Do you ever think about what you could do with an extra couple hours in your week? Every physician practice management professional knows that additional time could be used to chase down patient payments, appeal denials, update the website, overhaul the waiting room’s decor and perform a variety of other tasks.

Check out five physician practice management shortcuts and hacks that can provide you with additional time each week.

1. Use an Inventory Management Program

If you don’t know how many syringes, gauze packs, alcohol wipes and other essential items are in your office, you can’t effectively order them. Instead of rooting around the examination rooms every week to count up how many you need, employ an inventory management program that automatically updates every time an item is used. That way, ordering supplies will require the click of a button instead of hours spent tallying things up manually.

2. Properly Manage Your Google Business Profile

When prospective patients search for a doctor “near me,” they’re not going to see your practice in the results if you don’t have a Google Business Profile (GBP). Having yours online is a physician practice management shortcut because it’s basically free advertising, saving you time in developing alternative or expensive marketing processes.

It’s not only essential to set yours up, but it’s also important to keep it current. Patients can quickly see your location and hours on your GBP if you’ve managed it and kept it up to date. This will require fewer patients to call you for your hours or to ask for directions.

3. Automate Appointment Reminders

You can save significant time by eliminating the need to have your staff call patients and remind them of appointments. By using automated text or call alerts, patients can then respond to confirm or cancel the appointment. Anyone who needs to speak to your staff can do so, but using automated tools will cut down the need to talk to a high volume of patients every day.

4. Use Your EHR to Your Advantage

Most electronic health records can give you important physician practice management insights, such as claim denial rates, balances owed, revenue per patient, and even a list of patients who haven’t been to your practice in a year or more. You can use this information to streamline collections, deploy patient retention strategies, and overturn denials.

5. Electronically Confirm Insurance Benefits

When a patient books an appointment, always use electronic confirmation to confirm their benefit coverage. In addition, you should check it again once the patient presents and you know which services they’ll be getting. Confirm that everything’s covered and get their copay and coinsurance amounts. This will save you from chasing down patient payments down the road.