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With 11 surgeons on staff at six different office locations, Danbury Eye’s back office staff struggles to manage and coordinate surgeries. “It is an extraordinarily difficult and complex task to actually schedule all of these doctors in five different facilities at different times during the week,” said Fiona Lange, Business Office Manager at Danbury Eye.

The surgeons perform surgery at six different facilities across Connecticut, and the requirements and paperwork for each facility vary. “We’re literally drowning in paper,” said Lange. “The surgical schedulers all have piles of papers on their desks right now.”

The schedulers also have a tough time managing surgeries due to the use of a paper calendar and paper folders being used for tracking.

Once it became impossible to maintain their current system, it was clear to Management at Danbury Eye that they needed a solution to streamline their surgical scheduling process and eliminate paperwork.

Surgimate will automate the surgical scheduling process at Danbury Eye, including generating all of their forms, digitizing their calendars, and empower staff to easily track the authorization process with an electronic checklist. Through SurgiApp, surgeons will have instant access to their surgery schedule at all times, have all necessary information in one place, and communicate information back to their schedulers – enabling the billing process to begin immediately.

“Our goal is to make our surgical schedulers much more efficient. To make them feel that they are in control of their scheduling and that the paperwork is not in control of them,” says Lange. “My hope is to be able to free up a staff member to be able to schedule out of the satellite office  so that we can offer one-on-one contact for the patient.”

Since Danbury Eye will be generating all their forms electronically, they’ll eliminate the piles of paperwork currently cluttering back office desks. Tracking will be completed electronically and paper folders will be a thing of the past.

Automating the scheduling workflow will drastically increase productivity and significantly reduce the time it takes for each surgery to be scheduled.

Danbury Eye will go live with Surgimate in the Fall of 2016.

Surgimate has been selected by Illinois Bone and Joint Institute (IBJI) as the exclusive vendor of surgical scheduling software for its twenty locations in Chicago. IBJI is an award winning orthopedic group and one of the largest practices in the USA, performing surgeries in thirty-nine different hospitals and ASCs in Illinois.

Coordinating between relevant personnel within the offices while managing an increasing amount of surgical data had become a pain point for the group that needed to be urgently addressed. As such, IBJI was looking for a way to track and manage surgeries across all their locations.

They decided to bring on Surgimate to coordinate the various scheduling platforms across their many locations throughout the state. As part of this new partnership, Surgimate will work closely with IBJI’s management and scheduling staff to improve the workflow across their offices and surgical facilities. Using tools like digital checklists and business performance reports, IBJI aims to grow surgical volume and revenue, while reducing overheads and cancellation-related losses. Illinois Bone and Joint Institute looks forward to implementing a smoother and easier workflow with Surgimate.

Surgimate sparked a lot of interest at the American Association for Orthopaedic Executives (AAOE) Annual Conference in San Francisco in June. Focused on addressing orthopedic practices’ workflow pains, the team members at Surgimate used the conference as an opportunity to talk to office administrators about the challenges they face on an everyday basis in the realm of surgery scheduling and as a whole. Administrators learned how Surgimate could help resolve a lot of their scheduling pains, and automate their scheduling process for an easier and more efficient system.

Aside from showcasing the main surgical scheduling platform, Surgimate also showed off their latest development, SurgiApp – a HIPAA compliant app for anytime, anywhere access for surgeons. For busy surgeons, this app is a game changer by giving them access to their surgery schedules and patient information at all times. When scheduling changes are made in the office, the app automatically updates all the new information and keeps surgeons in the loop at all times.

Surgimate is the leader and innovator in the industry, and helps orthopaedic practices of all sizes streamline their scheduling workflow and operate as more profitable businesses.

Surgimate at AAOE Annual Conference

The Orthopedic Institute of New Jersey (TOINJ) has 11 surgeons and nine office locations across New Jersey including Roxbury, Newton, Hackettstown, Sparta, Cedar Knolls, and Washington; and one in Milford, PA. When they were struggling with their scheduling workflow, TOINJ searched for a solution to help improve organizational efficiency. “Our goal is to deliver high quality care, and be as efficient as we can be,” said Aaron Orchard, Systems Manager. “But our internal processes did not allow us to achieve this.”

“Our scheduling workflow was very time consuming and required lots of manual intervention from our staff,” continued Orchard, “and we had no definitive way to track clearances.”

TOINJ chose Surgimate in order to go paperless, and to have a unified workflow for scheduling surgeries across their offices. Surgimate’s electronic checklist will empower staff to track clearances and ensure nothing falls through the cracks. All of their staff will be able to access surgical information and the surgical calendar from any of their ten locations.

“Our goal is to serve our patients better, and be ahead of the curve with the hospitals we work with. We want to be the ones providing them with all the information they need from the get-go.”

In 2015, TOINJ added three new surgeons and expanded into new office locations. They plan to continue growing in 2016, bringing on two new surgeons in the fall. “Surgimate will enable our practice to expand, without needing to add more scheduling staff,” concluded Orchard.

TOINJ will go live with Surgimate in June of 2016. Learn more about TOINJ here.

Surgimate at AAOS 2016 – SurgiApp

Surgimate is proud to be displaying SurgiApp at AAOS 2016. SurgiApp gives surgeons instant access to their calendars, complete with patient and surgery details while being completely HIPAA compliant. Designed to work in-sync with Surgimate, this highly useful app lets each surgeon view their daily, weekly, or monthly surgical schedule – including block time, non-surgical appointments, on-call hours, and vacation days – all while on the go.

When schedulers update the calendar, all changes appear in the app so surgeons are always in the loop about everything related to the surgery schedule. Everything the surgeon enters into SurgiApp is synced in real time with the surgical record in Surgimate in the office.

Surgeons have the ability to send post-op confirmations or notes straight from the OR, helping billing process charges more efficiently. With their patients’ contact info and surgical data available at their fingertips, surgeons can provide immediate, personal post-op care.

Visit us at booth 3389 AAOS 2016 to learn more about the SurgiApp, and how it is helping medical practices run more efficiently.

Surgimate welcomes Connecticut Orthopaedic Specialists as part of the growing list of satisfied customers. COS is a 13 surgeon physician-owned practice in Branford, Connecticut. Surgical schedulers were being bogged down with an endless pile of forms to manually fill for surgeries. They have turned to Surgimate to automate form generation as well as improve their block time management. COS will go with live with Surgimate this summer.

Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics (TOC) is a large practice with 26 surgeons and 11 offices across Tennessee. Following a Workflow Analysis conducted by Surgimate, a number of issues around surgery scheduling were highlighted.

“There was no standardized process for our scheduling,” said Tina Snodderly, COO. In addition to this, 356 forms are used at the practice to process surgery and 60% of the forms are generated using an outdated system. The rest are processed by hand.

“We have a lot of sub-specialties with different needs and we wanted a solution that could accommodate everyone,” added Snodderly. “Surgimate is going to be very beneficial for everyone at our practice.”

Surgimate to manage TOC’s surgery scheduling

TOC will use Surgimate to manage the surgery scheduling process from start to finish. Surgimate will serve as the central location for all information surrounding surgery, and as a result, every staff member will be able to access the information they need – from any office location. All of their forms will be generated in Surgimate – with demographic and surgical information completed automatically. Furthermore, there will be an electronic surgical calendar inside Surgimate synced automatically across the practice, including access for surgeons on their smartphones, via SurgiApp.

“Some of our precerts were being missed, which led to cancellations,” said Snodderly. “Now with Surgimate, we’re going to streamline the process and ensure nothing falls through the cracks.”

“As our practice grows, we plan to bring on more surgeons without needing to add support staff.”
Tennessee Orthopaedic Clinics plan to go live with Surgimate in the Spring of 2016. Learn more about their practice here.

Peninsula Orthopaedic Associates have decided to integrate Surgimate into their growing surgical practice. A recent analysis by the company found too much time was spent scheduling a single surgery, causing a large backlog of work for schedulers. Added to this, surgeons at this 12 surgeon practice were having a difficult time tracking the statuses of relevant surgeries. By bringing on Surgimate, Peninsula plans on reducing surgical scheduling time, giving surgeons and managers the ability to track the status of any surgery, and increasing patient engagement for the practice.