A physician’s life is incredibly busy, with new challenges every day. Amidst their hectic schedule, they spend large chunks of time bogged down handling some day-to-day tasks that they dislike the most. These tasks are highly time-consuming and are required to be completed on a daily basis. More so, the time involved in completing these tasks prevents them from doing what they love the most – caring for their patients.
The following are some of the tedious and time-consuming day-to-day tasks that physicians feel overburdened and dread the most.
- Too much paperwork: It is quite alarming to note that a report says that physicians spend 27% of their time seeing patients and 49.2% of their time doing documentation work. The amount of paperwork that doctors have to complete on a daily basis is huge. And these tasks were spilling over after hours. If the physician opts to take notes during the patient visit it might look as if the physician isn’t paying much attention to the patient. If the physician chooses to document the notes after the patient leaves the exam room, they will need an additional 2-3 hours every day just to get the medical records done. That is why physicians dread the amount of paperwork that comes with their job.
- Request prior authorization: If a patient requires a specific course of treatment or expensive prescription drugs it takes a lot of time to get the approval from the health insurance company. In case of delays it is the physician who has to follow-up with the insurance company until there is a resolution of the prior authorization request. This is yet another time-consuming task that physicians hate the most.
- Excessive computer-related work: The introduction of the EHR has changed the way the healthcare industry operates. In spite of the potential benefits it provides, they demand a substantial amount of time for data entry, keeping physicians stuck to their computers for hours. The negative perception associated with EHR usage is yet another reason for making it one more daily task that they hate the most.
- Explaining billing related questions: It happens at times that the patient doesn’t understand the type of care needed, costs associated with it and how the billing process works. It is the responsibility of the physician to clear any doubts regarding the medical billing process. The physician has to explain it which takes up a lot of time, making it yet another daily task that they dread the most.
- Looking for patient’s documents: Sometimes a patient’s information may be misfiled or it may be difficult to locate a file that you need urgently. This makes locating the patient information extremely time consuming and greatly impacts patient care. Hence, if medical records are misplaced, locating the patient information could take a lot of time.
- Proofreading and editing documents: Taking notes during the patient visit and entering the relevant data into the EHR is an onerous task. The task doesn’t end here. The physician has to proofread it and check for any errors. This is crucial because in case of any discrepancies it can adversely affect patient care. While this is an important task, generally physicians do not like it due to its tedious nature.
There are many companies out there providing invaluable solutions to help the physicians in their day-to-day activities, thereby allowing them to focus on what they really love doing – caring for their patients.