Ways to Keep Your Staff Productive When Patient Visits Have Declined
By David Doolittle

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To keep your patients and staff healthy and safe during the COVID-19 pandemic, you or your practice probably have reduced the number of in-office patient visits. As a result, your staff’s workload likely has drastically decreased. 

If you’ve been wondering how to keep your staff productive, here are a few suggestions:        

  • Conduct compliance training, like OSHA and HIPAA (particularly if its overdue);
  • Reduce staff hours and rotate through shifts;
  • Take care of things you have been putting off in your office, such as reorganizing the cleaning supply room, going through and disposing of expired medications, or catching up on scanning;
  • Instruct staff to call your most vulnerable patients to check in with them and provide education about staying healthy during the pandemic;
  • Have staff contact patients with chronic conditions to check on their status, such as how are they feeling, whether they have enough medications, or are they having trouble paying for medications, etc.;
  • Engage in other types of staff education and training; and
  • Update your policy and procedure manual, or reevaluate workflows. 

Be creative. At some point, patients will return to your office, so it’s important to keep your staff on the payroll if possible. This is a good time to catch up on all those things that can take a backseat to patient care. 

You can find more tools, information, and resources to help your practice on the practice viability section of the TMA COVID-19 Resource Center.

Last Updated On

April 16, 2020

Originally Published On

April 16, 2020

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