Optimizing Physician Processing Rates with Priority Queues

The typical family physician, or specialist, sees patients on a scheduled basis for physical exams, chronic care management, or a pre-determined follow-up. They also handle ´emergency priority´ visits by their patients - handling unexpected clinical conditions such as flu, rapid blood pressure increase, or a sudden allergic reaction to a maintenance drug. This happens as the patients prefer care continuity and expect their regular physician to handle their urgent cases as well. We study the impact of having physicians handle these two kinds of patients´ visits at the same office and the impact of patients´ behavior on the physicians´ capacity and service level for patients. We show that mixing ´emergency priority´ cases with regularly scheduled visits causes longer waiting times for the regular patients, and it reduces their overall satisfaction. We investigate how a physician can control this behavior by optimally using his levers of care -- price and service rate.