Free Custom «Non Value-Added Cost in a Doctor's Office» Essay Paper

There are some costs that do not add any value in offices. Considering a medical clinic, the operations within it determine the number of employees needed and how they will coordinate. Considering Dr. Steve Rosenthal’s medical practice, the following are the different activities and their categories:

Process Time Activities

The main process activity is the participation of the employees mainly the receptionist, two nurses, lab technician and dietitian.  Participation of the patients is also a process time activity since they are the ones who make the medical practice to be operational.

Inspection Time Activities

These are the activities where patients are taken through the different tests such as the blood tests to establish vital information about them before they visited the doctor.

Move Time Activities

Patients move from the waiting room to an assigned room. They receive all the medication from the assigned room and then move back to the reception room where they are cleared through pay (Roussel, 2011). The doctor and the dietitian also have to move to meet the patients after they have finished with the nurse.

Wait Time Activities

After being received in the receptionist, patients have to wait to be called by a nurse. The patients are also supposed to wait for the doctor after finishing with the nurse. They then wait for the dietitian.

Storage Time Activities

These are the activities that involve storage of the samples of blood obtained from the patients.  

In analyzing the activities in the doctor’s office that are non value-added activities, it is important to point out that one of them is the participation of the employees. In the process of dealing with the patients, the roles of one nurse and the lab technician have been lost. These means that they are just additional costs since their duties can be assumed by the nurse and the receptionist and the activities in the medical practice will still run smoothly (Warren, Reeve & Duchac, 2011). The productivity of the employees is under exploited since some, like the lab technician will only come on rare cases to perform any duty.

Waiting activities are also non-value added in the medical practice. This is because there are many employees in the clinic who can serve patients directly without having to wait. Customers should be received from the receptionist and then send directly to specific rooms. Therefore, too much waiting is a non-value adding activity since it is at the expense of the patients as they will be forced to wait for longer. This may also lead to miscommunication as different parties will have to come in an order.

There is also much movement in the medical practice that can be avoided. The nurses can refer the patients directly to the doctor and the dietitian rather than the doctor and the dietitian having to move. This results to time wastage that could have been saved to serve extra patients. Too much movement of patients is a non-value adding activity since they are here to receive services with much ease rather than having to get involved in unnecessary movements. These kinds of movements will also mean more involvement of the staff as they have to keep in touch with the patients (Roussel, 2011). Therefore, movement of patients should be curtailed so that they can be served fast and to satisfaction.

In conclusion, non-value added cost should be avoided at all levels. This is crucial to minimize costs; thus increasing profitability of an organization. The medical center in the case study can do away with the non-value adding activities that have been identified as a way of increasing efficiency. This will also increase profitability of the organization together with ensuring customer satisfaction.