What do you think? Appointment or No Appointment?!

What do you think? Appointment or No Appointment?

Okay, Opinion question.
In the office I work at we have 2 doctors and they both go by appointment only, of course the occasional eye emergency walk in is taken. We also ask our patients to make appointment to pick up their glasses, we make appointments for contact lens training ect. Some patients are offended by this, we have some that actually get mad because we are asking them to schedule a time for these things! We always have walk-ins for things which you will always have, that is not a problem, but we like to have a schedule to go by and feel our time is just as important as the doctor. We like to have that time set aside to work with the patient and going by a schedule they don't have as long of a wait as you would if everyone decided to walk in at the same time. Anyway my question is how do other opticians and anyone who work in this field feel about this? What do you do? Just wanting some feedback for work! Thanks!!

Well, Daisy, I see you are getting a lot of short courses on practice management techniques. If your office is busy the appointments should be the rule. When a person calls or is called to pick-up their glasses, the appointment clerk should make it clear that an appointment should be made to insure that someone will be available to service the patient. There should be an estimate for the amount of time needed for the most common service activities in the office, AND there should also be a way of letting the appointment clerk know if a particular patient might require more than the usual time.

I don't understand why scheduling a contact lens instruction should cause patients to become upset, unless they were not told at the time of the fitting that the next step would be an instructional session. That's why we don't inventory lenses. It leaves no possibility to be fit and walk with the lenses on the same day. I know that some offices pride themselves in their ability to provide same-day service, but it's a management choice I elected not to pursue. Cramming patients into a crowded schedule results in poorly instructed patient, who is now at greater risk of contact lens related complications because an instructional point was skimmed over or omitted. Also, I will note in the chart if it appears that the patient will require extra time for instruction.

We have occasional walk-ins for spectacle dispensing, but they are rare. Here again the patient is told at the time they order, that they will receive a call to arrange a time to pick-up the glasses. You see, it's a matter of priming the patients ahead of time in order to establish their expectation level. It involves an integrated, team approach in the office where EVERYONE in the office, doctor included, knows what the procedure is and can reinforce and answer any processing questions that may arise. It's always good to try to answer the unasked question before it turns into an upsetting issue.

Hope, this helps.