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He’s sitting on the exam table. Looking a little anxious. Every few seconds he’s rubbing his arms and sides. When you take a closer look, you notice a red, raised, blotchy rash spreading across his chest, arms, and legs. He says he had a fever a couple of nights ago, felt wiped out with body aches, and then this rash showed up this morning. He then casually mentions that he didn’t take any medicines, and has no history of allergies.
In urgent care, this is what a typical visit looks like, unexpected and time-sensitive, leaving you wondering:
You do a focused exam, order some labs, manage the symptoms, give him a heads-up on what to watch for next, and just like that, he’s out the door, reassured and cared for.
But let’s admit, running an urgent care is a constant hustle. It’s chaotic. There’s no breathing room. And there’s rarely time to stop and fix the problem-causing loop.
Over time, the unresolved issues build up and make your days hard and your patient’s days harder. Thus, to drive a shift in perspective, we have come up with this 3-day urgent care optimization challenge that we believe is so worth it.
3 Days. 3 Focus Areas. No Fluff. No Major Spending. And Definitely No “You Need to Hire More People” Advice.
Let’s begin.
If you have ever thought:
Then this is the day you walk in the medical and billing journey shoes. Live in the minute your patient schedules an appointment to the moment their payment lands in your account.
Log into your billing software (like OmniMD, Athena, eCW whatever you use) and walk through a recent patient encounter as if you are submitting the claim from scratch. Jot down things like:
Pull 10 claims from the past month, a mix of paid and denied. For each one, analyze:
If you are seeing a bunch of denials from eligibility issues, expired plans, or wrong patient info, that is a sign your verification process needs a touch-up. And if your staff is still checking eligibility manually on payer sites, it’s probably time to switch to something like EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) checks.
Call your coder and provider for a 15-minute catch-up call. Look at 3 to 5 past visit notes and their claims. Ask yourselves:
Now, gather everything you found so far, drop it into a shared doc, and sort it into three categories:
Most of us barely realize that we are using only a fraction of what our EHR can actually do. So, your 2nd day is all about making a few small tweaks that can seriously clean up the data mess.
There are chances that templates originally built in your EHR are designed by someone in IT or your admins, and not someone seeing patients all day or working under pressure.
Thus by day 2, create your own go-to templates. Initiate with the 3 most common complaints you deal with. But do not overdo it. A giant 30-field form won’t help anyone. Aim for something you can fly through in 2 minutes, with little to no scrolling.
Here’s what you can include to make them super efficient:
Your staff might not tell you this. But they do not feel burnout from big EHR problems but from 100 small annoyances like too many clicks, backtracking fields, or re-entering data that should carry over. A quick micro-training can clean that up fast.
Here’s what you can convey in your 30-minute ‘EHR Hacks’ huddle’:
Now, print out a one-page cheat sheet of your clinic’s 10 most-used phrases and shortcuts. Tape it up next to each workstation. Reinforce it at the next morning huddle.
As clinicians, we often fail to picture the impact that digital intake forms have on our efficiency. We tend to reduce their being to a mere form of convenience. But these forms aren’t just for convenience. They save a ton of time and help cut down charting time. They make sure important info like allergies and social history is all available for reference even before the patient steps into the exam room.
Here’s what you can roll out immediately:
Moreover, send a short post-visit form too. Something like, “How was your visit?” with checkboxes asking if they understood their care plan. Send it via text automatically. It improves the patient experience and catches confusion early.
So, by the end of the Day 2, you will have:
Suggested Read : How to Set Up an Urgent Care Clinic for Real SuccessWhen we think about improving patient engagement or cutting down on no-shows and confusion, we often picture expensive tech upgrades or months-long projects that never get off the ground.
But what if your patient portal already has what you need? Most of the tools are already there. They are just underused or buried in the interface. With a few quick tweaks, you can turn your portal into a communication and coordination tool that actually works, for patients and staff alike.
Here’s how.
Most portals can show patients what stage of their visit they are in. But only if you have set them up to do that. Instead of the vague “your appointment is scheduled” screen, give patients a clear, step-by-step view of where they are and what’s next. It’s simple and gives people a lot more peace of mind while they’re waiting.
These settings are like giving your clients a live GPS for their appointments instead of leaving them in the dark.
This part is important because if your team isn’t on board, the portal won’t be accurate, and if it’s not accurate, patients won’t trust it. The trick is to make sure portal updates happen automatically as your team does their usual work. No extra screens. No extra clicks.
In this way, if the portal reflects what’s really happening, patients stay in the loop, and your front desk fields way fewer “Am I next?” questions.
Before flipping the switch, arrange a 30-minute meeting and show your team what patients will actually see. It doesn’t need to be a big training session, just a quick walkthrough. Seeing the portal from the patient’s side makes it click: “Oh, this is why my update matters.”
Ask the team to give it a try for one full day. Then regroup tomorrow and tweak anything that feels off.
If you are the kind of clinic that is willing to roll up your sleeves, rethink a few workflows, and actually do the work to improve, you are already ahead of the curve. But if you are looking for a partner who does it all for you without letting you step back or look at what’s working and what’s not, then connecting with OmniMD will change your approach and perspective to clinical workflows forever.
Our team of healthcare IT innovators picks up right where your momentum leaves off. From simplifying documentation with smart templates to auto-scrubbing claims to avoid rework, we sync your front desk and clinical teams dynamically and let your patients do their part even before they walk in the door. Let’s work together to make it less about friction and more about flow.
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