Come Early!

Recently I read an article by Hribar et al. in the journal Ophthalmology. It discussed clinic scheduling. One of the findings of the study was that double booking earlier in the day was a good strategy for clinic efficiency because it got the doctor going with seeing patients sooner. I have been pushing to have a more “front-loaded” schedule already, but there are limiting factors. For example, if there is more than one doctor in the office and all of the schedules have appointments at the same time, the wait times are going to balloon because there are still the same number of staff members to get patients ready for doctors. So, there are multiple factors to consider. However, patients are in control of when they set up their appointments when they book. I always suggest to my patients that they come as early as possible, because there are no emergencies or unexpected visits that can have set us behind for the first patient of the day. I would avoid appointments between 10:00 am and 11:30 am like the plague if I were booking. If I could recommend something to patients, I would say follow Hribar’s advice and “front-load” yourself!