Scheduling Appointments to Make the Day Flow Smoothly

By Stith Keiser | Blue Heron Consulting

This article was written for and featured in Clinician’s Brief.

I recently spent a few days onsite with the new owner of a small animal practice. We had also met the previous evening and over dinner discussed her primary concerns.

She said the practice was extremely busy—a good problem to have—but the team spent the day running from 1 appointment to the next and she spent most evenings catching up on records because she had no time during the day.

As a result, she was sacrificing family time, team members were experiencing burnout, clients were experiencing long wait times for appointments, and patients were not receiving optimum care because of the hurried environment.

Many practice owners likely can relate to her situation.

An overwhelming practice schedule comes with many consequences that proper scheduling can dramatically ameliorate. For example, longer wait times have been shown to impact the client’s experience and, therefore, the client’s likelihood of returning to the practice. Clients give poor communication and customer service, which may follow from hurried appointments, as the most common reasons for leaving a practice (except for patients passing away or clients moving).¹

Practice owners wondering about the value of appropriate scheduling should consider the impact on the practice’s bottom line. Use the following formula to calculate the potential revenue impact:

• Assume the average client has 2 pets.
• The client visits with each pet twice yearly.
• That client, on average, spends $180 per pet, per visit.
• The client remains with the practice for 5 years,² on average.
• Lifetime client value = $3600

Equating the loss of a client to cost shows clearly that running the most efficient practice possible benefits not only patients, clients, and all team members, including owners, but also the bottom line.

Establishing Appointment Flow

Fortunately, appointment flow can reduce many owner headaches. Every emergency cannot be controlled and some days will always be more stressful, but steps can be taken to minimize these events.

Start by creating a visual map of the practice’s daily flow. This helps recognize each client touchpoint and identifies inefficiencies and bottlenecks more easily.

The ideal flow cannot be achieved without strategic scheduling, so be sure to create an appointment schedule that benefits all involved by accounting for different appointment types, veterinarian availability, optimum team leverage, and client convenience.

Consider conducting a time study, using a travel sheet to note the time spent on each portion of the client visit and comparing actual to scheduled time. If appointments consistently take longer than scheduled, check first for efficiency and training opportunities, and then consider building in small cushions of time when scheduling each appointment.