Charting, especially in the age of electronic medical records, has gotten more comprehensive while growing more complicated, slow, and confusing. It can be hard to feel like you’re able to give your patients the attention they need in the exam room while still completing your charts. Many doctors end up taking fast notes and doing part of the chart while they’re with the patient, then finishing the charting and rounding out the encounter notes later in the day. This has given rise to the unfortunate reality that faces many doctors: cutting into their family time to stay and finish their charts. This is the single biggest frustration and challenge our doctors report to us when we first begin working together.
There isn’t an easy answer to help doctors improve their charting experience. Of course, most electronic medical record programs allow templates that can help you fill in some fields more quickly. Often they have shortcuts to filling out certain parts of an exam as well.
While there isn’t an easy answer, there are answers that do make it possible to leave your office on time with all your charts complete. These same answers do make it possible to take back your weekends and enjoy your life more fully. To be truly successful in solving this problem you need to use your staff differently than you have in the past (and you will need more medical assistants to accomplish this). You also need to arrange your schedule and manage your treatment rooms differently as well.
There ARE answers. Making these and other management adjustments is what you need to to do to complete your charts in a timely fashion and reclaim your day. The Top Practices Practice Management Institute is designed precisely to provide you with the resources and coaching you need to defeat this frustrating roadblock to success and fulfillment in private practice. Our practice management experts, led by Tina Del Buono and Dr. Peter Wishnie, understand this specific challenge facing doctors, and can show you the way out of your frustration. You don’t have let charts control your day. Visit the Practice Management Institute to learn more about how effective management can improve your practice. Contact us with questions about the Institute through e-mailing [email protected] or by calling (717) 725-2679.