Straighten up and find organized medicine

Practice Management. By Julie A. Jacob, AMNews staff. April 22/29, 2002.

Spring is a time of renewal, so it's a perfect time to take a few hours to organize your office and take a few simple steps to make it run more smoothly.

Even just a day, or a half-day spent organizing your office and files will pay off by fostering a more efficient, less stressful work environment for you, your staff and patients all year long.

One easy way to make your practice run more efficiently is to organize supplies so they are easy to find.

For instance, if medical supplies and instruments are kept in the same place in every examining room, it's easier for physicians and medical assistants to find gloves, gauze pads, instruments, patient pamphlets and so on. No one has to hunt through the drawers to find something if he or she is using a different room.

"It also makes it easier for an assistant to go through and make sure that a room is fully stocked,' said Pamela Moore, a senior editor for Physicians Practice.

The prescription drug sample cabinet should also be cleaned out and organized every few months. Someone on the staff should occasionally go through the cabinet, organize drug samples by type of medication and toss out expired ones.

Sometimes pharmaceutical representatives will even offer to clean out the drug sample closet, said Moore.

Throwing out old forms and papers that are not needed any more -- such as forms for managed care companies the practice no longer has contracts with -- makes it easier to find things in the office and reduces clutter, suggested Kathy Waddill, author of The Organizing Sourcebook, who runs an organizing business in Orinda, Calif. [...]