The administrative and patient demands on outpatient imaging centers have never been higher. Radiology businesses across the United States are grappling with some of the highest inflation rates seen in decades coupled with major regulatory changes implemented by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).

To keep up with these demands, many centers have no choice but to invest in additional support. Yet adding headcount adds additional business challenges. Labor is expensive. In fact, 51% of all operating costs for diagnostic imaging centers now come from employee overhead.

So, how can diagnostic imaging centers combat these external challenges without putting further strain on their operations? Two words – workflow solutions.

The right workflow solutions can aid busy centers by reducing manual labor, operational costs, and capacity constraints.

How Imaging Centers’ Practices Are Becoming More Complex

A single practice workflow is no longer sufficient to support growing external demands and more sophisticated patient cases. To address specific pain points, radiology practices should consider the following workflows:

Routine Scheduling Workflow

Out of all the workflows needed in modern outpatient imaging facilities, workflows related to “standard” scheduling and registration are the most common by far. As the name suggests, these solutions are most suitable when dealing with predictable, systematic scheduling. Consider using these workflows to schedule:

  • Mammography
  • Bone density
  • Ultrasound
  • X-rays

Advanced Scheduling Workflow

In some cases, your regular scheduling and registration workflow may not apply. For example, scheduling certain appointments might involve asset inspection, insurance eligibility and authorization, patient questionnaire claims, or clinical decision support. In a typical practice, situations like these require manual input from front-office staff, adding to labor costs. However, advanced workflow solutions that can accommodate unpredictable paths through the scheduling process can eliminate the manual intervention through automated patient communications.

Back-Office Workflow

Along with these radiology workflow types, it’s wise to look for a solution capable of helping your team behind the scenes. These are referred to as “back-office” or “administrative” workflows, and they’re designed to assist with tasks related to:

  • Medical records
  • IT
  • Research
  • Billing
  • Compliance

Since these tasks are traditionally labor-intensive and heavily driven by human decisions, the support provided by high-quality back-office workflows is indispensable.

Project Workflow

In many cases, project workflows are built for one-time use. These workflows are commonly created to support projects such as rebranding efforts and web redesign initiatives. While they may not be long-lasting, they can be just as critical as the workflows you use on a daily basis.

How AbbaDox’s Workflow Solutions Platform Can Optimize and Streamline Operations

Whether your center is currently struggling with these external pressures, or you want to take proactive steps for the future, you’ll want to consider implementing flexible workflow solutions to accommodate the needs of your practice.

With that said, it’s important to properly vet potential partners. It’s common for vendors in this field to offer traditional radiology information systems (or RIS systems), which they claim will deliver all the flexibility you’ll need, but that’s often not the case. Even if these programs can handle routine tasks, they aren’t capable of streamlining more complicated workflows with unpredictable nuances or outcomes.

Instead, consider choosing AbbaDox. Unlike other workflow solutions, our cloud-native platform was built with one goal in mind: making it easy for imaging centers to optimize their operations across their front and back offices. When you partner with AbbaDox, you’ll enjoy using a genuinely flexible workflow platform that can help you:

Reduce Manual Labor

If your radiology practice is like other diagnostic imaging centers, there’s a good chance that even your most routine tasks involve phone calls, faxes, and manual scanning. On the other hand, each and every workflow handled by AbbaDox is automated, optimized, and digitized. That can help you save time, and, by extension, significantly reduce your overheads.

Minimize Operational Costs

With current overhead-related operating costs at a high point across the imaging industry, the simplicity and flexibility provided by AbbaDox can help to give your office a competitive edge.

There are other ways to save cash while using this solutions platform, as well. Since AbbaDox is a fully digital platform, you’ll also have an opportunity to cut down on costs such as paper and printing. However small they seem, operating costs can add up, and you don’t want to be one of the 30% of imaging centers across the U.S. that are in the red.

Eliminate Capacity Constraints

The goal of almost every facility is to continue to grow, which is why scalability should always be a consideration when investing in workflow solutions. Where “standard” radiology information systems are often limited in their capability to expand, AbbaDox’s private cloud isn’t subject to these constraints.

As a cloud-native platform, AbbaDox can scale as much or as little as you want with no difficulties. No matter how many employees you have, you won’t need to waste time installing AbbaDox on new workstations or spend money on additional servers. Zero download times and record-high uptimes are key when expanding your appointment volume and center locations.

Improve Your Practice Operations Despite External Challenges with AbbaDox

Investing in exceptional radiology software can improve your workflows while ensuring your practice best provides for the patients you serve. The best solution in this niche goes beyond supporting your traditional or routine scheduling workflows to support you in also optimizing your  advanced scheduling workflows, back-office radiology workflows, and project workflows.

By choosing AbbaDox as your facility’s workflow platform, you’ll get radiology workflow software that can streamline any workflow solutions you need, from the most basic scheduling and registration workflow to highly complicated workflows for large-scale projects. Simultaneously, it can help you cut down on manual labor, operating costs, and capacity constraints.

Sign up for a demo to learn how your imaging center can start benefiting from AbbaDox today.