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Q&A: What is the average time to spend with patients?

Hospitalist Leadership Connection, January 5, 2010

A: Instead of looking at daily patient encounters, some practices quantify the average amount of time for each patient encounter. This methodology might provide a more accurate way of evaluating the work required for a hospitalist on any given day. However, there are a couple of cautions to take regarding this approach.
First, the practice should make sure it considers all the time required for each encounter, not simply the time spent face to face with the patient. Each encounter requires paperwork, such as notes in the patient’s chart, coding, and other documentation. Some percentage of encounters will also require a visit with the patient’s family. The calculations of time per patient should factor in time allotted for these extra duties.

Some practices that use this approach have determined that the total time required per encounter is between 35 and 45 minutes. This would allow for approximately 11–14 encounters in an eight-hour shift, and 16–21 encounters in a 12-hour shift. These are conservative estimates. Patient encounters can vary significantly with the amount of infrastructure support the hospitalists receive. In any event, hospital administrators should not use this approach as a hard and fast rule to determine the staffing level. Rather, it can serve as a guideline. The variables of the specific practice then can be applied to reach a reasonable staffing model.

The above excerpt is adapted from Practical Guide to Hospitalist Recruitment and Retention by Kirk Mathews, MBA, and foreword by John Nelson, MD, FACP, published by HCPro, Inc., Marblehead, MA.

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