Physician Scheduler: Who Should Create Clinician Schedules?

Who should take on the all-important task of scheduling clinicians? Schedulers are often administrators or seasoned physicians, but no matter their primary role, they frequently face common challenges that make scheduling stressful. 

From managing incoming requests and attempting to balance individual providers’ preferences to making sure schedules meet key organizational requirements, there are many details to consider regardless of who does the job. Taking some helpful tips and tricks into consideration can make the process easier from start to finish.  

Physician Scheduler Top Challenges

Schedulers face the difficult job of balancing the complexities of healthcare scheduling. Either by hand or with some sort of digital tool, they have to:  

• Keep track of physician preferences 
• Manage incoming schedule requests 
• Build and manage clinician schedules 
• Distribute the schedule to all necessary parties (admins, staff, and clinicians)  
• Ensure clinicians meet certain goals and requirements depending on their role (e.g., residents meeting ACGME requirements, physicians not going over their yearly tallies, etc.)  
• Schedule across locations or departments  
• Prep for holidays, closures, and emergencies  
• Allocate shifts fairly to mitigate burnout
• Ensure the schedule matches patient demand  

Because of these complexities, many organizations task physicians with scheduling their own clinical teams instead of administrators or other staff. 

Who Builds Healthcare Schedules 

The approach of using a seasoned clinician to build schedules makes sense—they typically know their teams well, and they often have a good understanding of the operational minutiae involved with daily patient care. As one example, a senior anesthesiologist might know best which providers on his team prefer to work at which locations, what their specialties are, and which days are best for certain kinds of appointments.

Beyond having this knowledge, senior providers have usually worked with the organization’s scheduling system, so the duty falls to them somewhat naturally. 

But while all of this may be true, you shouldn’t conclude that physicians are always the best fit for the scheduling role. 

Physicians have (or should have) a predominantly clinical role, and any time they devote to administrative tasks can negatively impact patient care, physician satisfaction, and schedule quality. 

Clinician Scheduler Pros and Cons 

There are many reasons physicians can be a good fit for creating your organization’s shift schedule, but there are also downsides. 

Benefits

Challenges

1) They may require less training: Because clinicians are likely familiar with many of the rules, standards, and preferences your practice has in place, they’re likely to be the best at sorting out the details involved with managing schedules. 2) They care about creating an effective schedule: Clinicians want what’s best for their colleagues and patients, which means they’re motivated to build a balanced schedule that satisfies their colleagues and ensures patients receive high-quality care. 3) Physicians are often analytical and detailed: A physician’s affinity for analysis and detail-oriented work will likely be a huge asset when creating complex shift schedules.

1) It takes time away from patient care: When physicians uses their time building schedules, they necessarily have less time to dedicate to direct patient care. 2) The risk of burnout: Physicians are already burdened with many administrative tasks, which can lead to burnout.1 Giving them another administrative task could exacerbate physician burnout and decrease job satisfaction. 3) There’s potential for scheduling bias: Even if a physician approaches schedule builds with the best of intentions, humans are still imperfect. Simple oversights on the scheduler’s part may be interpreted by colleagues as bias, which can erode team cohesion and job satisfaction.

Admin Scheduler Pros and Cons 

Administrators are a great asset for a practice looking to solidify their scheduling process. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics actually recommends that non-physicians handle scheduling duties, but there are a few setbacks that come along with assigning this task to administrators. 

Benefits

Challenges

1) There are possible cost savings: Letting an administrator take care of the schedule costs significantly less than asking a physician to do it. It also frees up physicians’ time to focus on patient care, which many of them likely prefer. 2) You know the schedule is objective: In theory, an administrator can maintain an impartial relationship with the schedule. As a result, clinical staff will likely be reassured that a schedule built by an administrator is equitable. 3) They have more time to dedicate to scheduling: An administrator can likely dedicate more time to creating an effective schedule than a clinician because they’re not trying to balance the duty with demanding patient care responsibilities.

1) More training could be needed to get started scheduling: There will likely be a steep learning curve for an administrator as they try to learn the rules surrounding minimum staffing requirements and clinical staff preferences.     2) Finding the right fit: Flexibility, persistence, and a service-oriented attitude are just a few of the traits a scheduler needs to be effective. Overall, a scheduler needs to be detail-oriented and able to quickly adapt to changes that might lead to several rounds of edits before a final schedule is published.

How Schedulers Can Build Better Clinician Schedules 

No matter who creates them, there are a few key components to building fair physician schedules. Using physician scheduling software is one of the first steps to take if you’re interested in building fully optimized—meaning equitable, accurate, and complete—schedules. 

Rules-based scheduling software auto-generates the best possible schedule every time. It allows a scheduler to quickly and easily build schedules that:  

• Distribute shifts equitably
• Meet minimum staffing requirements
• Adhere to provider preferences as much as possible
• Integrate with other key clinical systems like the EHR 

The video below highlights key capabilities that PerfectServe’s Lightning Bolt Scheduling solution can bring to any scheduler, no matter their title:

Both physicians and administrators can be effective schedulers. By weighing the pros and cons, you should be able to pick the right person for the job on your team. Learn more about software for scheduling physicians across all specialities.

Sources:

1. Physician Burnout: Causes, Consequences, and (?) Cures. National Library of Medicine: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6183652/