What a Summer Slowdown Reveals About Your Practice

A Slower Schedule Makes Problems Easier to See

When patient volume slows, your practice becomes easier to observe. Staff members have more time, your schedule has more space and the issues that may have been dismissed as a consequence of being busy are still there.

Patient follow up may still be inconsistent. Routine decisions may still wait for you. Tasks may still be delayed because ownership is unclear.

A slower season gives you time to see which problems are caused by volume and which are built into how your practice operates. Before adding another summer project to the list, look at five areas.

1. Find the Work That Lives in One Person’s Head

Start with the work that becomes difficult when one staff member is unavailable. In your dermatology or aesthetic practice, this may include new patient intake, prior authorizations, inventory, cosmetic consultation follow up, product ordering and online review requests.

Ask the person responsible for each task to document the steps, the information needed and what should happen when something falls outside the usual process. Then ask another staff member to complete the task using only those instructions.

Every question they need to ask shows you what is missing from the process.

2. Clarify Who Owns the Work

Review the recurring work that is delayed, duplicated or returned to you. Assign one staff member to be responsible for each task and identify who steps in when that person is unavailable.

Ownership includes seeing the task through, not simply completing one step. If a patient concern is handed off, for example, someone must be responsible for confirming that the patient received a response and the issue was resolved.

When ownership is clear, staff members do not have to ask you who should handle routine work.

3. Decide Where Information Belongs

Look at where information currently gets lost. A scheduling change may be sent by text, a patient concern mentioned in passing and an operational request buried in email. You often become the person everyone contacts when no one knows where the answer lives.

Decide where each type of communication belongs and how quickly it should be addressed. Clinical information should remain in the EMR. Routine operational questions and tasks can be managed through an approved internal platform such as Google Chat or Microsoft Teams. Staff should know which information belongs where and who is responsible for responding.

If a request requires action, it should be documented where it can be tracked. A conversation alone is not a reliable system.

4. Review the Systems Staff Are Working Around

Software does not simplify your practice when staff members use only part of it, enter the same information in multiple places or create manual workarounds because no one knows how a feature works.

Review the EMR, scheduling, patient communication, payment and inventory systems with the staff members who use them every day. Ask where they repeat work, leave one system to complete a task in another or depend on a spreadsheet because the current process does not work.

Then determine whether the problem is the technology, how it is configured or a lack of training. Before adding another platform, make sure your practice is using what it already pays for.

5. Test One Process From Beginning to End

Choose one process that regularly creates delays or questions. This might be a cosmetic consultation from the first inquiry through follow up, a prior authorization or the response to a patient concern.

Ask staff to complete the process as it currently exists. Watch for where they stop, wait for an answer, repeat work or turn to you for a decision.

Correct the instructions, clarify ownership and test the process again. The goal is not to test whether staff can perform under pressure. It is to find where the process becomes unclear before patient volume increases again.

Correct the Problems Before Patient Volume Returns

A lighter schedule does not strengthen your practice on its own. Its value is the time it gives you to address work that depends on one person, ownership that remains unclear, information that gets lost and routine decisions that still return to you.

Correcting those problems now allows your practice to manage more patient volume without placing more responsibility on you. It is also part of Transferring the Trust™: giving your staff the processes, information and authority they need to do the work without waiting for you.

Ready to Strengthen Your Practice?

If routine work in your dermatology or aesthetic practice still depends on you, start with a Strategy Call.

About Connie Kurczewski

Connie Kurczewski is the founder of Elevated Practice Consulting and Strategic Advisor to Dermatologists and Aesthetic Physicians. She advises physician owners on staffing, leadership, operations, marketing, sales and patient experience.