Does your organization measure patient cycle time?

An Oct. 2 MGMA Stat poll asking, "Does your organization measure patient cycle time?" found that nearly half of healthcare leaders measure patient cycle time within their organization.

According to Nick Fabrizio, PhD, FACMPE, FACHE, “Understanding how your processes and procedures impact patient flow through your office will improve the patient experience and your bottom line.

"It is important to track the time patients wait in your waiting room, how long it takes to check in, how long your nursing staff spends with them in the exam room, how long your providers are spending with patients and how long it takes for patients to check out. Improving the patient experience is a critical task for medical group administrators.”

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Our ability at MGMA to provide great resources, education and advocacy depends on a strong feedback loop with healthcare leaders. To be part of this effort, sign up for MGMA Stat and make your voice heard in our weekly polls. Sign up by texting “STAT” to 33550 or visit mgma.com/stat. Polls will be sent to your phone via text message.

Learn more

• Patient cycle tool from the Institute of Healthcare Improvement.
• MGMA Data Story: "Will the doctor see me soon?" (by Kenneth T. Hertz, FACMPE, principal, MGMA Consulting).
• The MGMA Lean Six Sigma Green Belt course explores Lean techniques to evaluate processes, with the goals of eliminating steps that do not provide value to the organization or customer and discovering how to use fewer resources and reduce costs by eliminating redundancy, rework and other forms of waste.