address the problem.

You may also want to follow up with your best referrers to see what they like about your practice. Remember that most successful organization work hard to improve on their strengths as well as their weaknesses.

C. Outcomes

Step 3: Leveraging Quality into More Referrals

If your practice relies on referrals, you know how difficult it can be to impress a potential referring physician. Frankly (and with all due respect to any physicians reading this article) most doctors don’t appreciate it when you try to educate them on conditions and therapies in which you may actually be the expert. They think they know more than you and that’s the reality that you have to live with.

However when one of that physicians’ patients reports back that they achieved outstanding results at your practice, the doctor will listen. So make sure to ask each of your patients to tell their physician about the experience they had with you.

Then when you do have a chance to speak to the physician, instead of trying to educate that doctor about the science behind your spine rehab program, talk about your quality assurance program – your focus on patient satisfaction, referrer satisfaction and outcomes – and the results you have achieved. This will do much more to impress your physician and also gets across that you understand the trust that physician places in you when they refer a patient.