Physicians do not attend medical school to answer phones and find lost patient charts. But the reality is, in small and mid-sized practices, that is often the case more than people are willing to admit. The front desk is a separate part of the business from the clinical endeavor, so they say. Yet administrative mayhem has a tendency of bleeding into the examination room and stealing time where time is already promised.
How Interruption Time Costs Compensation and Cognitive Resources
What does this look like? A physician sees a patient and needs to be high in concentration. Suddenly, there’s a knock on the door from a front desk staff asking for an insurance answer. Or a patient on the phone insists they need to speak to their physician, now, regarding their lab results. Or someone else wants approval to come in today for a same day appointment and the book is already filled with other patients. The problem is compounded because these issues only take two or three minutes at most, but they come in multiple times an hour and break concentration at the worst times.
Yet it’s not just the time that it takes to resolve these situations that count; it’s the cognitive cost of switching gears. Task-switching research substantiates the need for cognitive refocusing since it takes time to get back into a groove. Thus, every time a physician gets interrupted (three, four, or five times an hour), the disruption chips away precious seconds as they were not able to reenter what they were just doing.
But it’s not about time; it’s about cognitive resources diverted from helping patients in making medical assessments.
When Front Desk Problems Become Time Sucks For Doctors
Most questions that escalate from the front desk to physicians aren’t actually clinical questions about patient health. They’re scheduling conflicts, billing concerns, or complaints from patients who’ve waited too long and want to speak with someone in charge. Front desk staff escalate these issues either because they don’t feel equipped to handle them or because the practice lacks clear protocols for common situations.
This creates a chain reaction. The physician gets interrupted, which throws off their schedule. Running behind means the next patient waits longer. Frustrated patients often direct their complaints at front desk staff who are already doing their best. When the front desk becomes stressed and overwhelmed, they’re more likely to interrupt the physician for situations they might otherwise handle on their own.
This is why many practices work with a virtual receptionist service for clinics or similar remote staffing solutions. Virtual teams typically operate with clearer protocols and better-defined boundaries about what gets handled at the reception level versus what requires physician input. This reduces unnecessary interruptions while still ensuring patients receive timely assistance.
When Physicians Need Help On The Front Desk Too
Then there’s always the case when physicians help out when they’re short-staffed or when things get busy and they want a helping hand. This is one of the most expensive uses of time in any practice, despite how no one acknowledges it in the moment. When a physician bills out at $200+ an hour and they are checking people out or answering low-level questions at the front desk and on the phone, that’s a loss of cash no one knows about (even if it’s obvious).
A secondary problematic occurrence comes during lunchtime or when office-hours end early (usually before the last patient gets checked out) when a physician no longer has anyone available to help schedule follow-ups or field phone calls as they’re still in clinic mode for another hour or two after their last patient was gone. They’re catching up on notes; they’re fielding reception questions; they’re doing low-level administrative duties that should have ideally been left for someone else.
Lost Call Coverage Creates Burdensome Voicemail Backlogs
Lastly, call coverage represents one of the most problematic areas where clinical time gets hijacked. When front desk staff is busy checking in patients in person, phone calls go to voicemail. Those voicemails pile up like snow in Buffalo on a good winter’s day and someone has to do something with them. In many cases, that someone is a nurse or medical assistant who should be keeping their eye on the door with a doctor doing other medical duties. Or worse, it’s the physician who takes their lunch hour (or answers phones after hours) to return calls.
Even then, that’s ineffective call coverage because if the physician is busy tending to patients who’ve taken their time to come in, then what about those on hold who are waiting eagerly for answers? The whole dynamic becomes messy because if one or two people are trying to manage patient connections through numerous avenues, something will get missed. And doctors are usually available last minute (and no one wants that).
What Medical Practice Are Actually Doing To Protect Clinical Time
The practices that keep clinical time safeguarded have three important things to note. First, they’ve established very clear boundaries of what constitutes an absolute emergency that needs a doctor taken out of the exam room before someone finds themselves back in the waiting room near hour-and-half long wait lines; if it’s not relevant to patient safety nor 911 status, it can wait until rounds.
Second, better reception support improves situations: either more staff up front (virtually staffed) as well as active help (in house) and separate but aligned systems (through telehealth for instance) help find solutions because something must be done at all times without creating bottlenecks unless absolutely necessary.
Third, empowering responses to frequently asked questions successfully limits callers from escalating everything. When receptionists can only search for data points they feel compelled to bring up only again (and then generalize), they might as well have a script.
The Financial Reality of Compromised Clinical Time
Every moment spent by a physician not caring for their patients means there’s one more moment devoted that’s getting taken away from patient care with someone else who could be doing it better.
In eight hours (using 30 minutes to 45 dedicated toward front desk interference/administrative work), collapses an opportunity to see two or three patients in one day (and what about over twelve months?). The numbers start adding up as potential revenue lost by limited access decreasing earnings.
It’s not medical time that’ll take place of simple necessity; it’s acknowledgment that clinical time needs focus beyond what’s practically available by safer systems and adequate administrative support.
Physicians should be doing only what physicians set out to do (not handle anything else that could’ve been compounded by those who’ve trained only to do it themselves).
When practices figure this out, everyone can operate simultaneously well: physicians, staff, and patients alike.
