How much admin time do you get?

[MCHAD]

Curious as to how much admin time you get at your current job.  I work in primary care seeing about 17-20 patients a day and currently get no scheduled admin time.  One of my concerns with this besides trying to keep up and keep good records as well as review labs/reports, is that we get a quarterly bonus and one of the metrics used to determine this is length of time before charts are completed.  I am hourly and can work on charts on my days off while on the clock but this eats into my time off.  

So, let me know your current situation and any advice you may have as to how to plead my case for admin time with administration.  

[marktheshark89]

Same situation as yours seeing anywhere from 17-30 patients per day and I get 1 hour admin time weekly plus daily 1 hour lunches. 

[Arthropathy]

Outpatient orthopedics, seeing 22-28 patient a day.

Supposed to get an hour for lunch if we are running on time, I have 1 afternoon/per week for admin time. We wrap up clinic around 4 and I frequently am in 30-40 minutes before clinic to set up my notes for the day and same amount after clinic to wrap up as much as I can.

[IMGtoPA]

Curious as to how much admin time you get at your current job.  I work in primary care seeing about 17-20 patients a day and currently get no scheduled admin time.  One of my concerns with this besides trying to keep up and keep good records as well as review labs/reports, is that we get a quarterly bonus and one of the metrics used to determine this is length of time before charts are completed.  I am hourly and can work on charts on my days off while on the clock but this eats into my time off.  
So, let me know your current situation and any advice you may have as to how to plead my case for admin time with administration.  

If you are getting paid hourly, you aren't getting screwed over as bad as I was at my last job.

I saw the same amount and was salaried. I was taking charts home because I just didnt have time to do them at the office between patients and during lunch. So essentially, doing notes at home = working while off the clock when you are salaried.. It was one of the reasons I left that job.

To answer your question: it depends-- mostly on EMR. If your EMR sucks (like mine did), there will be a law of diminishing returns and no matter how well you do charts, they will always take time. Get good with your EMR's templates.

Much like you, I was working primary care and had to deal with HMO's and the quarterly meetings to ensure I was coding and documenting properly.

I felt like most of my job was coding/documenting and it took away the interest I had in primary care. Again, if you are paid hourly, at least you are being paid for the extra time you are taking.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

[mgriffiths]

I work family medicine, and see around 15-20 per day.  I almost never finish with a patient until the chart is finished/closed.  Therefore my charting is almost always done when my last patient walks out the door, and that is usually 20-30 minutes after their appointment started.  This does mean that I usually cut into my 60min lunch break almost daily seeing patients, but not a big deal to me.  Half the time I schedule patients through lunch because they need to be seen and there wasn't an opening.  Usually I get to results/messages throughout the day, or when I have a patient who needs to hear themselves talk I'll work through some - but rarely I catch up one night.  I do have one afternoon that is supposed to be for admin and I might use that to catch up, but I'm usually home and not working during that time as I work hard to protect my time.

I am able to achieve this because I work efficiently by nature, but mostly because of my MA.  She is awesome so I literally give her a portion of my monthly bonus (I get a cut of the profits if I'm over a certain number of RVUs for the month).  I also plan to give her a nice Christmas bonus as well, because my efficiency would drop somewhat significantly if she were to leave, so my thought is that she helps me make money so I'll help her out too.  As a result, she is the highest paid MA in the clinic, but has been there the shortest time.

[DizzyJ]

8 hours ago, mgriffiths said:

I work family medicine, and see around 15-20 per day.  I almost never finish with a patient until the chart is finished/closed.  Therefore my charting is almost always done when my last patient walks out the door, and that is usually 20-30 minutes after their appointment started.  This does mean that I usually cut into my 60min lunch break almost daily seeing patients, but not a big deal to me.  Half the time I schedule patients through lunch because they need to be seen and there wasn't an opening.  Usually I get to results/messages throughout the day, or when I have a patient who needs to hear themselves talk I'll work through some - but rarely I catch up one night.  I do have one afternoon that is supposed to be for admin and I might use that to catch up, but I'm usually home and not working during that time as I work hard to protect my time.

I am able to achieve this because I work efficiently by nature, but mostly because of my MA.  She is awesome so I literally give her a portion of my monthly bonus (I get a cut of the profits if I'm over a certain number of RVUs for the month).  I also plan to give her a nice Christmas bonus as well, because my efficiency would drop somewhat significantly if she were to leave, so my thought is that she helps me make money so I'll help her out too.  As a result, she is the highest paid MA in the clinic, but has been there the shortest time.

Right there with you.  Rarely does a patient walk out the door without their chart signed and closed.  It doesn't matter if I'm working in the ED or working outpatient psych.  I made this my habit right out of school as I don't ever want to work for free.  When I worked outpatient psych I saw 22 patients a day, averaged 15-20 messages/med requests throughout the days, and always always always was sitting in the break room for my lunch break.  I would arrive about 30 mins before clinic and would run through my morning patient charts to have a game plan in place should they need a med adjustment and notate if they have current labs. 

[Cideous]

13 hours ago, mgriffiths said:

  She is awesome so I literally give her a portion of my monthly bonus (I get a cut of the profits if I'm over a certain number of RVUs for the month).  I also plan to give her a nice Christmas bonus as well, because my efficiency would drop somewhat significantly if she were to leave, so my thought is that she helps me make money so I'll help her out too.  As a result, she is the highest paid MA in the clinic, but has been there the shortest time.

You are SOOOOOO smart to do this.  This is some of the best money you will ever spend.  Having that "go to" ancillary staff person can really make or break a job for us.  The places I work, the ancillary staff changes almost daily...as in they work a day and quit.  It's very frustrating.  Take care of yours.

[mgriffiths]

One other comment regarding closing charts before patient's leave...if I see a patient in 20 minutes, in time based billing that is a 99213.  If I chart for 5 more minutes, that is now a 25 minute visit and I can bill a 99214.  Therefore, that increases my RVUs and therefore my bonus each month (hence the not working for free).  Yes, you have to be careful, because you really shouldn't extend an appointment just for the sake of extending it to bill higher, but I often just talk with the patient about any variety of topics which is part of the counselling aspect of family medicine - which is exactly what time based billing is for.