Automated Phone Reminder

How to improve your patient collections

Thursday, February 2, 2012 by Susan Linton

Why patient collections are a concern for most practices

While workers are asked to pay more and share in healthcare costs, employers are still facing rising healthcare costs. A PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) report issued in June 2010 found that "for the first time, a majority of U.S. workers are expected to have health insurance deductibles of $400 or more as more employers return to pre-managed care “indemnity style” cost sharing by raising out-of-pocket limits, replacing flat-dollar co-pays with percentage-based co-insurance, and adding high-deductible health plans."

At the same time, Medicare is reducing reimbursement rates, so an increasing percentage of revenue will be coming from self-pay patients and patients with health savings accounts and high-deductible plans. This requires practices to be better at collecting directly from patients.

How automating account balance notifications can improve patient collections

A typical practice mails the explanation of benefits and then mails account balance due reminders as many as 3 to 6 times before turning over the account to a collections agency or writing off the debt. The results usually leave much to be desired.

Combining mailed reminders with phone calls is more effective than using either alone. Mail the reminder first and follow it in a week or two with a phone call. Multiple reminders by mail, phone and email usually work better than reminders using just one communication method.

Automated account balance notification calls delivered by a telephone reminder service make it easy to quickly reach patients with a message to contact your office to discuss their account status. This type of call is far less awkward for the office staff to handle than one where they are asked to call the patient to initiate a conversation about payment.

Mailed reminders can easily be ignored or overlooked but once you have someone on the phone, you can figure out a payment plan or find other ways to facilitate payment.

With automated reminder calls and emails, patient account balance notifications can be sent in just minutes compared to days (when mailing reminders). By speeding up the reminders process, patients receive reminders faster and they pay their balances faster as well.

Dealing with the top challenges faced by medical practices today: Rising operating costs

Thursday, January 19, 2012 by Susan Linton

Continuing with the theme of the last post, we're taking a closer look at one of the main challenges faced by medical practices according to the 2011 MGMA member survey. For the past few years, operating costs have been rising faster than revenues for the average medical practice and this trend is expected to continue.

Cost cutting is a necessity for medical practices. Automation of routine tasks can help cut costs and boost office efficiency without compromising customer service. Let's look at three ways that automation decreases business operating expenses:

Incoming message management. An automated answering service can replace the more expensive live doctor answering services. A virtual office phone answering service records messages and sends new message notifications, providing greater message accuracy and greater speed and reliability than a live human operator can. The automated service can route callers according to their reason for calling and perform many of the functions of a medical receptionist when the practice is closed.

Timely responses to after hours calls from patients with the need for clinical advice are also an opportunity to increase patient satisfaction and look after your patient's health.

Outgoing automated messages that improve communication with patients. An automated notifications service can perform functions typically performed by a receptionist, including sending out appointment reminders, payment reminders, lab results availability, and more. Think of how many appointment reminder calls your office makes per week, per month, and per year. The cost of those phone calls adds up quickly, especially if you pay extra for long distance. With an automated reminders system in place, you can decrease your monthly phone bills. If you mail appointment reminders, shifting to automated phone reminders will save you about 35 cents per postcard or 85 cents per letter.

Offering greater convenience with self service tools. A new survey conducted by Intuit, the company behind Quicken Health financial management software, found that 72% of respondents said they would "use online tools to pay bills, send messages to physicians, make appointments and get lab results. Eighty-four percent would fill out forms online prior to an appointment if that option were available."

Cost cutting need not involve reducing staff but it should involve making better use of your staff and increasing office efficiency. Instead of paying your receptionist to make hundreds of reminder calls per week, why not have her use her time in a more valuable way? Let the service send out the reminders through an automated call system. Maybe your receptionist can spend that extra time on billing or something that raises your revenues. You won't have to hire someone just to help out with making phone calls.

Your office is closed but still hard at work, thanks to your virtual medical receptionist

Thursday, January 12, 2012 by Susan Linton

Ever wish that there were more hours in a day so that you could finish your tasks at work? Wish you had more time to communicate with patients? Virtual medical receptionists can help your practice continue to serve your patients after your human staff has gone home for the day.

Handling inbound messages when your office is closed

A virtual medical receptionist can answer the phone when no one is available, including during lunch, breaks, holidays and after hours. The virtual receptionist answers all calls courteously and promptly. When a caller leaves a message, a new message notification is relayed immediately.

The call routing and immediate new message notification features are particularly useful after hours. The on call physician will have quick access to patient messages and can triage the call personally, rather than relying on the call center operator to make such important decisions. Because the patient leaves a message, the on call physician can listen to and repeat the message, think about a response and call back. The recorded message can be saved to the patient's electronic medical record for future reference.

Sending patients outbound messages when your office is closed

Rather than burdening your staff with a long list of calls to be made, your virtual medical receptionist can be put to use by making those routine calls for your practice. Even better, the virtual receptionist tracks attempts to reach patients and the outcome of each call.

Appointment reminders

It can take your staff hours a day to make appointment reminder calls. The staff member often reaches an answering machine and leaves a message with the date and time of the appointment. When a live person is reached, confirmation and cancellations can be captured. A virtual medical receptionist can perform these identical tasks, including allowing the patient to easily confirm or cancel the appointment. The virtual medical receptionist can also call in the evening, when the practice is closed and patients are most likely to be home.

Account balance notification

When it comes to collecting account balances from patients, it can take multiple calls to reach the patient. It's frustrating for your staff to make these calls. The automated phone dialer program can deliver the same message without burdening your staff. The patient will call your practice ready to discuss his/her account.

Lab test results notification

Patients are naturally anxious about their test results and they may call your office multiple times to get their results. You can minimize these types of calls by keeping patients better informed. Tell them when they can expect the results and that they can expect a call when the results are in. The virtual medical receptionist makes it easy to deliver lab test results to patients.

Health screenings and vaccines

If your practice has the capacity to handle additional appointments, your virtual medical receptionist can call patients and suggest that they come in for recommended health screenings and vaccines. Target your existing patients for these type of messages. Your patients will appreciate the extra step you take to keep them healthy.

For additional information, please visit Webley.

Why 2012 will be the year of patient satisfaction

Friday, January 6, 2012 by Susan Linton

Pay for performance (P4P) isn't going away and 2012 is the year that many practices that have yet to ready themselves for the days of P4P will need to take on the challenge. Notably, Medicare will include patient experience measures on the Medicare Physician Care website by Jan. 1, 2013 and experts are predicting that patient experience will be incorporated in the pay formula for physicians by 2015.

Hospitals are already required to report patient survey data to Medicare and in 2013, hospital compensation will be linked to patients' reported experiences.

There are a variety of different ways to increase patient satisfaction with your practice. Some of these involve expensive investments such as remodeling your waiting room. Others like encouraging staff to check in on patients in the waiting room, and taking steps to reduce waiting time can make a significant impact at little to no cost.

An automated appointment reminder service can increase patient satisfaction exponentially and pay for itself by decreasing your practice's no show rate.

Here are three ways that you will observe patients being happier with your service. You won't have to wait long to see the difference.

1. Provide a useful, convenient service that takes into account patient preferences

It's easy to forget appointments that were made months ago. Patients appreciate appointment reminders and they appreciate them even more when you increase the convenience of receiving and responding to reminders. An automated appointment reminder service can do just that by easily personalizing each message, offering email and call reminders, offering language options, etc. Increase satisfaction even further by sending other types of automated messages, such as lab results and preventive health screening recommendations.

2. Promote ease of communication

With a phone reminder service, receptionists will no longer tie up phone lines for hours a day making reminder calls. That means that there will actually be open phone lines for patients to call in without receiving a busy signal or being placed on hold for long periods of time.

3. Decrease waiting time due to overbooking

With a phone reminder service, you can decrease your no-show rates by 30% or more, which means you stop overbooking. When you no longer have to overbook, you will decrease waiting time for your patients because you will not be overscheduled and patients can get in and out of their appointments quickly.

Learn more about how to increase patient satisfaction by reading our EzineArticles.com article: Quick Tips for Improving Your Patient Satisfaction Scores.

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.

Send us your referrals & earn unlimited rewards

Thursday, December 22, 2011 by Susan Linton

Webley MD is looking for medical practices who could benefit from automating their answering service and patient notifications. Help us get the word out and you'll earn $100 for every qualified referral. It's called Refer & Earn and here are the details:

Who's eligible to make a referral?

Adults in the U.S. and Canada
Need not be a Webley MD Customer
No self-referrals please

What am I referring?

Our award-winning Webley MD Reminders patient notification service can send automated notifications for appointment reminders, account balance due reminders, lab test results, vaccines, and health screenings. Pay only for the calls, the email notifications are free. Our service saves practices money and improves patient-practice communication.

Webley MD After Hours is a virtual medical receptionist. Our service is more accurate than an answering service and more reliable and feature rich than an answering machine. Designed with after hours medical care in mind, Webley MD After Hours puts the triage decision back in the hands of the on-call physician. The physician decides on how to be notified of new messages and can change on-call status with a quick phone call.

How can I improve my chances of earning the reward?

You'll improve your chances to earn if you talk to the person you're referring about Webley MD. Print out our brochure and leave a copy with the person you'd like to refer.

Timing matters too. It's the end of the year and many practices start planning for the new year around now. It's a good time to talk to them about automating their patient communications.

What do I do?

Start referring and earning today. Learn more, read the rules, and find the referral form here.

Increasing vaccination rates through improved communication

Thursday, December 15, 2011 by Susan Linton

The other day I read an interesting blog post by Dr. Stephen Schimpff in which he presented some studies on how Merck's vaccine, Zostavax, reduced the incidence of shingles (herpes zoster) by 50%. He came to the conclusion that most adults over 60 should receive the zoster vaccine.

The decision whether to recommend a vaccine or not is complicated and depends on more than just what the research says about the vaccine. As commenters pointed out, there's also the cost factor - is it worth vaccinating so many people to reduce the disease incidence by a minuscule amount? This expensive vaccine is also often not covered by insurance and there have been supply shortages. The article also points out that "many older people do not respond well to the vaccine," so there are issues of effectiveness and side effects to consider.

Let's say that the physicians at your practice have decided to recommend a particular vaccine to your patients - what would you do next? Prepare letters and postcards? This is the perfect time to use broadcast messaging.

A good automated notifications service can send personalized messages by phone and by email to your patients. This type of service can usually also deliver other valuable communications, such as appointment reminders, recommendations for health screenings, account balance notifications and more. It saves staff hours of dialing and time spent on the phone - or hours spent printing out and addressing letters and postcards.

Sending notifications demonstrates that your practice is proactive about keeping your patients in good health. Both adults and children benefit from keeping up to date with vaccinations.

With the collective effort of practices and patients, outbreaks can be prevented or controlled. But patients need to be educated and this is where their healthcare provider can provide value. People trust their own physicians and so a recommendation from them can be more effective than a public health announcement.

Broadcast voice messaging makes sense for practices of all sizes, offering an affordable way to improve communication between the practice and the patient.

For additional inforamtion, visit the Webley 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.

The staff’s perspective: Front desk reminder calls vs. automated reminder calls

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 by Susan Linton

An automated patient messaging service can be just what your staff needs, if you find that understaffing and/or inefficiency are plaguing your practice. By automating time consuming, routine tasks such as appointment reminder calls, lab test results notifications, and account balance due notifications, reminder call software offers the following key benefits to your staff:

Reliability and tracking. The service automatically tracks when messages were sent and message outcomes (e.g., someone answered the phone, message was left on an answering machine). Because of this tracking, your staff will know with certainty whether the reminders and other messages were sent.

Time savings. Your staff can save hours a day by using this service and reducing the number of calls that they need to make. This is time that they can spend on other tasks, such as greeting patients.

Improved communication with patients. Your messaging service can use multiple communication channels (phone, email, text) to reach patients according to their communication preferences and it can do this when your practice is closed. Your staff will appreciate the ease and effectiveness of automating routine patient messaging.

Your staff may have some concern that automating calls will reduce their usefulness and possibly their job security. While this is a natural concern, a good manager will find better uses for his/her employees and since this should improve the overall health of the practice, this benefits all employees.

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.

Tips for reducing patient wait times

Tuesday, November 8, 2011 by Susan Linton

Wait times are a key source of patient dissatisfaction. Press Ganey, a health industry survey firm, looked at hospital satisfaction scores and found that keeping patients informed of delays can increase patient satisfaction. They also found patients were equally dissatisfied with wait time in the exam room vs. the waiting room. You can boost patient satisfaction by making a few changes that reduce wait times.

Phone wait times

Being placed on hold on the phone for a long period of time or waiting a long time for a call back from the practice can be incredibly frustrating for your patients. Busy practices can decrease call volume and keep phone lines free by using an automated patient notification service. The service can send patient appointment reminders, lab results notifications, account balance notifications and other messages without using the practice's phone line and with minimal staff effort.

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.

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.

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.

Office wait times

Practices that have adopted patient check-in technologies (e.g., electronic check in using a kiosk or tablet PC) have dramatically reduced check in times. For example, Vanguard Urological Institute in Houston, TX, a 4 member practice, adopted a check-in kiosk - the average wait time at Vanguard in 2010 was 2.44 minutes while the national average is 21.3 minutes.

Offering forms on your practice website that patients can print out and fill out ahead of time is convenient for patients, inexpensive for the practice and effective at reducing office wait times.

While few patients like wait times, sometimes they are inevitable. The best way of dealing with long wait times when they occur is to keep the patient informed and apologize for the delay. Also make sure you have a wide variety of current magazines in your waiting room to help pass the time.

Staff retention, workplace satisfaction and patient satisfaction

Thursday, October 20, 2011 by Susan Linton

I recently read a Fierce Practice Management article called Master the three A's of staff retention. The article identifies three non-financial reasons for staff satisfaction: (1) autonomy (empowering staff to make decisions), (2) action (feeling that they have helped a patient), (3) assessment (feedback on their performance but also allowing them to assess their managers). These three A's relate to having a sense of authority and competence and feeling valued by one's organization.

What it leaves out is the importance of the relationship with one's manager.

Surveys have shown that 39% of employees leave their organization because of their poor relationship with their supervisor. "What staff want in a leader is approachability; to work "shoulder to shoulder"; tools and equipment to do their jobs well; appreciation; efficient systems; and opportunities for professional development."

Managers have a responsibility to increase the efficiency of the organization.

While you may have an efficient, experienced front desk, your staff might spend too much time on routine tasks and not enough time on higher value, more complex tasks. Your staff might be spending too much time answering the phone, making routine calls and sending out routine correspondence. They may not realize that many of those tasks could be automated at a cost and time savings. It is the responsibility of the manager to learn about new methods of improving the medical practice.

Automated patient appointment reminders have been effective at (1) reducing no show rates, (2) decreasing the amount of time the staff needs to spend on making manual reminder calls - possibly saving hours a day, (3) increasing the reliability of reminder calls.

Automated answering services offer many of the same features of a healthcare answering service, including new message notification and call screening. Automated answering services have the important benefit of eliminating the middleman, so that the on-call physician can receive messages immediately.

Both of these technologies save your staff time, money and effort. Once you have a happier staff, you'll find that you'll have happier patients as well.

Cut costs, grow revenues and streamline your practice by increasing staff productivity

Thursday, September 29, 2011 by Susan Linton

Do you wonder how you can grow revenues and save money without compromising patient care? Did you know that support staff costs account for 32% of operating expenses at the average practice?*

It makes sense that most practices are looking to save on staff salaries. Sure you can ask your staff to forgo a raise but there are better ways to increase staff productivity and reign in costs. Namely, smart practices are turning to technology to automate some of routine tasks around the practice and increase accessibility without compromising service. In fact, shifting the routine tasks to an automated system frees up time for your staff, allowing them to spend more quality time with patients and work on more complex tasks.

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 capture contact attempts and the results of each contact attempt. They can also offer multilingual messaging, custom scripts, and so forth.

Patients hate to be kept waiting, whether the wait occurs in the waiting room, on the phone, or after hours. An automated voice answering service or virtual office receptionist can direct callers to the person or department that they'd like to reach, take and relay messages, and put an end of unanswered calls and busy signals. The virtual office receptionist can field your after hours calls as well, and ensure that the on-call physician is quickly alerted when a patient calls looking for clinical advice.

For additional information on how medical office automation technology can help your practice, visit Webley.

* Source: 2009 MGMA cost survey

Send us your referrals and you'll be generously rewarded

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 by Susan Linton

Webley MD's Refer & Earn program gives you the chance to earn $100 for every qualified referral to Webley MD. And there's no limit to how many referrals you can send to us.

We're looking for "medical" practices (by medical, we use the term loosely, it includes dentists, vets, optometrists, physical therapists, chiropractors, and more) in the U.S. and Canada that could benefit from automating their patient communications.

Who can send us a referral?

All adult legal residents in the U.S. and Canada
Need not be a Webley MD Customer
No self-referrals

What am I referring?

Our award-winning Webley MD Reminders patient notification service can send automated notifications for appointment reminders, account balance due reminders, lab test results, vaccines, and health screenings. Pay for the calls and the patient email notifications are free.

Webley MD After Hours is a virtual medical receptionist. Our service is more accurate than an answering service and more reliable and feature rich than an answering machine. Designed with after hours medical care in mind, Webley MD After Hours puts the triage decision back in the hands of the on-call physician. The physician decides on how to be notified of new messages and can change on-call status with a quick phone call.

How can I improve my chances of earning the reward?

You'll improve your chances to earn if you talk to the person you're referring about Webley MD. Print out our brochure from our website and leave a copy with the person you'd like to refer and/or send them our website URL, www.webley.com

Start referring and earning today. Learn more and find the referral form here.

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.

Leveraging technology for healthier patients and practices

Tuesday, August 30, 2011 by Webley MD

Healthcare is an industry that struggles to meet the challenge of reconciling high touch with high tech. The essence of healthcare resides in the personal relationship between a patient and that patient’s physician. Technology, in many cases, appears to erode that sense of personalization that patients seek.

A virtual medical assistant can actually help strengthen the practice-patient relationship by providing both parties with timely, easily accessible, relevant, and convenient communication. Patients, like doctors and the front office staff, are busy and they appreciate phone reminders from their practice. Without a reminder, appointments are more likely to be missed and are often rescheduled much later or not at all.

Automated reminder calls that prevent a missed appointment may mean the difference between the early detection and treatment of a life threatening disease or a serious illness that is detected too late.

An automated call service not only increases the probability that a patient is seen and issues diagnosed as early as possible but it also ensures higher revenues for the practice. From the practitioner’s perspective, this type of medical practice support optimizes a doctor’s time so that he or she can help the greatest number of patients in a day without having to experience ebbs and flows in the daily appointment schedule. That proves to be healthy for the physician, both physically and mentally, and it also ensures a steady flow of paying patients so that the practice can continue to employ other physicians, nurses, technologists, back office staff and the like.

A reminder call service is a win/win for doctor and patient. The technology will both reduce costs and increase revenues, thereby providing the means and the incentives for physicians to continue to deliver quality health with greater efficiency. Patients experience continuity of care and better health.

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.

Robocalls to patients are on the rise

Tuesday, August 23, 2011 by Susan Linton

A growing number of patients are now receiving robocalls, automated phone calls that use a phone dialer program to deliver a pre-recorded message. There are several reasons for the recent uptick, including:

Declining revenues. Many practices have seen a drop in patient visits, a rise in no show rates, and an increase in bad debt/unpaid services. In response, some have become proactive about increasing demand for services, e.g., looking for new revenue streams like health screenings, sending reminders about overdue exams, etc.

Increased ease of broadcast messaging. At the same time that revenues have been falling, many practices are digitizing patient health records. This transition from paper to electronic records makes it much easier for practices to use robocalls. For example, some practice management systems have integrated billing and appointment reminder features. It can be easy for practices that do not have a PMS with integrated appointment reminders or billing to quickly send broadcast messages. 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.

Effectiveness of robocalls. Many practices are finding that robocalls are effective, driving wider adoption. While some patients may find automated calls annoying, a practice can help increase acceptance of robocalls by informing patients of what to expect and choosing a quality reminder call service.

Robocalls are not all the same and they need not sound robotic. Some services use prerecorded messages read by professional voice talent and recorded in a studio setting. You can probably save money by using a service that uses text to speech technology but these calls will sound "more robotic" but this technology continues to improve.

For additional information, visit Webley.

Studies show that reminders increase colon cancer screening rates

Thursday, August 18, 2011 by Susan Linton

Two new studies published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that reminders about overdue colon cancer screenings significantly increase screening rates.

In one study, a single electronic message reminder from the physician boosted colon cancer screening rates to 8.3%, compared to the control group's 0.2%. The control group did not receive a reminder message. Over 1/2 of the recipients read the message.

In the other study, one group overdue for a colonoscopy received a letter, DVD, brochure and phone call about colorectal cancer. The control group received "the usual care." Three months after the intervention, the experimental group's colon cancer screening rate was 9.9% compared to 3.2% for the control group.

The results are not surprising. They are encouraging. Education, awareness and targeted messaging were effective at changing behavior and promoting good health.

While overall screening rates remained low, inexpensive interventions can reach and motivate some patients. A single electronic message can have an impact. It's likely that a single automated phone call could also be effective.

It's unlikely that your staff has the time to call each of these patients, explain the benefit of the screening and schedule the appointment. Mailings are expensive, effortful and not as effective as phone calls. An easy to use automated notifications service can send out preventive reminders with little staff effort. Sending reminders for preventive health screenings is good for patients and good for the practice's bottom line. For additional information, visit Webley.

The ABC's of improving collections with automated account balance notifications

Thursday, August 11, 2011 by Susan Linton

As health plan deductibles and co-payments rise, medical practices are finding themselves collecting an increasing proportion of their revenues directly from patients. This trend makes it increasingly important for practices to improve their billing and collections process. Practices can benefit by learning from debt collection agencies without using a collection agency.

Practices should be doing more to improve their own collections efforts because of the high cost of using a collection agency. The typical collection agency is able to recover 14% at a cost of 33 cents per dollar (source: American Collectors Association). Follow the ABC's below to improve your collections effort:

Automated account balance notifications

Benefits of multi-channel reminders

Mailing account balance reminders on a regular basis (e.g., every 30, 60, 90 days) is a step in the right direction but collection agencies have found that phone calls are the most effective way to collect on debts. Combining mailed reminders with phone calls is more effective than using either alone. Mail the reminder first and follow it in a week or two with a phone call.

Mailed reminders can easily be ignored or overlooked but once you have someone on the phone, you can figure out a payment plan or find other ways to facilitate payment.

Collect in fewer days

With call reminders, your practice can get the attention of more patients and prompt them to call your office. Email reminders can work well for some patients and automated notifications technology makes it easy to send account balance reminders by email. Multiple reminders by mail, phone and email usually work better than reminders using just one communication method.

To learn more about automated account balance notifications, visit Webley.