1. Record the Agreement Before Building
For each physician, record their work commitment, working days and any agreed restrictions. Distinguish a recurring availability pattern from a request for one date. Establish how a change in commitment takes effect so the scheduler does not have to infer it from last month's assignments.
2. Compare Like Duties
A group may balance weekday clinical work, overnight call and holidays separately. State whether proportional targets apply to each category. As an illustration, an 80% commitment might guide a target of eight duties where the full-time target is ten, but the group's actual agreement determines whether that is appropriate.
3. Plan for Leave and Coverage Together
Review approved leave, coverage needs and eligibility before distributing remaining work. Do not assume every unassigned day represents availability. Discuss how extended leave, newly joined staff or changing commitments affect the comparison period.
4. Review Counts and Patterns
Check totals alongside clustered calls, weekends and linked shifts. Rounding and limited coverage can make a single period uneven. Record the reason for exceptions and revisit the balance over the agreed period instead of forcing identical totals.
5. Keep the Agreement Visible
Use a reviewed roster and rules as the starting point for the next schedule. iSchedule.MD lets groups configure work percentages and inspect workload statistics. Bring representative commitments and difficult exceptions to a demo so setup can be checked against your group's needs.