Free Clinic Operations Mini Audit Guide

• Is there a written, step-by-step procedure for receiving new patients?

• Does every staff member follow the same intake process?

• Are patient details captured consistently and completely every time?

• Is there a standard follow-up procedure after a first appointment?

Common gap: Intake varies by who's at the desk. New staff don't know the process.

• •Does every team member have a written job description?

• •Are handoffs between roles clearly defined?

• •When something goes wrong, is it clear whose responsibility it was?

• •Are there tasks that fall between the cracks regularly?

Common gap: Roles are understood informally but never documented.

• Is there a written onboarding plan for new hires?

• Is the shadowing process consistent, or depends on who's available?

• How long does it take a new hire to work independently?

• Have you lost staff in the first 90 days due to feeling lost?

Common gap: Onboarding relies on the same experienced person every time.

• How many of your core daily processes are documented in writing?

• Could someone do a key role using written guides if the expert left?

• Are SOPs stored somewhere accessible to all staff?

• When were your SOPs last reviewed and updated?

Common gap: No SOPs exist, or they were written once and never revisited.

• Do you know your average patient wait time from arrival to being seen?

• Are there predictable bottlenecks at certain times of day or week?

• Do patients frequently wait longer than their scheduled time?

• Is patient flow managed proactively or reactively?

Common gap: Wait times accepted as "normal" — never measured or analyzed.

• Are all features of your EMR/scheduling system used as designed?

• Do staff use workarounds because the official system is too complex?

• Are your tools integrated or requiring duplicate data entry?

• When did you last review whether your tools meet your needs?

Common gap: 60–70% of EMR features go unused. Workarounds create errors.

• Can you produce a reliable KPI report in under 10 minutes?

• Do you trust the data in your system?

• Are decisions based on data or intuition?

• Does your team track KPIs regularly?

Common gap: Data exists but isn't trusted. Decisions made on gut feeling.

• Is there a regular meeting with a clear agenda and documented outcomes?

• Are important decisions communicated to all staff consistently?

• Do staff find out about changes by word of mouth?

• Are there recurring miscommunications causing operational problems?

Common gap: Meetings happen but nothing is documented. Issues resurface.

• Is there a process for staff to flag operational problems?

• Are improvement ideas acted on or lost in a suggestion box?

• Has your clinic made a deliberate improvement in the last 6 months?

• Does leadership treat process improvement as an ongoing priority?

Common gap: No structured way to capture ideas. Same problems repeat yearly.

• If patient volume doubled tomorrow, could your processes handle it?

• Could you open a second location and replicate how this one runs?

• Are your processes dependent on specific individuals being present?

• Could an investor understand your operations from your documentation?

Common gap: The clinic works because of people, not because of systems.