Reciprocity and Point-of-Service Scheduling

By Randy Jernejcic, MD, Vice President, Clinical Integration

UH Clinical Update | August 2019

Over the past several months, we’ve embraced a culture change here at UH. In our primary care offices, patients are now being scheduled for their referral appointments then and there, thanks, in many cases to our UH-developed Schedule Me Now technology. No longer do patients have to try to remember which specialist to see and when. Our dedicated staff in primary care provider offices are taking care of it, getting the job done with ease and efficiency.

This culture change is all about providing high-value care to our patients – that is, care of the highest quality, care that creates the best patient experience and care that is the most economical for the patient. But this collaborative effort has also brought the entire UH family together into one healing community, dedicated to the singular goal of achieving the best outcomes for patients.

The next step in this journey is now for our UH specialists to do what their primary care colleagues have been doing these past several months.

In the coming weeks, Clinical Integration will be partnering with specialty and primary care leadership to launch Point-of-Service scheduling from specialty to UH Primary Care Institute and subspecialty practices.

We all know the need is great. I, for one, have heard many stories about patients being seen in specialty offices who have uncontrolled high blood pressure or blood sugar that’s at a pre-diabetic level – and no primary care provider on file. We need to close this loop with these patients and get them scheduled with the primary care they need.

Cliff Megerian, MD, President of UH Physician Network and System Institutes, wrote about this in his blog in May, and I think his words bear repeating:

“Our primary care providers do great work, and so do our specialists. It just makes sense to have reciprocity between them. So if a patient comes here without a primary care provider, we want to get them connected to a great one at UH. The totality of a patient’s care should be coordinated and managed within our system.”

Scheduling the appointments a patient needs at the point of service is best practice in health care today – and it’s our commitment as health care providers at UH. I welcome your feedback and thoughts as we take the next step in fully integrating our clinical community and processes for the benefit of our patients.