Work time accountability

[williamportor]

I'd like to share an idea some of you experienced folks may know about, but for the others here, please consider this-

About a month ago I wanted to get a better grip on the total amount of hours I spent working vs hours spent on actual income producing activities, so I began tracking my billable hours for each client, admin. work, computer down time, breaks and so forth just like attorneys are expected to do, and the results were a bit shocking. Out of a 40 -45  hour work week, I spent only about 30 hours working for my clients doing actual medical billing and posting of payments, the rest was spent on miscellaneous admin. work, emails, answering the phone, checking fax's, break time, and other non income producing activities. Tracking work hours in this way has given me valuable information on how much time I spend on each client so I can bill them more accurately, but also helped me to set realistic work time goals, with an emphasis on income producing work, and fewer hours wasted on "busy work" Maybe I'm just a numbers geek, but thought I'd share the results. Any comments are welcome -         

[kristin]

I am a numbers geek too, so I can absolutely relate! 

I did something similar at my office a long time ago. I am obsessive about labor/overhead costs, and am constantly looking for ways to reduce them. When I started at my office 25 years ago, the protocol was that the front and back end person started one hour before patients came in, and we were often there for an hour after patients left. At the time, I was new to the medical office industry, and didn't think anything of it. Then a year later, I became the office manager, and became focused on why this protocol was in place. So I timed what I and the back end person did each day, and came to the realization that a lot of time was being wasted. Now, the back end person starts 15 minutes before patients come in, and leaves 15 minutes after the last patient, and the front end person starts 30 minutes before patients, and also leaves 15 minutes after. There are of course some exceptions made here and there, but they are rare.
While this doesn't seem like a lot of time, it really does add up when it comes to labor costs for a year.

Additionally over the years I have changed protocols or instituted new ones to make the time we are at work more productive. There is always a way to be more productive, lol!

[PMRNC]

I do this twice a year now!!    To have more fun you should invest in a good time management/project management system..those reports are great if you need to provide data to your client to justify a rate increase
Also, once you get all your data there are tools to help you correct problems and better organize, each client is considered a "project" in time/project management system. I use Bittrix24  www.bitrix24.com  but I also liked Wrike  www.wrike.com   bittrix seems to have better tools for both time/project where wrike was mostly project.  Both I think have free versions for basic and one user. They also both have ones for team/employees.     If you are like me and dread learning yet another software..those two are very easy and you can be up and using it easily in a day.