A lot of things can help in my exp...
-say, "well, I need to take care of a few other patients, so we will see you back soon..." or "ok, we have run over time on this appointment, but we can talk more next visit.."
-use non-verbal clues most people will understand: take your gloves off, lower their chair, tell them they can go ahead and put socks and shoes on, stand up, wash your hands, tell MA follow up duration and closing instructions, turn away from pt and towards door, etc. Some people need a couple, but their light bulb that the visit is ending will usually click... just repeat clues as needed and do them more or less flagrantly and pay attention to ppl's responses. I'm giving you gold here.
-get them moving towards the check out... "your PT form will be at the desk; I need to go sign it," "they will get you my card and we can talk more at follow-up," "I need to go sign your Norco and she'll show you the boot," etc
-avoid scheduling known time-consuming or problem pts (wheelchair, wound, new, pre op, post op 1 or 2, etc) before lunch or end of day
-be BUSY... seems illogical, but it works. If ppl are scheduled out a bit, can't immediately r/s if they miss appt, see a busy wait room, run full staff, etc... then most realize you're in demand and value your time. If youre new, structure 2-3 busier days over 5 slow ones; it is hard to get respect with no MA and clearly no other patients in the office. If clearly busy, then it is much less likely the pts and fam try to keep asking "one more question" or being demanding... most are happy to have limited time + advice from an in-demand doc.
-the fake MA call from the ER or another doctor or hospital... or the legit reminder from MA that you have other patients waiting should be a last resort seldom needed if you do the other things right, but it's a trump card... yeah. Have a code to trigger that.
-have gray hair (I don't yet, but everything from talking surgery to pt trust to billing to copping out of going to happy hour with your staff or ASC nurses since you go to bed at 9pm just works better with gray hair). There is obviously the other extreme of looking 80+ and that you should have retired years ago. If you dont have the salt n pepper or other signs of not being young anymore, then the next best thing is to just dress nice, wear white coat, have glasses, etc... but in the end, it's mainly just ideal to carry yourself well. YOU GET WHAT YOU ALLOW.
....between these things and the
subtle tactics to give impression of longer appointments and better quality (i posted awhile ago and many ppl added), those are tremendously important skills for anyone who deals with customers/clients/patients/etc to grasp. Many struggle for decades and decades. Learn and practice
