Veracity Provider Matching Calls

The wrong calendar is an expensive mistake

A patient booked with the wrong provider costs more than one slot. The visit may have to be repeated, the right provider is still waiting to see them, and the patient leaves frustrated. In group practices this happens most when the person on the phone does not know the unwritten rules: who does procedures, who sees adolescents, who is closed to new patients, who handles workers' compensation cases.

Fixing it afterward means a phone call, an apology and a new appointment, all of which cost more than asking the right question up front.

Writing down what senior schedulers know

Your practice gives Katie the rules your most experienced schedulers carry in their heads. She then asks the questions that sort the caller before the request is written up, the same way every time.

• Which providers are accepting new patients
• The ages or patient groups each provider sees
• Which visit types or procedures belong to which provider
• Patients who should stay with their established physician
• Requests for a provider of a particular gender or language, recorded as the patient states them

When the caller already has a name in mind

Many callers arrive with a provider already chosen, on a friend's recommendation or from an online search. Katie records the request as given, notes whether the patient would see someone else for an earlier visit, and lets your rules decide whether that provider is an option for this kind of visit.

The summary makes the preference and its reason clear, so your scheduler can explain the choices on the callback rather than guessing what mattered to the patient.

Recording the reason also shows your practice which providers patients ask for by name, which is useful when planning new patient capacity.

New providers and changing panels

Provider rules change more often than practices expect. A new nurse practitioner joins and starts taking new patients, a physician closes her panel, someone begins splitting the week between two locations. When those changes live only in the schedulers' heads, callers get outdated answers for weeks.

Because Katie works from written rules, a panel change is made once and applies to every call that follows, including the ones Annie answers at night.

Sorting without diagnosing

Provider matching can edge toward triage. A caller with joint pain may belong with one physician and a caller with a rash with another. Katie does not diagnose and does not decide what the caller's problem is. She sorts on the information your rules ask for, such as the reason for the visit the patient names, and anything needing clinical judgment goes to clinical staff.

Your staff confirm the match in Veracity from a summary that already explains why a given provider was requested.