Gaileen Sutton

Since the 1970’s, the physician and patient ratio has been steadily increasing across the country. The result of the increase is much less time spent with patients. This can result in errors in diagnosis, a loss in developing a personal trust with the patient, and patients not receiving proper medical care. However, there are a number of ways to improve physician to patient ratio which will result in more time spent with the patient, more time on preventive care, improving medical care, and developing better relationships between the doctor and patient.

Ways to improve the physician to patient ratio:

1. Arrange for physician schedules to be more consistent. For instance, schedule physicians to work 3 or 4 days consecutively instead of varying ‘off and on’ days. There can often be much time and expense wasted during doctor transitions. As well, a doctor on a set schedule will spend more time with a particular patient.

2. Improve physician communication with staff and other physicians when they are scheduled for their days off. This includes making use of modern technology such as email and websites to update the staff about patients.

3. Talk to physicians about the benefits of maintaining a consistent schedule as it applies to patient care. Engage the physician to come up with a positive and effective agreement to implement a more effective schedule that benefits patient care.

4. Hire more Physician Assistants. These assistants are able to perform many of the tasks normally performed by doctors. This can include diagnosing and prescribing medical treatments, arranging for diagnostic tests, preventive care counseling, writing medical prescriptions, performing physical exams, and much more.

5. Hire more Nurse Practitioners: A Nurse Practitioner is a registered nurse that acquired additional education and training to carry out some of the tasks normally performed by a doctor. This can include: treating illnesses and injuries such as bandaging, performing physical exams and screening, and diagnostic work.

6. Update hospitals with modern technology to help reduce non patient duties. This can include creating electronic patient files and other important electronic documents and files. Computer orientated patient management can drastically cut down on time away from the patient. Physicians will have more time to focus on their patients.

7. Streamline business operations, particular reducing time dealing with health insurance companies. Physicians can spend many hours each day on the phone with their patients’ health insurance providers. Create a website that allows doctors to enter in a patient’s health plan and identification number which will pull up the patients file containing what treatments and procedures are covered by their insurance provider.

Patients do not always understand why they see a doctor for 5 minutes or why they see several doctors in a family practice setting or during a brief stay in the hospital. Doctors have a lot of added burdens outside the care of their patients. As well, less time with patients can result in poor quality patient care, a higher chance of making a medical error, and even making an error when writing prescriptions. It is important to find and implement measures to increase the physician and patient ratio as it will benefit the medical care industry as well as the doctors and their patients.

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