AANEM Connect

I have a single physician outpatient electrodiagnostic practice which has been closed since March 13 of this year. Our waiting list is now longer than three months, and patients are getting very restless. We just began a trial reopening, following all of the AANEM suggested guidelines. We were lucky enough to obtain all of the PPE suggested over the past three months, although much of it is of a very low quality. Gowns are nearly impossible to find,but disposable sleeves work very well and are very inexpensive.
In the past, patients were scheduled one per hour, regardless of symptoms.We began our reopening with one every two hours. For the young patients with/ hand paresthesias, this turned out to be much too long, including the time for sanitizing the exam room. However, for the elderly  diabetic patient with complaints in all four extremities , neck and back, two hours was barely enough. Working with full ppe is very cumbersome and slow. The face shield tends to fog, breathing becomes hard,and the gloves make electrode handling slow..All of which must be taken into account when scheduling.
Since the referring physician's office is frequently not very clear about the patient's symptoms, it may be difficult to determine the time needed for an exam. I have found that talking to the patient a day or two before they are seen to obtain a detailed history helps me to save time in the office and better plan how much time will be needed for each patient. I highly recommend that a "telemedicine visit"be done with each patient before they come in, both  for screening for Covid and for prioritizing the time that will be needed to see each patient. While a physical exam is certainly also needed, talking with the patient before hand speeds things up considerably.