Simple Ways To Improve Your Practice Waiting Room

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Simple Ways To Improve Your Practice Waiting Room

When your patients visit your practice, you want them to feel relaxed and comfortable. It’s already a stressful situation for them, and you want to put them at ease, and that starts as soon as they walk through the door. It’s important that you have professional staff that know how to handle patients, but you also need to think about the simple things like how you set your waiting room up. When patients are sitting in there before their appointments, it’s likely that they will be nervous, so it’s up to you to create a relaxing space that helps them to stay calm. These are some of the best ways to improve the waiting room in your practice.

Plenty Of Space

A tiny waiting room that crams everybody in together isn’t ideal. People will feel more anxious if they don’t have a bit of space, so you should consider this when you are choosing a location for your practice. If your practice is already up and running, there may not be anything that you can do about it, but you should try to allow as much space as possible for your waiting room. 

Comfortable Furniture

There’s nothing worse than a waiting room with cold plastic furniture that is horrible to sit on. You can’t relax properly if you don’t have comfortable furniture to sit on, so make sure that you don’t just go for the cheapest option. Invest in some good quality health care furniture so your patients can be comfortable while they wait. It’s a good idea to use modular furniture that can easily be moved around so patients can set things up in a way that is most comfortable for them. 

Keep People Busy

If your patients have nothing to do but sit and wait around until their appointment, the wait will seem endless. That’s why it’s important that you keep people busy while they’re in the waiting room, so the time passes quickly. TV’s aren’t great because it feels like all of the patients are locked into one thing. It’s better to put things like magazines and books out for people to read, just make sure that you keep a good rotation going so you don’t have magazines that are months out of date. You should also make sure that you have plenty of charging ports so people can use their phones to stay busy. 

Manage The Queues Properly

When the practice is busy, people will have to queue up to check-in, but the last thing your patients want is to wait in a long line. That’s why you need to make an effort to manage the queue properly. If you are having trouble with long lines, you should consider hiring another receptionist. You should also have a take a number system so people can go and sit down until somebody is free to check them in.

If you improve your waiting room experience, it improves the overall experience for your patients.