ADDED 2 SURGEONS WITHOUT ADDING ANY SCHEDULING STAFF

SUCCESS STORY

highlights

  • Cut time needed to coordinate each surgery by 50%
  • Added 2 new surgeons without increasing scheduling staff
  • Significantly improved Communication and transparency between physicians and staff
  • Seamless integration with AdvancedMD has ensured data accuracy & boosted efficiency

Surgimate Practice™ has been a fantastic investment for for our high volume practice. We have drastically increased productivity, and since implementing Surgimate, we have been able to grow our practice by 30% and add 2 more surgeons without increasing scheduling staff. All our scheduling staff are able to work remotely as needed, which has been a huge advantage during the Covid-19 pandemic. I highly recommend Surgimate!

Stephanie Collins | Chief Executive Officer

The challenge

Austin Retina had made the transition from paper to electronic medical records in 2015, but similar to many other practices, was still using paper to schedule surgeries. That translated into a lot of paper— including numerous forms to be completed per procedure. This led to missing information, scheduling errors, poor communication between staff and physicians on surgeries scheduled, and no efficient way for the surgeons to view previous exam notes while at the

surgery center – without taking the printed paper record with them. In addition, the billing staff would have to rely on the surgeons to bring back a physical billing slip to complete the coding of the surgery, since there was no electronic way to communicate what was actually performed.

 

Added to this, Austin Retina were growing at an unprecedented pace. They needed to convert their office space to accommodate the influx of patients by adding more exam rooms. Ahead of the pandemic, the growing practice was looking to transfer the scheduling team to work remotely

ABOUT THE CLIENT

Austin Retina is a group of ten physicians that sees between 7000-7500 patients a month across 17 locations in Austin, TX. Their main focuses are diabetic retinopathy and macular degeneration and the majority of procedures are performed in-office. 65% of patients will have some sort of procedure, with the bulk of them being injections. Staff schedule approximately 4000 injections per month.

62541061-0-Surgeons-1

17 Offices

10 surgeons

MDIntellysis

Advanced MD

SOLUTION

In 2018, management sought out a way to do things better. Surgimate Practice offered both a solution to accommodate a remote workforce and significantly improve surgical workflow.

 

Implemented uniform digitized workflow

Before using Surgimate Practice, staff could forget to execute on critical details like reserve the procedure room or schedule the one-day post-op check-up, which often caused bottlenecks in the surgical workflow. With Surgimate Practice in place, that rarely happens anymore. Now, staff can see all tasks that are pending per procedure using the electronic checklist and agenda. The tasks can be sorted by priority, due date, surgery date, surgeon or even facility. This makes the workflow much smoother.

Cut scheduling time by 50%

Using Surgimate Practice, all elements of the scheduling workflow have been automated – including paperwork and calendars. Staff have seen at least a 50% reduction in the time it takes to schedule each surgery. Since implementing Surgimate Practice™, Austin Retina has been able to add two surgeons.

Surgeons view their schedules & all surgical info via the app

Some of the physicians were hesitant to use Surgimate at first, but when they saw the benefits of the system, there was no turning back. Surgeons no longer have to worry about remembering their past exam notes since they can access this information and more at their fingertips. They can also communicate codes post-surgery with a few taps in the app. Communication between the back office and the surgeons has majorly improved by using the Surgimate app.

Staff can work from any location

Even before the pandemic, Austin Retina were looking to transfer staff to work remotely. The practice was growing at a rapid pace, and they needed to convert part of their office floor space to add more exam rooms. Since Surgimate Practice is a cloud-based platform, staff can schedule and coordinate surgeries from anywhere. This became particularly beneficial when Covid-19 forced even more staff to work from home. The shift to remote work was seamless and there was no issue with PHI, HIPAA or access to information.

Reports used to manage workflow more effectively

The manager of surgical scheduling uses performance charts and reports inside Surgimate Practice™ to track productivity and ascertain the status of each case in the surgical workflow. With a few clicks, managers can use reports to easily view the workload per scheduler, and ensure surgeries are hitting the milestones needed so the surgeries can go ahead as scheduled. 

ABOUT SURGIMATE

Surgimate’s software streamlines the surgical coordination workflow, enabling practices to book surgeries faster, maximize blocktime, and capture untapped revenue. All information around surgeries is stored in a centralized location, and connects schedulers, managers, insurance, surgeons and billing through a single unified workflow. Surgimate has processed over 2.5 million surgeries across practices in 34 states covering orthopedics, ophthalmology, urology, ENT, and gynecology.

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