As we move into summer, we think about vacations. Or at least we should. Vacations are a time to take a break from work, enjoy time with family and friends, and come back refreshed, ready to reengage with our work and our patients.
Taking a vacation is one smart way to take care of ourselves, so that we can better take care of our patients. Hopefully you already have one scheduled and are looking forward to it. But if you don’t have it scheduled, don’t try to squeeze one in, like it’s one more thing on your already-too-busy to-do list.
Instead, be intentional about your vacation. Plan for it, so you may enjoy it and return energized and ready to dive back into your work.
Plan for Vacation
Having a good vacation requires planning. Planning prepares you for vacation and enables you to get the most benefit from it. An unplanned or poorly planned vacation runs the risk of increasing your stress level, not decreasing it.
You never want to come back from vacation, needing to return to work so you can rest up. That’s why you need to plan.
A vacation doesn’t need to be extravagant or expensive. You don’t even need to go far away. While an extravagant trip to an exotic place may be both enjoyable and memorable, a simple vacation, close to home, may be just as restful and rejuvenating. The point is to plan a break from work.
Enjoy Your Vacation
One of the goals of a vacation is to have fun. An enjoyable vacation is one with a pleasant balance of activity and downtime. Don’t pack so much into your vacation that you move breathlessly from one event to the next, from one day to the next, or from one location to the next.
Having a balanced schedule starts with good planning, but even with the best plans sometimes a mid-course correction is wise. You may decide to cut out something midway through your trip, to have a down day with nothing special planned. Often, doing nothing is better than trying to do too much.
Return from Vacation
Some people make the mistake of returning from vacation late in the evening on the day before they return to work. Don’t be that person.
First, they return to work exhausted. Second, that leaves no buffer for unexpected travel delays, such as car problems, road construction, or canceled flights. These things can elevate the stress levels you just spent your whole vacation trying to erase.
A wise approach is to return home a full day early. This allows for an unhurried transition from vacation mode back to work mode.
Conclusion
You may opt to close your practice for vacations so you and your staff all go at the same time. Or you may stagger vacations throughout the summer months. Either way your medical answering service can help pick up the slack, handling your communication needs during vacations.
As far as the implication that the staff at MedConnectUSA doesn’t go on vacation so that you can, is a bit of an exaggeration. Vacations are important for your medical answering service staff, too. It’s just that they’re carefully coordinated so that there will be a full staff in the office at all times, ready to take your calls when you’re not in your office.
Have a great vacation!
Learn how medical answering service from MedConnectUSA can help your practice, clinic, or facility. Then get a free quote to discover how affordable their healthcare communication services are. Peter Lyle DeHaan is a freelance writer and call center authority.