- Two-thirds of patients leave visits with unanswered questions, a Wolters Kluwer survey finds.
- Physicians spend nearly 2.5 hours of every eight-hour clinic day documenting in the EHR. (no source in the doc)
- Experts trace the 15-minute visit norm to Medicare’s 1992 relative value unit fee formula.
- Physicians spend 49.2% of the office day on EHR and desk work, vs. about 27% on direct care.
- Ambient AI saves up to 10 hours per week on charting. (Vendor reported)
- Ambient AI cuts note time from 30–60 minutes to under five. (Vendor reported)
TL;DR
Longer visits won’t fix rushed appointments — you spend 49.2% of the office day on EHR and desk work vs. about 27% on direct clinical care, so reclaim that time with complexity-based scheduling, digital intake, and ambient AI documentation instead of lengthening every slot.
As a physician, you may be familiar with this scenario: You meet with a patient, diagnose their problem, and propose a treatment plan. Then, just as you’re reaching for the exam room door, the patient says, “Actually, I have one more question.” A Wolters Kluwer survey found two-thirds of patients leave visits with unanswered questions, and more than half seek answers elsewhere — often turning to ChatGPT and similar tools. Stopping to answer these questions helps build trust in the doctor-patient relationship, but it can create downstream inefficiencies.
A 15-minute appointment becomes 20 minutes. Then it happens again with the next patient who has even more complex health issues. And the next. By afternoon, you feel rushed because you’re 30 minutes behind, wait times have skyrocketed, and documentation and messages are piling up. Here’s the thing: The problem may not be the care model or the medical appointment length. It may be how the visit itself is designed — and whether you’re making every minute of the appointment time count.
Where the 15-minute medical appointment length actually came from
Today’s tightly packed patient schedules didn’t emerge overnight. Instead, decades of volume-based payment incentives, primary care physician and specialist shortages, and increasing administrative burden have gradually created a system in which physicians are expected to accomplish more within limited timeframes and an increasing patient load.
Consider this graphic that explains how 15-minute doctor visits became the healthcare system norm beginning in 1992. That’s when Medicare implemented the Resource-Based Relative Value Scale, tying physician payment to relative value units (RVU) associated with individual services:
Do longer visits actually improve care?
While a longer appointment slot may benefit patients with complex needs or those requiring additional counseling, more time alone does not consistently translate into better care, communication, or patient satisfaction. The goal shouldn't be to increase visit length using a one-size-fits-all approach to scheduling. It should be to promote complexity-based scheduling that gives each patient the time their care requires. The goal? Prevent (or significantly reduce) extra time spent on work that technology could eliminate, automate, delegate, or complete before or after the visit.
How long should a doctor visit be? That depends on the patient. Here are three practical ways practices can shift from one-size-fits-all to complexity-based scheduling:
- Define complexity criteria. Identify factors that tend to require more physician time, such as multiple chronic conditions, recent hospitalization, new or worsening symptoms, interpreter needs, or multiple concerns to address. Use consistent criteria rather than relying on staff judgment alone to determine medical appointment length.
- Collect information before scheduling. Use online scheduling, digital intake, or pre-visit questionnaires to capture the reason for the visit and other relevant information upfront. This helps practices assign the appropriate visit type, appointment duration, or resources before the patient arrives.
- Use scheduling data to refine appointment lengths. Track actual visit duration, overruns, wait times, and no-shows by visit type and patient complexity. Use those patterns to adjust scheduling rules over time — adding time where it is needed, rather than extending appointment length across the board. Understanding how long do doctors appointments take can help practices identify opportunities to streamline workflows and give physicians more meaningful time with patients.
What consumes physician time in a visit?
In addition to listening to each patient’s concerns and questions, physicians may spend even more time documenting in the electronic health record (EHR) (sometimes amounting to nearly 2.5 hours for every eight-hour clinic day). The same study found that physicians spend another one to two hours of personal time each night (sometimes referred to as ‘pajama time’) doing additional computer and other clerical work outside of normal office hours. Why are providers spending less time with patients? Administrative burden. Administrative burden and inefficient workflows can result in a provider spending less time with patients and more time completing documentation and other nonclinical tasks.
Research published in the Annals of Internal Medicine found physicians spend about 49.2% of the office day on EHR and desk work, compared with roughly 27% on direct clinical care. That works out to around 16 minutes in the EHR per encounter.
How can physicians address more questions without longer visits?
Physicians can provide personalized care and address more patient questions without increasing medical appointment length by making better use of the time they already have. Here are some strategies to provide patient experience tools using technology embedded in today’s best practice EHR software:
| Strategy | What it does | Time/effect it reclaims |
|---|---|---|
| Collect information before the visit | Use digital intake and pre-visit questionnaires to capture demographics, history, symptoms, and patient concerns in advance. | Reduces in-room data gathering and surfaces questions earlier. |
| Match appointment time to patient needs | Use scheduling tools and patient information to allocate time based on anticipated visit complexity. | Reduces overruns while reserving additional time for patients who need it. |
| Set an agenda | Ask patients what they want to cover at the start of a visit, then prioritize the list together. | Prevents “one more question” from extending the visit and reduces schedule overruns. Also keeps the encounter focused on the patient’s highest-priority concerns. |
| Use ambient documentation | Use ambient AI to capture the patient conversation and create a draft note. The physician reviews and signs every note before it's finalized — ambient AI supports documentation, but it doesn't replace clinical judgment. | Reduces in-visit typing and after-hours documentation, freeing physicians to focus on the patient. Note: Ambient AI saves up to 10 hours per week on charting, according to a recent vendor-reported study. A different vendor-reported study found that note completion time decreased from 30-60 minutes to under five minutes. |
| Automate routine patient communication | Use automated reminders, instructions, forms, and outreach before and after visits. | Reduces repetitive calls and administrative work for physicians and staff. |
| Move appropriate follow-up outside the visit | Use the patient portal and digital communication tools for appropriate questions, instructions, results, and follow-up. | Preserves physician time with patients for issues requiring the physician’s direct attention. |
| See it in action: One psychiatrist used AI Note Assist to cut documentation time and spend more of the visit with patients, not the keyboard. Read the case study |
Where to start
Track where your visit minutes actually go this week — in-room questions, documentation, or follow-up. From there, pilot one change: add digital intake to surface concerns before the visit, or try ambient documentation to cut charting time. Small shifts in how a visit is structured can free up real time, without adding a minute to your schedule.
Frequently asked questions
- Use pre-visit questionnaires to surface concerns before the patient sits down.
- Use collaborative agenda-setting to focus the conversation early.
- Use patient portals for follow-up questions between visits.
- Use AI and ambient documentation to reduce charting time, so attention stays on the patient.
Redesigning your visits starts with trimming the work that surrounds them. AI Note Assist runs natively in your EHR to cut the time you spend on notes, so you can spend more of your day with patients.
The information provided in this post does not constitute medical or legal advice and is intended for informational purposes only.
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