Appointment Confirmation System

Dealing with the top challenges faced by medical practices today: EHR adoption

Tuesday, January 17, 2012 by Susan Linton

Back in June 2011, the Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) released the results of its member survey. Members indicated that the top challenges they faced were:

Changing reimbursement models that place a greater share of financial risk on practices
EHR issues - selecting and implementing the EHR system and participating in the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services' EHR Meaningful Use incentive program
Rising operating costs
Implementing and/or optimizing an accountable care organization

Financial, technological and compliance issues were clearly the main challenges. At the same time that practices plan on dealing with adopting a complex new system (EHR) that will require major changes in workflow, they also need to deal with managing potentially lower reimbursements and rising costs.

Ideally, the EHR will reduce administrative complexity, increase efficiency and lower operating costs but that takes time. Adopting an EHR has many other benefits for patient practice communication. Once patient records are digitized, they can be more easily shared with other systems, including a host of inexpensive, on demand web-based services. These services include automated appointment reminders, appointment scheduling, automated account balance notifications, patient surveys, and more. Such services can easily improve patient-practice communication and they also (1) save staff a considerable amount of time, (2) improve documentation and possibly reduce potential for legal action against the practice, (3) increase patient satisfaction.

Automating appointment reminders is a step that benefits the majority of practices. These types of calls typically are routine and the essential information can easily be conveyed by a quality appointment reminder service. Typically the practice only needs to generate a file with patients to be called and transmit that file to the telephone reminder service. This process can take just a few minutes. Appointment confirmations can be automatically tracked.

For additional information, please visit Webley.

4 tips to reduce your patient no shows

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 by Susan Linton

It's a new year and the time we typically reflect on lessons learned in the previous year. Here at Webley MD, we deal with helping our clients with their patient no show problem every day. We've compiled a list of best practices that can help medical practices manage their patient no shows.

Tip #1: Send out messages when patients are likely to be home

If you have handled reminder calls from your office during regular business hours, you know that you reach an answering machine 80% of the time. You have a better chance of reaching most people at home by calling in the evening. By using an automated reminder system, calls can be made in the evenings and on the weekends, when patients are likely to be home.

Tip #2: Make the message personal and specific

Your appointment reminders are more effective if you can provide your patients with personalized information about their appointments. Always mention the date of the appointment, time of the appointment, and the patient’s name. Look for an automated reminder system that makes it easy to add personalized information for each call.

Tip #3: Be clear and offer to repeat information

Many reminder calls are made from a noisy practice by someone rushing to get through the reminder calls before the office closes. It’s better to use a pre-recorded message for appointment reminder calls. A good script for reminder phone calls keeps the message short and simple and minimizes background noise. Make sure the message is clear, slow-paced, and that the patients have the option to have key information repeated.

Tip #4: Automate to save valuable office time

At a typical practice, reminder calls can take several hours every day. Each call takes at least three minutes and it can take multiple attempts to reach a patient. Good appointment reminder software makes it simple to automate your phone reminders. When you do not have to make each call manually, you save valuable office time. A good reminder system also saves time on tracking appointment confirmations and cancellations.

Your appointment reminder service is a reflection of your practice. To help you make your choice, we've included our new article, Tips on Selecting an Automated Appointment Reminders Service.

For additional information, visit our website.

More tactics to lower your patient no show rate

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 by Susan Linton

Still looking for ideas to lower your no show rates? Try to do something different and see if it changes your no show rates.

Tactic 4: Send multi-channel appointment reminders
We've said it before and we'll say it again. Ask your patients how they'd like to receive their appointment reminders (cell phone, home phone, email, etc.) and listen. Chances are they are easiest to reach using the communication channel they say that they prefer. Multi-channel communications require more effort to manage but they increase your reach and the effectiveness of your communications.

Tactic 5: Don't just send one reminder, send multiple reminders
Patients might be annoyed by multiple reminders, but it can take more than one reminder to get their attention. Sending two reminders in advance of an important appointment is likely to be appreciated by the patient. Try sending one the week before and then a day before the appointment.

Tactic 6: Ask patients to confirm their appointments
By asking the patient for a confirmation or cancellation with the option to rebook, you can be 99.9% certain that they have received the appointment reminder and understood the message. Asking for the confirmation conveys the importance of keeping the appointment to the patient. The interactivity of the message means that the message is more involving and more memorable. Some automated appointment reminder systems can capture appointment confirmations automatically.

Be sure to read my previous two posts for additional ideas.

Patient satisfaction, patient care & physician compensation

Tuesday, November 29, 2011 by Susan Linton

The plans for the Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services to tie physician compensation to patient satisfaction (i.e., starting in October 2012, acute care hospitals with higher satisfaction scores will receive higher compensation from Medicare) have justifiably been controversial among the medical provider community.

Patient satisfaction depends on many factors, including how much time the patient spends waiting, treatment of the staff, the appointment confirmation process, etc. While the physician may have some influence on those factors, these factors have little to do with the quality of patient care.

Consider some of the adverse consequences of existing Pay for Performance (P4P) programs in place today. These systems provide financial incentives to reward providers for meeting certain quality measures. The results have been mixed.

Some of the issues that have arisen include poor collection of valid data for quality assessment and avoiding high-risk patients when payment was linked to clinical outcome measures. These measures can further reduce the accessibility of care to the neediest, most disadvantaged patients, those with low health literacy and fewer financial resources.

Ultimately patient satisfaction does likely have financial implications for medical practices in competitive markets. Dissatisfied patients will tell others and take their business elsewhere. It’s important to track patient satisfaction but these measures shouldn’t be directly tied to physician compensation.

The patient's perspective: Front desk reminder calls vs. automated reminder calls

Thursday, November 17, 2011 by Susan Linton

A common concern that medical practices have when considering automated reminder calls is their patients' reaction. The staff may believe that patients prefer a call from someone they know at the practice and that these calls are more effective than automated reminder calls. While some patients will prefer the personal call from your practice, you shouldn't assume that they represent the majority of your patients.

Many patients appreciate the automated reminder call service for the following reasons.

Greater efficiency. The calls use custom scripts and provide useful, personalized information to patients. Patients may be able to interact and respond to the message by pressing a button to confirm or cancel an appointment. Patients with more complex needs still have the option to call your practice.
Greater convenience. The telephone reminder service isn't limited to office hours. The service can call patients in the evening and on weekends, when they are more likely to be home.
Personalized and customizable experience. Automated calls can easily be replayed or offer options such as delivering the message in another language.

Pre-recorded reminder voice messages are not necessarily more impersonal than a call from your staff practice. Your staff often reaches someone's answering machine or voicemail so there isn't much difference between the automated reminder call using a pre-recorded message and the call from a staff member.

Some phone reminder systems send pre-recorded voice messages. These are human voice messages. Sound quality and the clarity of the speaker may still vary but high quality pre-recorded appointment reminder messages are recorded with professional voice talent in a controlled studio environment.

If you're concerned about patient acceptance of automated calls, ask your patients for feedback on your service. If most hate it, you'll know that you either need to find a better automated reminder service or find another solution.

For additional information on automated reminder calls, please visit Webley.

Revenue boosting and cost cutting strategies for smaller medical practices

Thursday, November 10, 2011 by Susan Linton

A Sermo survey found that 26% of solo physicians (single physician practices) have either closed their practice or are considering closing. Many have turned to practice management companies for assistance. Cash flow concerns are such that a delay in reimbursement can jeopardize the practice, so some solo physicians are switching to a cash-only model and/or becoming a non-participating provider.

"Physicians point to a variety of issues including low and delayed reimbursements, problems with management companies, and a lack of business/practice management education."

Finding more revenue opportunities

Most solo practitioners find that income is limited by the number of patients that can be seen per day. There are several ways to boost income. If the physician cannot see additional patients, it may make sense to add nonphysician providers (NPPs) who deal with routine cases or offer extended hours. If the physician has additional capacity, then consider adding a wider range of related services and econsults.

Take a close look at staffing and productivity

With the high cost of staffing, it's important to make the best use of your staff. Start by comparing your staffing levels with your peers and find ways to increase staff productivity. Technology can help. Some practices have no support staff. This is not to say that support staff are unimportant but that certain aspects can be outsourced or automated using technology (e.g., adding an online patient portal can reduce demands on your existing staff and allow patients the convenience of paying bills, requesting appointments, making prescription refill requests and so forth, online.)

Appointment reminder calls and other routine correspondence (e.g., account balance notifications, normal lab test results reporting) with patients can easily be handled with greater reliability and at a much lower cost by a good automated telephone reminder service. Appointment reminders delivered by email and SMS text messaging can be effective as well. These services usually automatically capture contact attempts and the results of each contact attempt. They can also offer multilingual messaging, custom scripts, and so forth.

EMRs, electronic billing and other technologies can decrease costs and increase staff productivity.

Control your no shows

Manage your no shows. Be sure to send appointment reminders. Lower no shows further by asking for confirmations. Follow up with patients who don't show up.

Take advantage of federal incentives

The federal government offers several incentive payment programs, including those for ePrescribing, EMRs and reporting of quality measures to Medicare under the Physician Quality Reporting System (PQRS).

Understanding the basics of automated appointment reminders

Thursday, September 15, 2011 by Webley MD

Driven by economic necessity, many physicians are seeing more patients than ever. Some are extending their hours to accommodate more patients. "According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, more than one in three primary care doctors now sees patients after hours, a figure experts say has surged among all specialties in the past 12 to 18 months."

This increase in patient load puts a greater demand on office staff as well. Over 75% of physician's practices use reminder telephone calls from their staff to remind patients about their appointment time and date. Even the smallest practice can benefit from automating appointment reminder calls.

Reminder phone calls from a phone dialer program help maintain peak patient flow. An automated appointment reminder system uses a computer software program to dial customers at a preset time before their appointment. A pre-recorded message provides a details of the appointment, including date, time and patient name. Even messages that are left on answering machines serve as effective reminders. However, the most effective reminder (i.e., the one with the lowest probability of a no show) is one where you reach your patient and your patient confirms the appointment.

Traditional communication methods have grown less effective

Many traditional patient appointment reminder techniques are no longer as effective today because lifestyles and communication preferences have changed. It's easier to reach many people on their cell phone and email than at home with a phone call.

Calling patients to remind them of upcoming appointments may take up several hours of effort. Dialing each person by hand and speaking with them, or leaving a message takes away from patients that are in the office. Using an automated phone reminder service can help to reach patients without the effort of a staff member. And the phone dialer can make calls during the evening, when the practice is closed and patients are more likely to be home.

Automated phone reminders are more efficient and more cost effective. The cost of making an automated phone call is typically 80% less than mailing a postcard and 72% less than making a manual phone call.

The same call reminder can deliver other routine messages, such as account balance notifications, lab test results, recommended health screenings, and more.

Automated phone calls have proven effective at getting the patient's attention and may offer interactive features that make it convenient for the patient to respond. This also makes it extremely easy for practices to track responses.

Tips for keeping your automated calls respectful, personal, and effective

Thursday, August 25, 2011 by Webley MD

Automated telephone reminders can sometimes be perceived as impersonal. However, this misconception is easily corrected by working to improve your patient's experience with your new computerized system. Here are three easy ways to be respectful, personal, and effective with your automated reminder calls.

1. Be aware of your messaging schedule
Have your reminder service send your messages at times that people are most likely to be home (after dinner) and available to take your call. Many people will not answer the phone during dinner, so avoiding the 5:30pm to 6:30pm time frame is a wise practice. Also, be aware of holidays and weekends, especially high travel times like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year celebrations.

2. Always be respectful
As you are well aware, medical matters require the utmost privacy. In your appointment reminder, don't reveal what the appointment is specifically for. Sometimes even mentioning that your doctor is the OB/GYN can be embarrassing for some. “Remember your appointment with Dr. Smith” is perfectly sufficient. Remember that just about anyone can be listening to the messages on an answering machine or taking the reminder call. Be respectful of your patient's privacy and they will be grateful.

3. Invite a two-way communication
One of the benefits of having your receptionist perform your reminder calls is that if the patient has any questions, she is already speaking with a live person who can answer them. In most cases, the patient doesn't have questions, so the pre-recorded message is sufficient. But sometimes the patient will have a question. To account for this possibility, be sure to include the practice phone number in your message script.

Your automated reminder may also be interactive. For example, the patient may be able to confirm the reminder by pressing a button. This type of message is superior to one that does not allow for two-way communication.

In the end, remember that automated communications can be just as personal and convenient as having your receptionist perform all the calls. It just takes the right combination of respect and usefulness to make the new system satisfying for your practice and your patients.

Best practices for sending appointment reminders to patients

Tuesday, August 2, 2011 by Webley MD

Many medical and dental practices have persistent problems with patients that don't show up for their appointments. And many practices, both large and small, have found a successful solution to this problem by using reminder call software. To obtain the best results with automated appointment reminders, we recommend the following best practices:

Personalize your message. Anyone is more responsive to a message that is personalized. Look for a reminder call service that can customize the call script based on the needs of your practice and also include the basic information: the patient's name, time and date of appointment.

Short, clear messages work best. While it's tempting to create a long message, an effective call reminder is clear, short, simple and slow paced. The patient needs to have an option to repeat the message and to hear key information again. This is the type of message that is most likely to be understood and remembered.

Call when the patient is likely to be home. A patient appointment reminder may not be as useful if the patient is not at home when the system calls. The patient may not check his messages often or the message can be lost if there is a power outage, someone deletes it, etc. Phone reminder software can send out messages in the evenings or on weekends when the patient is more likely to be home to receive it.

Include an easy way to respond. You can further reduce no show rates by capturing appointment confirmations and cancellations. Some appointment reminder services allow for interactive messages. Make it easy for the patient to respond to the message and you'll have a better idea of who will show up on the day of the appointment.

Consider message timing. Sending reminders a day before the appointment may not be enough to ensure that the patient receives the message (e.g., it may take multiple attempts to deliver the message). We've generally found that 2 days before the appointment works best. Of course this can differ by practice, so you may want to try a few variations and track the results to see what works best for your practice.

Send the message according to patient preferences and characteristics. Your goal for sending appointment reminders is to reach the patient in a timely manner and maximize the chance that the message is understood. You stand a greater chance of accomplishing your goal if you are able to send the message using the preferred communication channel of the patient, whether that is by email, to a particular phone number, etc. Have a large Spanish speaking patient base? Look for a reminder service that offers a Spanish language option.

If you have other best practices for sending appointment reminders, we'd love to hear them.

Technology provides relief to understaffing

Tuesday, June 14, 2011 by Susan Linton

I wanted to give a shout out to a blog that I found that seemed particularly helpful for medical practice managers. It's called Manage My Practice and the author is Mary Pat Whaley, a practice administrator in North Carolina. If you're a practice administrator, you're sure to identify with her and if you're not, you can learn what the life of a practice administrator is like.

One recent blog post contained many helpful pointers for practices that are struggling with answering patient phone calls. Mary Pat writes: "The only answer to understaffing is technology. Use a patient portal to allow patients to request refills, schedule appointments and chat with billing staff or nurses. Replace paper charts with EMR. Use efaxing to eliminate paper faxes. Use the cloud to store information and collaborate."

The key themes are (1) centralizing your information to make it easily accessible to others at your practice, (2) reducing paper - it's eco-friendly, saves money and makes it less likely that something will get overlooked/lost, (3) increasing the accessibility of your staff to your patients - maybe this means that it's time to let your patients email your staff, (4) offering self-service features for patients.

Automated patient messaging systems, aka reminder call software, save time and money for your practice. They make it easier for the practice to communicate with patients, whether it's sending appointment reminders or telling patients that their lab test results are available. They make it easier for patients to confirm their appointments. And the system tracks patient responses, creating an electronic report that can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection.

Automated voice answering services answer the phone for your practice and direct your callers - connecting them to the right person or organizing messages when no one can answer the phone. By connecting the caller to the right department or person, messages are organized, saving response time and the potential for lost or incorrectly relayed messages.

The virtual office receptionist answers the phone during lunch, breaks and after hours. The automated answering service can be easily turned on or off whenever the practice feels it is necessary or when everyone is away from the office.

Lessons learned from MGMA's top-performing practices

Thursday, April 21, 2011 by Susan Linton

Every year the MGMA surveys medical practices across the country, identifies top-performing practices, and looks at how these top-performing practices excel. The 2010 report found that top-performing practices often:

Use a greater number of nonphysician providers (NPPs). NPPs handle routine cases while physicians focus on more complex medical conditions. You can apply this lesson to other areas of your practice. For example, consider automating routine tasks handled by your staff, such as appointment reminder calls, informing patients of normal lab test results, providing basic information such as hours of operation, and so forth.
Adopt measures to minimize the impact of no shows and last minute cancellations. Smart practices know that no shows directly affect the bottom line. They don't just let them happen but they are proactive. They send appointment reminders, ask for appointment confirmations, and follow up with patients who miss appointments.
Increased accessibility by using open access scheduling and/or offering extended hours. Increased accessibility provides greater convenience for patients. Technology can also increase accessibility, e.g., econsults, patient portals, helpful practice websites, a social media presence, and so on.

Better performing practices are able to see more patients and be more responsive to patient needs. They're run like smart businesses who understand the value of the individual patient.

Why making reminder calls might not be enough to drive down your no show rates

Friday, April 1, 2011 by Webley MD

As a busy medical practitioner or office manager, you realize the importance of sending your patients reminders for their appointments. If you completely eliminated your reminders, you can expect your no show rates to increase immediately. So, you have your receptionist sit down with the list of patients with upcoming appointments and she makes phone calls for several hours. She does the same thing the next day, and the next day after that. Yet you may still find that your no show rates aren't as low as you'd like them to be.

It's not that your office doesn't make the effort to remind people to come in. The problem could very well be that the way you are approaching your reminders is ineffective.

Telephone calls to someone's home during the day are becoming an obsolete form of communication. That's because 80% of people are at work, school or out and about during the day. When your receptionist leaves a message on an answering machine, if there is an answering machine, there is no confirmation that the reminder has reached the intended patient. If there isn't an answering machine or the line is busy, your staff tries to call the person again (if there is time to do so).

Most people are home during the evening, but your staff doesn't make calls after your practice is closed. If you want to increase the effectiveness of your appointment reminders, you should make the calls when you're more likely to reach your patient and also listen to how they would like to be reached.

Some of your patients want to receive emails from your office. That is what is most convenient for many people today. While that may sound like more work than making reminder calls, in truth, it is much simpler. With an automated notifications service, all your receptionist does is generate a report with a list of patients that need appointment reminders and upload that report to the service provider. It takes her minutes, not hours. The messages reach your patients in ways that are convenient for them and the system automatically tracks the success of reminder attempts, appointment confirmations, appointment cancellations, etc.

The end result is that your no-show rates begin to decrease, your revenue increases, and your receptionist has a little extra time on her hands. It really is that easy.

How automating the appointment confirmation process can reduce no-shows

Thursday, March 24, 2011 by Webley MD

Missed appointments are a significant problem for most medical practices. The average no show rate is 20% according to MGMA and that's a percentage that's far too high for most practices to live with.

Initiating an effective two-way communication system between your office and patients is the number one way to battle no-shows.

The first step to improving communication with patients is to consider what's convenient for them and realistic for your practice to provide. An automated communication system can provide multiple channels of communication to accommodate your patients communication preferences. Whatever is most convenient for them, whether it is the standard telephone call reminder or an email, or both, the system can handle it. If you have your patient's email address and phone number(s) and an automated multi-channel electronic communication system, you'll have more chances to connect with your patient.

Automation is important because it allows your practice to quickly send messages to patients using multiple channels of communication. If you had your staff make phone calls, it could hours a day and tie up at least one phone line.

The next step is to automate your appointment confirmation process. The traditional postcard reminder made it difficult for a patient to confirm or cancel an appointment and phone call reminder made during the day usually reach an answering machine. Automated reminder services can make reminder calls during the evening - and thus are more likely to reach a live person who can then easily confirm or cancel the appointment during the call by pressing a button. Or with email appointment reminders, the patient can click to confirm or cancel an appointment. The system captures these responses and allows them to be easily viewed in an electronic report.

Patients who confirm appointments a day or two before the scheduled appointment are far less likely to miss their appointment.

Why your practice should consider automated patient notifications

Thursday, March 17, 2011 by Webley MD

A typical medical practice is an extremely busy place. The staff spends much of their time on the phone with patients for various reasons and it's often a challenge to keep up with appointment reminder calls, lab test results notifications, billing/account balance calls, etc. Some of these calls are routine and therefore can be efficiently handled by a quality automated notification system at a cost and time savings for the practice. Automated patient reminder calls are becoming commonplace for multiple reasons, the key ones being cost and time savings and improved communications technology.

Today's high quality patient reminder calls are often indistinguishable from manual calls for the patient receiving the call. These calls can be more effective as well as they can be made during the evening and over the weekend, when the patient is more likely to be home. And they are easily tracked. The practice can be assured that the patient reminder calls will be made.

No practice can survive long with a constant stream of no show appointments. While your office might give out patient reminder cards, sometimes those don't help with patient no shows. This is especially true when the appointment is 3-6 months out; there are just too many chances that the appointment reminder card will be lost or get buried underneath something. Even with reminder cards, it's important to call the patient a day or two before the appointment.

A phone dialer program can send the patient a personalized reminder with the date and time of their appointment. It can also give the patient any other information they might need for their visit. And it may be able to automatically capture the patient's response, including appointment confirmations and appointment cancellations. The same program may be able to help with other types of notifications as well, including account balance notifications, lab test results notifications, immunizations and more.

An automated reminder service is easy, affordable and best of all, allows you to communicate more effectively with your patients so that they receive timely reminders.

Key benefits of automating your patient reminders

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 by Susan Linton

On a good day, your front office staff has time to answer the phone, greet patients, make those appointment reminder calls and more. But in reality, there will be days that the staff just doesn't have time to get to all the important tasks of the day.

As Rosemarie Nelson, principal with the MGMA Health Care Consulting Group observes, "All too often when I'm in a practice, I see a last minute scramble by the staff to race through those calls at 4:30 in the afternoon. They leave rushed messages on answering machines and in voice mail without really confirming with the patient. And suppose they do reach the patient. If he says he can't come in after all, it's too late in the day to fill the slot with another patient."

Automated patient call reminders are superior to having your staff make calls because these call reminder systems are more reliable, capture patient confirmations automatically and track results. All this happens with little effort on from the staff and a cost savings to the practice. Reminder calls can be scheduled to go out a day or two before the appointment, giving staff members a chance to fill in time slots that open up due to cancellations.

Rosemarie Nelson estimates the cost of a reminder call from a staff member who leaves a message to be $0.42 cents per call, and the cost of a call that reaches a patient to be $0.63 to $0.82 cents. Automated calls typically save the practice at least 50% of the cost of a call from a staff member. With that extra time that automated reminders can save the staff, they can turn their attention to more rewarding, non-routine tasks.

The “Seven C's” of Automation

Wednesday, March 9, 2011 by Webley MD

Automated patient messaging systems make it easy to send large volumes of messages to patients by phone and by email. Automating patient messages also have other benefits that go beyond the ability to send volume messages and save time. There are seven major benefits – that conveniently begin with the letter "C" – that can adequately begin to describe such a powerful system.

Consistent
Often when performing reminder calls, receptionists can come across as tired and bored. Automated reminders send pre-recorded voice messages that are consistently pleasant and professional. The automated service sounds as good on the first call as it does on the last call.

Customizable
Every reminder can be customized to the specific patient with his or her name and the date and time of the appointment. Automated messaging systems may also offer other types of customization to meet the needs of each practice, including, for example, adding special instructions to arrive 15 minutes before the appointment and bring proof of insurance.

Content
Automated notification services can be incredibly versatile. While the most popular script is appointment reminders, many practices use automated patient messaging to send out account balance due notifications, lab results, vaccine reminders and more.

Clarity
While calls from humans may suffer from background noise and interruptions, automated notifications systems use pre-recorded voice messages. These messages may be recorded in a recording studio using professional voice talent. The message quality of a recorded message is often higher than a call from an operator or staff member. Recipients can replay the message as often as they want, so it's highly likely that the message will be received and understood as intended.

Channels
Similarly, automated reminder messages don't have to be restricted to the telephone calls alone. They can accommodate patient communication preferences by sending email notifications.

Confirmation
One of the most important C's, automated appointment reminders are interactive. They make it easy for patients to confirm or cancel the upcoming appointment.

Conclusive
After the day's calls and emails go out to patients, an automated notification system generates a detailed report. A call report may show how many people picked up, how many messages were left on answering machines, and more. Practices will know which patients confirmed or cancelled appointments.

For additional information on automated reminder messages, please visit Webley.

The Three C's of Effective Appointment Reminders

Tuesday, March 1, 2011 by Webley MD

An effective appointment reminder message is concise, clear and personalized. When reminder calls are made by the front office staff, the message is personalized but highly variable. Automated appointment reminders allow for easy mass customization of appointment reminders. While the core script stays the same, the message can be customized by adding the patient's name, the date and time of the appointment, the practice name, the practice phone number and other custom elements, such as special instructions for patients (e.g., arrive 15 minutes early for the appointment), the ability to confirm or cancel the appointment, etc.

When appointment reminders are effective, you will see an immediate change in your no-show rates. That's not all though. There are three other important benefits of automated appointment reminders.

Comfort

Often a trip to the doctor's office is a stressful event, especially when a patient is in poor health. It's important that a practice make efforts to put the patient at ease. The style of your waiting room, the manner of your receptionists, and even your appointment reminders can make a difference. When the personalized appointment reminder is delivered by a cheerful, professional voice rather than a tired receptionist, the patient is reassured.

Convenience

Personalized appointment reminders are no longer have to be restricted to telephone calls. Patients can also receive appointment reminders by email. For patients who desire email reminders, offering this option increases convenience and makes it more likely that the patient will receive the reminder.

Confirmation

Automated appointment reminder systems typically offer a variety of "scripts" or patient message types. One script that can increase your confidence in your patient's likelihood of showing up for the appointment is the appointment reminder with confirmation. This message is interactive. Patients can easily respond to the phone message or email by confirming or cancelling the appointment.

To learn more about automated appointment reminders, visit Webley.

The dangers of overbooking appointments

Thursday, February 24, 2011 by Webley MD

The decision to overbook your practice's appointment schedule is not one that should be made lightly. A successfully overbooked schedule is one that reliably predicts that a certain number of patients will fail to show up for their appointments. A failed overbooking schedule means a day of panic, stress, and long wait times for patients – both in your lobby waiting room and in exam rooms. Patients who show up on time out of respect for the practice's schedule are punished for their good behavior.

Achieving successful overbooked schedules is very difficult. It's difficult to predict who will and won't show. Looking at their past behavior can help when someone is a habitual no show - but your practice may be better off ending its relationship with the habitual no show rather than continue to tolerate such behavior.

You want to avoid a failed overbooking schedule at all costs. Not only are those long periods of waiting time inconvenient and inconsiderate of your patients' valuable time, they also prolong anxiety. Long wait times reflect poorly on your practice and are resented by patients.

Using automated appointment reminders is a practical solution to combat no show rates. Automated reminders systems are more effective, reliable and less expensive than manual reminders. The technology also makes it easy for a patient to confirm or cancel an appointment. Appointment confirmations increase the confidence a practice has that a patient will show up and it also identifies the patients who would like to reschedule.

For more information about appointment reminders and confirmations, visit Webley.

Automating your appointment reminders is as easy as 1-2-3

Tuesday, February 15, 2011 by Webley MD

The typical medical practice is extremely inefficient when it comes to reminding patients of upcoming appointments. Using the front office staff to make reminder calls is expensive and not the most effective way to make reminder calls. Calls are limited to office hours and many times the staff member reaches an answering machine. There will be days when the reminder calls are overlooked or the staff simply doesn't have time to make the calls.

Using an automated appointment reminders system is a powerful way to improve the performance and efficiency of appointment reminders. While a list of appointment reminder calls would take your receptionist hours to complete, telephone dialer software calls the list in minutes.

It's difficult for a practice to understand the impact of automated reminders without signing up for an appointment reminders service. It's also difficult for practices to judge which automated appointment reminder services are easy to learn and use.

We'll use Webley MD's automated appointment reminders service as an example of how easy an automated appointment reminder system can be to use.

Step 1: Configuration

Some phone dialer vendors require you to install software on your office computers and possibly buy equipment. Webley MD Reminders is a software on demand service and it's accessible by any computer that is connected to the Internet. There is no software installation step. However, the service is customizable to the practice's needs, so step 1 involves determining the needs of the practice and configuring the service to meet those needs. Some options include capturing appointment confirmations, sending email and voice reminders, and offering reminders in other languages. The only technical know-how needed is the know-how every practice already possesses.

Step 2: Send Appointment Information

Practices don't have to adjust a wide range of settings in order for appointment reminders to go out. All that's needed is the patient appointment information. Once the appointment information is received, the service automatically generates personalized appointment reminders.

Step 3: Make calls

It will take just a few minutes for the automated appointment reminder service to make all the appointment reminder calls and send out email reminders. The system is able to track the outcome of each attempt to reach a patient and it records the outcome. Practices can easily monitor the results of each day's campaigns by viewing detailed reports.

Steps 2 and 3 are repeated every day. It's as easy as that.

Good phone coverage is critical to the success of your practice

Friday, February 11, 2011 by Webley MD

More than any other business, it is vital that a medical office has 24/7 phone coverage. Good phone coverage after hours is as important as phone coverage during business hours. Patients do not decide when they will become ill and they need to know that their physician's office is responsive to their needs at any time. All medical practices can benefit from an automated answering system.

With phone coverage around the clock, you can save money, improve customer service, speed up response times (and reduce wait times), and communicate more effectively.

An automated answering service handles incoming calls

An automated answering service works like a virtual office receptionist. When there is no one available to answer the call, the answering system will pick up and lead the patient through a menu that your practice has customized to its own needs. So for example, many practices will set up a phone tree that connects patients to billing, appointments, insurance, etc. By connecting the caller to the right department or person, messages are organized, saving response time and the potential for lost or incorrectly relayed messages.

Your staff can now leave for lunch without worrying about phone coverage. The virtual office receptionist answers the phone during lunch, breaks and after hours. The automated answering service can be easily turned on or off whenever the practice feels it is necessary or when everyone is away from the office.

When you use an automated medical answering service to handle after hours calls, the on-call physician receives the message quickly and is able to listen to the patient's message, think of a response and call back. Patients who call after hours looking for clinical advice are usual anxious and waiting hours for a return sends the signal that their call is not valued. Don't let your patients think your practice doesn't care.

An automated patient messaging service calls your patients for you

There are other ways to improve your phone coverage. You can reduce the number of incoming calls and outgoing calls by using an automated patient messaging service. For example, rather than have anxious patients calling in for their lab results, you can use an automated messaging service to send lab results to patients. Appointment reminder calls can take hours a day if they're made by your staff, but an automated messaging service can deliver these messages for you. Some services can even automatically retrieve your patient appointment information, so all your staff would need to do is to view reports to see how many patients were reached, how many confirmed their appointments and how many cancelled their appointments.

When you use automated patient messaging, you free up phone lines so patients who need to speak to a live operator are more likely to get through. It's incredibly frustrating for a busy patient to be put on hold or not be able to get through when calling - and it creates a bad impression. They now feel that it's inconvenient and difficult to reach their practice.

Automated medical communication technologies make it easy to provide comprehensive, round the clock phone coverage.