Advance preparation for the arrival of patients helps the day progress smoothly and in a relaxed manner.

If the patient brings a relative to the physician appointment, this implies that the patient consents to discussion of the patient’s care with the relative.

The medical assistant should offer assistance only to patients who are obviously handicapped.

Every patient has the right to expect courteous treatment in a physician’s office.

Medical assistants are not allowed to take the patient’s personal and family histories.

Patients appreciate it when medical assistants consider the patient’s time when performing duties in the facility and scheduling appointments.

Patients who are too talkative should be dismissed from the physician’s care before they take up too much of his or her time.

Glass partitions should never be used in today’s medical offices.

Open office hours do not work well for most practices.

Wave scheduling may involve several patients arriving at the same time.

When an appointment is rescheduled, the first appointment date and time must be removed.

If a late patient is scheduled as the last patient of the day and does not show up before the office closes, the medical assistant is obligated to wait until the patient arrives.

Outpatient testing is no longer common for physicians.

A process required by some insurance carriers in which the provider obtains permission to perform certain procedures or services or refers a patient to a specialist is called a preauthorization.

The facilities available at the office do not influence the number of patients the physician can see in a day.

A matrix is where something is created or takes shape.

A space of time between events is an interval.

The provider’s habits should not influence appointment scheduling.

Scheduling systems should be individualized to each specific practice.

Time is one of the physician’s most valuable assets.

Medical assistants can never offer medical advice to patients.

Advance preparation most assuredly helps the day run more smoothly and efficiently.

The medical assistant should never assume that the patient consents to discussion of his or her health with a friend or relative just because the person is with the patient for the office visit.

The medical assistant should offer to assist any patient who appears to need assistance.

Patients have the right to expect courteous treatment in the physician’s office.

Medical assistants can take histories from the patient as long as the physician reviews the information with the patient during the examination.

The medical assistant should always consider patients’ time and needs when they are in the office and when scheduling appointments.

The medical assistant must tactfully deal with talkative patients.

If glass partitions are usually open, they are perfectly acceptable for use in the physician’s office. However, the medical assistant should not allow the glass partition to always remain closed because that gives the impression that the staff is unfriendly and unavailable.

Most practices prefer scheduled appointments so that the workday can be planned to the best extent possible and the staff can be prepared to meet the patients’ needs.

Several patients may arrive at the same time when the office uses wave scheduling.

The medical assistant must make sure the first appointment is removed from the scheduling system before rescheduling the appointment.

The staff is not obligated to wait for patients who are late for their appointments at any time of the day.

Outpatient testing is very popular with physicians, who often do not want to perform blood and other types of testing in their own offices.

Preauthorization is a process required by some insurance carriers in which the provider obtains permission to perform certain procedures or services or refers a patient to a specialist.

The physician has only a certain number of exam rooms, so the practice can see only a limited number of patients based on the available facilities.

The environment where something is created or takes shape is called a matrix. A matrix also is a base on which to build.

A space of time between events is an interval.

The provider’s habits can greatly influence the schedule; if he or she is often late, the schedule can be thrown off for the entire day. The medical assistant must take the provider’s habits into account when scheduling appointments.