Sight-test recalls went out in batches when the practice was quiet, which was exactly when there was nobody to book the responses. Contact-lens wearers ran out and rang in a panic, and glasses sat on the collection shelf for a fortnight because the notice was a phone call nobody had made. The practice wanted recalls, reorders and collections to run on their own, and a diary that stayed full.
Three things kept going wrong, and each cost the business time, money or a customer.
Three agents built on the practice management system, with clinical questions routed to an optometrist and the agents handling the reminding, reordering and collecting.
The practice management system held recalls, prescriptions and orders, so the agents began with real data. The optometrists agreed the wording for recalls and set a rule that any patient mentioning a symptom is passed to a person. For the first week the reminder agent sent recalls with the practice manager reading each one; the stock agent proposed reorders for approval for two weeks before placing them itself. The job-tracking agent was live on day three, because there was nothing to approve.
Recalls go out on the day they fall due and the patient books from the message, so more of them turn into appointments. Contact-lens wearers stop running out because the reorder is placed before they notice, and the practice keeps the sale. Glasses are collected within days of arriving, and the collection shelf is a shelf again. The receptionist's afternoons are no longer a list of calls.
'We were sending recalls when we were quiet and had no one to answer the phone when they replied. Now the recall books itself and the diary stays full.'
Practice manager
The practice's two receptionists were also running the front desk, so a third of calls went to voicemail at lunch and after 5pm. They wanted every call answered and every cancellation refilled, without hiring.
The phone rang while the nurse was holding a dog, so a quarter of calls went to voicemail and worried owners rang the practice down the road. Vaccination reminders went out when someone had time, and repeat prescription requests were scribbled on a pad. The practice wanted every call answered, every animal triaged properly and nothing routine forgotten.
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