Automate Your Practice’s Workflow to Improve Efficiency and ROI: A Step-by-Step Guide

Every day, staff in healthcare practices spend hours manually slogging through tasks that could be automated. Especially in smaller practices, that’s time that could be spent seeing patients, bringing in revenue, and building morale through more fulfilling work.

Increased regulatory burdens are making routine processes more complicated. Meanwhile, rising patient volume means staff are going through the same workflow on repeat day after day.

Taken together, it’s a recipe for staff burnout. Busy, burned-out people are prone to making mistakes and taking shortcuts, like skipping steps or delaying the handoff of information. This can lead to an inefficient business at best, and medical errors at worst.

What Is Healthcare Workflow Automation?

Healthcare workflow automation refers to digital tools that automate routine tasks staff were performing manually. Automating these tasks increases productivity and efficiency.

Most workflows are designed intuitively by the people doing the work. Each member of your staff probably has their own way of getting their routine tasks done. Even if the process has never been documented, they likely follow the same sequence of steps every time.

Automating some of the steps in those workflows frees up time and mental energy. If a 10-step process can be streamlined to five steps, while automation handles the remaining five, healthcare workers can get their tasks done faster, with less effort and with less mind-numbing repetition.

Healthcare workflow automation:

• Benefits staff by reducing burnout
• Benefits the practice by increasing productivity
• Benefits patients, who endure fewer delays and enjoy better care from focused, energized staffers.

Signs Your Practice Is Ready for Automated Workflows

Workflow inefficiencies can creep up on a growing practice. As you grow, intuitive workflows that got the practice started just don’t work so well anymore. Here are some signs your practice is ready for workflow automation:

• Staff spend time every day on the same repetitive, manual tasks
• Data is entered multiple times into systems that don’t communicate with one another, such as codes entered into an EHR for diagnostic records and again into a billing system for payment
• Patients complain about long wait times or about staff confusion, like having to explain their symptoms several times to different people
• Staff rely heavily on manual systems like sticky notes, spreadsheets, or in-person meetings to share information
• The practice has had to add clerical staff just to keep up with administrative work
  
  

Where can your practice benefit most from automation? Get a personalized assessment from a consultant who can help you thrive.

The ROI of Healthcare Workflow Automation

The return on investment in automation can’t be tracked purely in terms of revenue vs. expenses. The value of workflow automation is measured in a combination of cost savings, time savings, and revenue protection.

How to Measure the ROI of Workflow Automation in Healthcare

• Time: Compare the number of staff hours spent on manual processes before automation to the time spent on the same processes after.
• Accuracy: Automated workflows in the billing department reduce the risk of human error. Track claim denial rates and rework costs over time.
• Efficiency: Track days in A/R before and after automation to measure improvements in revenue cycle time.
• Staffing: Track how workflow automation impacts staffing needs. You may need fewer staff on a shift because it takes fewer people to perform the same tasks. Many practices also see a reduction in overtime hours and an increase in staff productivity.

How to Automate Healthcare Workflows in Your Practice

When exploring workflow automation, it can be easy to get overwhelmed by all your options. Here are four things to focus on first.

1. Analyze your existing workflows. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel — the first workflows to automate are the ones your staff already uses. Get input from the teams carrying out the processes before deciding what to automate. Find out how they’re really performing their tasks; just because a documented process exists doesn’t mean it’s being followed. Your staff can tell you where the bottlenecks are and where they feel their time is wasted.
2. Prioritize high-impact areas. When deciding which workflows to automate first, give priority to those that have the most impact on the practice. That typically means workflows directly involved in patient care or in revenue.
3. Get expert guidance. An experienced expert in healthcare workflow automation can guide your practice through deciding what to automate and how, so you can operate at peak efficiency without losing your human touch.
4. Maintain compliance. Be careful when automations transfer patient data between systems. Make sure both systems and the transfer mechanism are secure and HIPAA compliant.
   
   

See how Nextech’s intelligent healthcare technology platform helps specialty practices deliver outstanding care with extraordinary efficiency. Schedule a demo today.

Examples of Workflow Automations to Make Your Specialty Practice More Efficient

Automation can streamline many healthcare workflows, including those in communication, medication management, insurance authorization, coding, billing, financial management, and regulatory compliance.

Patient Communication

Make your patients feel like a priority while taking the burden of outreach off your office staff.

Routine messages like appointment reminders, pre-op instructions, and follow-up notes are perfect candidates for automation.

Sample automated workflow:

Patient submits online scheduling form → Appointment confirmation text is automatically sent → Appointment reminder text is scheduled

Medication Management

Automated workflows make e-prescribing, processing refill requests, and managing pharmaceutical inventory simple.

Miami Dermatology and Laser Institute knew it was time to automate their inventory management when they found the practice was missing neurotoxins worth nearly $100,000.

“We realized we needed to do something to create accountability,” practice administrator Erika Rak said. “We have that now with Nextech.”

Provider Communication

Nextech’s software platform for specialty healthcare practices offers a secure, HIPAA-compliant way for providers, labs, and pharmacies to automatically share data.

Information from each of the providers on the patient’s care team is automatically added to the electronic health record accessible by all of them.

Sample automated workflow:

Physician sends an electronic order to lab → Lab results are automatically added to the EHR → Physician receives an automated email alerting them that results are available to view

Insurance Authorization

When insurance bottlenecks cause treatment delays, both patients and providers are frustrated.

By automating the prior authorization workflow, you can start the authorization process at the same time the appointment is scheduled.

Different insurers often have different processes they like followed for authorization requests. When a staffer has to remember which workflow goes with which payer, it introduces a risk of human error. An automated workflow, on the other hand, follows the right steps for every payer every time.

Sample automated workflow:

Physician recommends a medication or procedure that requires prior authorization → EHR automatically flags the request → Necessary patient and insurance data and clinical documentation are imported into forms based on individual payers → Prior authorization request is submitted electronically

Coding and Billing

Coding and billing workflows tend to be highly repetitive, and automating them has a tremendous impact on practice efficiency.

Coding workflows assign the correct codes to procedures and diagnoses entered in the EHR. Those codes can then be automatically sent to the billing system to begin populating an invoice.

Automated billing reduces errors, which improves the first-pass approval rate and gets the practice paid faster.

Sample automated workflow:

Ophthalmologist diagnoses dry eye and recommends eye drops → EHR automatically assigns the appropriate ICD-10 code and sends it to billing → EHR automatically triggers the point-of-sale system with the recommendation → When the patient checks out, front desk staff ask if they would like to buy the eye drops the doctor recommended

Financial Management

Healthcare procurement workflows can be automated to ensure practices comply with procurement regulations. Automated inventory management helps avoid critical supply shortages and monitors supplier pricing so practices secure the best deal.

In the accounting office, manual workflows involve staff processing each payment, handling paper bills, making phone calls for collections, then updating the patient account.

With Nextech payment automation, payments are scheduled and processed electronically, freeing up staff time for higher-impact priorities.

Sample automated workflow:

ERA payments are received directly from the clearinghouse. Accounting staff review the payments in the module, and with one click, all payments are applied to their corresponding accounts.

Regulatory Compliance

There are a number of regulations healthcare practices need to comply with. Automated workflows make compliance easier.

For example, practices that bill Medicare typically participate in MIPS to maximize their reimbursement rate. MIPS reporting requires an often burdensome level of data collection. When your practice automates MIPS, the data you need for your MIPS measures is automatically tracked and recorded.

Sample automated workflow:

Physician enters documentation into EHR → EHR automatically captures relevant MIPS measures → Data is automatically populated into MIPS reporting fields → When it’s time to report to CMS, complete documentation can be sent electronically

Get a personalized assessment to see how your practice could set up a healthcare workflow automation.

How Real Practices Automate Healthcare Workflows with Nextech

Eye Associates of Rowan

Eye Associates of Rowan has used Nextech’s ophthalmology-specific software platform to automate a number of administrative tasks.

By automating tasks like posting payments and rescheduling appointments, the practice has freed up its front desk staff to focus on the patient experience.

“Nextech has changed our front desk experience,” said Melissa Marr, practice administrator. “Automating a lot of what staff used to do manually saves time across the board and allows them to spend more time interacting with patients and less time on the computer.”

Perfectly Bare Laser

Payment automations integrated into Perfectly Bare Laser’s med spa software have made the checkout process frictionless for med spa clients.

“You want the experience to be as simple as possible for the client. They shouldn’t even really feel like the platform is something they’re interacting with,” said COO Ahmed Bhutta. “When they walk out the door, they’re happy. What we’ve seen is higher client retention, fewer no-shows, and fewer cancellations.”

Erasable Med Spa

Erasable Med Spa uses automation throughout its business to create what partner Michael Zanetti calls “a well-oiled machine.”

“From acquiring a patient and having conversations with them, through the process of checking them in, giving a consultation, checking them out, following up with them, Nextech has been incredibly helpful in bringing it all together,” he said. “Data analytics are so incredibly important, and being able to automate systems to give us insight into how the business is operating is a tremendous competitive advantage.”

Burlington County Eye Physicians

Automating its payments workflows has saved Burlington County Eye Physicians more than 10 hours a month in staff time.

“Our financial office can reconcile our financials within hours, something that took us days in the past,” said ophthalmic administrator Jennifer Rispo-Maguire.

Chicago Cornea Consultants

Dr. Neel Vaidya of Chicago Cornea Consultants says automated charting with Nextech allows him to give patients his full attention, for a much better care experience.

“Now that we don’t have to be as concerned about getting the chart done, we’re able to make our patient interactions very personal and very tailored to the patient,” he said.

Improve the patient experience. Save time. Make data-informed business decisions. See what else automating with Nextech could do for your practice.

Help Your Practice Run More Efficiently With Nextech

Automating healthcare workflows helps your practice run smoother and more efficiently. Automations can help you cut costs, retain staff, and increase revenue, all while improving your level of patient care.

Nextech’s specialty-specific healthcare technology platform helps med spas and practices in dermatology, ophthalmology, and plastic surgery to operate at a higher level of efficiency in today’s competitive healthcare environment.

Schedule a demo today to see how our platform can automate workflows so your practice runs more efficiently.

Automation FAQ

Will implementing automation disrupt our operation?

Your practice can implement Nextech’s software platform in 48 hours, during time the practice is closed. Staff training and onboarding can be completed in less than a week.

Implementing any new workflow causes some disruption as staff adjusts, but in the case of automation, they’ll be adjusting to having fewer hoops to jump through.

What level of technology skills does staff need to implement workflow automations?

When you partner with Nextech, we can handle the technical aspects of implementing automation, so all your staff has to do is log in. Our interface is easy to learn and easy to operate.

How big should a practice be to consider automation?

Healthcare workflow automation is not just for big practices. It’s scalable technology that can help a practice of any size operate more efficiently.

Will automation make staff redundant?

Healthcare is a human-first field, and that human touch is crucial. Automation doesn’t replace human staff; it frees them up to spend their time acting like healthcare professionals and not like robots.