If your providers, such as doctors or hygienists, work alternating schedules or varying hours each week, follow these steps to ensure accurate tracking of their availability, hours worked, and metrics like Schedule Utilization in Practice by Numbers (PbN).
Setting Provider Hours
1. Navigate to Provider Hours Settings
Go to Settings > Office and Provider Hours in PbN.
2. Add Specific Workdays and Hours
For providers with regular alternating workdays (e.g., working every other Monday), add the applicable days to their schedule.
If their hours differ from the office hours (e.g., a half-day schedule), input their unique working hours next to their name.
3. Handle Variable Schedules
For providers with schedules that change weekly, set their hours to "Same as Office Hours."
Practice IQ will automatically adjust their availability based on scheduled patient appointments and assume they are unavailable on days without appointments.
4. Manually Assign Shifts for Extended Office Hours
For offices with extended hours or multiple shifts (e.g., 7:00 AM–7:00 PM), manually assign shifts to providers who work specific hours to ensure accurate tracking.
Without manual adjustments, Practice IQ defaults to assuming 12 hours of availability, which can skew metrics.
Adjusting for Non-Working Days
1. For Alternating Workdays (e.g., every other Monday):
On non-working days, Practice IQ will automatically record "0" for Hours Worked if no appointments are scheduled.
To align their Hours Available, navigate to Settings > Provider Hours Worked, locate the specific day, and set their available hours to "0." Save your changes.
2. For Vacations or Early Leaves:
If a provider is on vacation or leaves early, update their available hours accordingly on the Provider Hours Worked page.
Accessing the Provider Hours Worked Page
You can also access this page through the Doctors section:
Select the week containing the day you need to adjust.
Locate the Schedule Utilization panel.
Click the arrow in the top-right corner, then choose Set Provider Hours to navigate directly to the Provider Hours Worked page for that specific week.
Ensuring Accurate Metrics
By following these steps, you can effectively manage alternating schedules, vacations, and early leaves, ensuring accurate tracking of:
Hours Worked
Hours Available
Schedule Utilization
This improves the precision of your performance metrics and ensures a more accurate representation of provider availability in Practice by Numbers.