What duties should be completed before the patient arrives to your office? Employees should arrive to work a little earlier than the patients to get the office completely prepared for the day. Employees should check the answering service for any messages left overnight and record those messages in the message book. After recording the messages, go pull the correct patient’s medical record for the medical assistant to retrieve any information for the patient and follow up with them.
Employees should make two copies of the appointments for the day and place one on the physician’s desk. If there are more than one physician at the office then make sure each physician gets a copy of the appointments for the day. Once you give the physicians a copy of the appointments, take the other copy and go pull all medical records that are needed for the day and place them in a secure location where Medical Assistants can get them. Check the medical records to see if there is enough progress note space available for the physician to write notes, if not then add a new sheet.
Also look over the medical records from previous visits to see if there was any lab work or treatments were ordered for the patient and see if the results are ready for the physician. Employees should go check all the patient exam rooms to make sure they are restocked with necessary supplies such as gowns, gauze pads, bandages, cotton balls and drapes. Make sure to check all the restrooms to see if they are clean and stocked with supplies such as toilet paper, hand soap, paper towels and hand sanitizer.
Some offices keep urine specimen cups in the restrooms, if so, check to make sure there is enough to last for the day in each restroom. Check all exam rooms to make sure there aren’t any prescription pads or medical files lying around accessible to patients. You don’t want patients to find the prescription pads lying around the rooms some may forge signatures to write their own prescriptions for narcotics. Turn on all equipment such as computers in the rooms, copier, fax machines and lab equipment. Turn on the lights in every exam room and run tests on the equipment to make sure it all works properly for the patients.
Record the results of the equipment test. Once you are done checking the exam rooms, go check the results of any specimen from the day before to see if any additional testing is required. Once the results are ready, record them in the patient’s medical record. Make sure to show the physician the test results so they could do a follow up with the patient if needed or order more testing. Have the medical record available and ready for the physician. Employees need to have all day sheets prepared for the day and put enough encounter forms for each patient on the appointment book.
Stock the patient check out area with plenty of appointment cards and the physicians’ business cards. If your office hands out small gifts for patients such as toys for children or stickers then makes sure those items are stocked up to be given out as the patient checks out. Like dentist offices gives out a goody bag with a toothbrush, tooth paste, floss and toy for children. Some offices gives adult patients coffee mugs or magnets to take home. Before the day starts, check with physicians to see if there is any extra equipment needed for the exam rooms or any other type of documents.