1. Alex Reyes, administrator, Treasure Coast Center for Surgery in Stuart, Fla.:
When there are cancellations, we typically ask the physician's offices to try to backfill those cancellations. We have also developed a cancellation form in which we fax to the physician's offices. This tool not only assists us with making them aware of a cancellation but it also encourages them to reschedule those cases as soon as possible!
If a patient cancels, we ask them the reason why and we direct them to the physician's office to reschedule their procedure. We send the cancellation form to the physician's office and ask that they provide us with a rescheduled date.
I think that the key is having good communication with the patient and the physician's offices.
2. Debbie Mack, MSN, CASC, vice president of operations, National Surgical Hospitals:
Our ASCs have less than one cancellation per month. The focus is physician education on pre-operative guidelines with your anesthesia director or medical director who should be involved daily with questions from physicians and staff. Pre-operative phone calls are completed at least 48 hours ahead of the date of service. All required lab studies, EKGs, etc. should be collected at the time of the pre-operative call and reviewed by the nursing staff.
3. John Poisson, executive vice president of Physicians Endoscopy:
To ease problems with cancellations, it's key that you communicate with schedulers (and their physicians) the importance of early notice of vacations or other planned time off that might leave blocks open in the future. Physicians Endoscopy has found that the success rate of filling a block with at least 30 days' advance notice is greater than 85 percent in its partnered centers; it's less than 15 percent for less than 48 hours' heads up. This is our three-step open-slot process that highly involves the schedulers at the physicians' offices to help fill every patient block within each daily physician block.
- Patients evaluated in office are scheduled normally for a procedure in the ASC and asked if they wish to be placed on a priority list if availability in the physician's schedule arises within the next three weeks.
- Patients who are evaluated by phone are also both scheduled normally and asked about priority list placement.
- If a patient slot opens up in any physician block at the ASC within four business days, patients on the priority list are contacted until one fills the gap.