Centralized Appointment Scheduling: Industry Leading Access to Primary Care Services

PROJECT SUMMARY

This paper discusses the use of centralized appointment scheduling for primary care services in healthcare organizations or healthcare systems, with the goal of providing greater access for patients. In this competitive environment, it is important to offer patients a consistent, standardized, and positive experience over the phone, which is dependable, timely, and patient-centric. It will be suggested that by using an approach of organizing centralized primary care appointment scheduling systems, there would be an improvement in efficiency and a minimizing of expenses, which is especially important in a healthcare industry in which expense growth has been outpacing revenue growth.  This paper will provide an analysis and discussion about current health system approaches to scheduling primary care patient appointments, followed by alternative approaches for organizing primary care appointment scheduling centers, and the possible outcomes to expect in categories such as average time to answer and call duration.  While there are many complexities that come with a centralized structure, a well planned and collaborative approach will lend to the success of a health system.