Meeting with clinicians for one hour may cost up to $1,000 of missed clinical revenue, physicians estimate.
OB-GYNs Brian Iriye, MD, and Jim Keller, MD, discussed meeting upticks in an Aug. 4 article for the journal Contemporary OB-GYN. According to the physicians, migration to a virtual sphere has made it easier to create a meeting and invite participants. However, holding a meeting is not always essential, they said, adding that it detracts from valuable time with patients, leading to lost income.
Dr. Iriye and Dr. Keller reviewed articles from sources including Harvard Business Review, CNBC and Forbes. Their research offers these nine tips to avoid meeting overload:
1. Ask yourself if a quick call or email will have the same effect as a meeting.
2. Invite as few people as you can.
3. Stick to an agenda and make it accessible to participants.
4. End with deadlines and an action plan to avoid follow-up meetings.
5. Let participants leave if they cannot contribute.
6. Send materials in advance.
7. Cut 30-minute meetings to 15 minutes when possible.
8. Send a pre-meeting video to be watched on participants' own time.
9. Understand the pitfalls of virtual meetings: multitasking, poor camera and microphone quality, and tendency toward disengagement.