JUNE/JULY 2020 | EYEWORLD | 51
I
Contact
Wohl: czwohl@gmail.com
Pinto: pintoinc@aol.com
• Technician staffing (techs, scribes, test-
ing) at 0.9 to 1.1 tech hours per patient
visit (closer to 1.3 in the typical retina
practice)
• Reception staffing (check-in and out,
call center, medical records) at 0.5 cleri-
cal staffing hours per patient visit
• Billing staffing generally comes in at
+/–0.3 biller hours per transaction (in-
cluding all visits and all surgeries)
• Overall lay staffing levels in a typical
general ophthalmology practice is 2.5
staff hours per patient visit (e.g., a prac-
tice with 600 visits per month and 50
surgical cases needs about 9.5 full-time
equivalents)
Ms. Wohl's book "Up: Taking Ophthalmic
Administrators and Their Management Teams
to the Next Level of Skill, Performance and
Career Satisfaction" is now available. Mr.
Pinto's latest books, "Simple: The Inner Game
of Ophthalmic Practice Success" and the Fifth
Edition of "John Pinto's Little Green Book of
Ophthalmology," are now available.
out and receipts posted. When they run out of
time, unpaid claims can pile up. If your billing
department has been short-staffed during the
pandemic, this is an area where good habits
may have slipped through sheer overwork and
exhaustion.
5. Staffing efficiency. Over the last two
generations of abundance, the average practice
has kept a moderately close watch on labor
productivity. In the best practices, the ratio
between patient volumes and staffing levels has
been measured by department and fine-tuned
along the way. This good habit may now have
slipped, as you have had to balance staffing
costs with the threat of losing experienced
and well-trained employees. If you were in the
position of having to return staff to work prior
to having the patient volume to support the
expenses, be sure to track labor productivity
by department more often now to determine,
over time, when and if your staffing ratios and
expenses are slowly returning to norms. These
norms include:
• No more than 32% of every dollar you
collect going back out for lay staffing
costs
