How To Handle Emergency Patients Part 1

Amy asks: "As my small practice has suddenly gotten busier post-Covid, the number of emergencies (or patients who believe they have an emergency) has increased tremendously.  I especially wanted to hear your suggestions on how to handle patients that call at the end of the week in pain but there is no time available for them until Monday (we are closed Fri-Sun)."

I love talking about ER patients so I’m going to break this answer down into 3 parts and 3 podcasts. 

Part 1: Let me go over specifically how I would handle the question you asked. What do you do when a patient wants to be seen at a time we do not have available? 

Part 2: I want to talk about how to set up the doctor and clinical team for success. What info to get on the phone that needs to be relayed to them, where to schedule them on your books and what to do when they arrive?

Part 3: I want to review the ER phone call and the exact scripting I would use for that call top to bottom.

First off:

Yes, don’t we get this often. An “emergency” patient calls and needs to be seen, but only around their time. Let me tell you how to handle this while keeping customer service number one, but also being in charge of your schedule. 

First off, please know that a true emergency will do whatever they need in order to come in at your open time.

The goal of an ER visit is to diagnose what is going on with the patient and hopefully get them out of pain. We can never guarantee tx the same day. Ideally, I would like you to see your ER patient same-day or next-day if possible. Even if they have to be put on the side and worked into the schedule. Now if it is the end of the day and at the end of a work week, I would offer them earliest you can Monday morning and again, work them into your schedule. You need to make it known to the patient that you have a full schedule of patients but we will work you in, but there may be a longer wait than usual. 

If they are adamant they need to be seen BEFORE your next business day and your doctor does not do out-of-office hours, then I would refer them to your endodontist and/or the ER room if it's a real emergency. 

You may just need to re-train the patient in these cases, that emergencies need to be scheduled around your office's availability, and that they can't get in whenever they want.

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