The 30-40% Problem: Where O&P Practices Are Actually Losing Time

In conversations with prosthetists, orthotists, and practice managers across the country, one number keeps showing up. Roughly 30 to 40 percent of the workday goes to non-patient work — documentation, fabrication forms, status updates, billing coordination, searching for old records.

This isn't downtime. It isn't optional. It's mandatory work that generates no revenue and produces no direct patient benefit. It's the work that has to get done before you can see the next patient, deliver the next device, or close the next case.

“We probably spend 30 to 40 percent of our day, at least, on documentation and non-patient appointments. If I can't continue to see enough patients during the day, then we can't remain in business.”

— CF, Senior Prosthetist and Director of Clinical Services 

When a third of the workday is consumed by non-patient work, the impact compounds quickly. 



• Patient access shrinks. Fewer appointment slots means longer waits for evaluations, delays in device delivery, and less availability for follow-up. 
• Documentation runs late. Notes pile up, billing slips, and denials become more likely. 
• Clinicians stay late or take work home. The work doesn't end when the last patient leaves. 
• Growth hits a ceiling. Not because demand isn't there, but because there's no capacity to meet it. 

Hiring more staff doesn't solve this. If the system itself is inefficient, you're just adding more people into the same constraints. The underlying issue doesn't move.

When you look closely at the 30 to 40 percent, it isn't one big thing. It's a stack of small ones:



• Entering the same clinical information across multiple systems. 
• Manually updating statuses that the system should track automatically. 
• Searching scanned documents for a part number from two years ago. 
• Running simple, routine items through the same full workflow as complex custom devices. 
• Following up by email or phone on tasks the system could trigger on its own. 

Individually, each one feels manageable. Together, they consume hours of every workday.

The most useful question isn't “How do we work harder?” It's “Where is the time actually going, and what would it take to get some of it back?” 

Because time can't be created. But it can be reclaimed. And when it is, everything else in the practice starts to move differently — more patients seen, less pressure on the team, and more room for the business to grow without simply adding more hours or more people.

Coming up in this series

Over the next few weeks, we're breaking down where the 30 to 40 percent actually goes — duplicate data entry, manual workflows hiding inside digital systems, and the gap between what the software does and what it could be doing. The full research report drops in mid-June.