Medical Appointment Reminder

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

What "unlimited" automation could mean for your practice

Tuesday, November 15, 2011 by Webley MD

The medical provider industry is moving towards the digitization of all patient information. With the electronic storage of patient information comes improved accessibility and the ease of automating certain routine processes. With ease and accessiblity come speed; patients will have access to bills, lab results and so forth faster than ever. Physicians can pull up a patients' history and lab results, easily access codes, and benefit from evidence-based medicine.

The era of fully automated medical practices is not yet upon us, but most medical practices are able to take advantage of an extremely useful, low cost form of automation, automating patient communications. By taking your call reminders to automated and unlimited heights, your practice's efficiency, staff morale, and customer service will soar. Automated patient reminders can help your practice:

Unlimited messages

Automated call reminder systems are not limited by office hours or employee fatigue. It only takes a few minutes to set up a broadcast messaging campaign that can go out to as many patients as you'd like. The results are automatically tracked in helpful electronic reports.

Unlimited applications

Automated messaging systems are not just for appointment reminders. You can use them to send patient account balance due reminders, health screening reminders, and other important announcements.

For additional information, 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.)

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).

Dealing with competition from retail clinics

Thursday, November 3, 2011 by Susan Linton

With medical practices facing increasing competition from retail clinics, it's time for practices that are looking to boost demand for their services to develop strategies to attract and retain patients.

The retail clinic advantage: Accessibility

Retail clinics are attractive because they are more accessible (e.g., open longer hours, no appointment needed). Remember to remain accessible after hours as well. Sell your after hours availability by instructing patients to call your practice after hours. This may save many from an unnecessary, expensive visit to an emergency room. A virtual medical receptionist may be very helpful to your after hours callers.

It may make sense for your practice to stay open longer hours and leave some unscheduled slots for drop-in patients. This is a common practice that should be fairly easy to implement.

Play to your practice's strengths

Practices have several key advantages over retail clinics including: (1) wider range of available services, (2) stronger relationship with patients, (3) physicians. Emphasize those selling points on your practice website, blog, Facebook page, newsletter, etc. (your marketing materials).

Consider proactively communicating with patients using automated broadcast messaging. For example, helping patients keep track of when its time to come in for an annual exam by sending automated reminders is a valuable service that keeps patients healthy and strengthens the relationship between your practice and the patient.

A few changes, such as using automated communication services and learning how to use the web to promote your business and build its reputation, can keep your practice prosperous for years to come.

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.

Rating sites, friend or foe of medical practices and physicians?

Tuesday, October 18, 2011 by Susan Linton

As an active online reviewer, I've seen businesses handle online customer feedback poorly (e.g., attacking the reviewer always comes across as unprofessional) and well (e.g., addressing the reviewer's points and trying to learn from the feedback). Customer/patient feedback should always be valued and businesses should feel comfortable asking for a review. Be specific about where you'd like them to review your business.

The review could be positive, negative or neutral - it's still up to the business to provide a positive experience. For medical practices, this includes good, prompt communication, respectful treatment, expressed empathy for the patient, reasonable wait times, appointment reminders and more.

There's little to fear, your reviews will likely be positive

It's likely that most of your patient feedback will be positive. Many surveys have shown that the majority are very satisfied with their own physicians. One recent study published in the Journal of General Internal Medicine looked at various online rating sites and found that nearly 90% of online physician ratings were positive.

Negative reviews can be helpful too

While negative reviews can be painful, try not to be defensive. No business can please every customer every time and readers realize that. That's why it's important to get your satisfied patients to write reviews. If this doesn't seem to work, perhaps it's time to ask yourself if there's a deeper problem at your practice and if so, how can it be addressed. A patient satisfaction survey can be extremely insightful in just such a situation, particularly if you can get unbiased responses (that is, avoid just asking your satisfied patients to complete the survey). The results can be used to improve your practice.

Healthcare IT professionals express concern about poor communication and overworked staff

Thursday, October 13, 2011 by Susan Linton

Avaya conducted a survey of healthcare IT professionals at HIMSS11 (2011) and asked respondents to rank the importance of issues facing their healthcare organizations in the next three years. The #1 issue was "communication and workflow integration into healthcare information systems." Respondents felt automated patient communications and collaborative tools were important issues to address.

The survey highlights the importance of communication within the organization and with its patients. Respondents expressed concern about poor communication and not enough time for patient care.

Automated patient messaging facilitates better patient care

Simply improving patient communications can improve patient health. Automated patient messaging systems make it easy, efficient and cost-effective to communicate routine messages (e.g., automated reminder calls) to your patients, including reminders for health screenings, appointment reminders, lab test results and more.

Proactive patient care involves tracking patients and analyzing the patient population to identify candidates for intervention/care. Examples include reminders for preventive exams, active disease management (monitor patient's vital signs, sends messages when appropriate), wellness, etc.

Automated patient messaging can help close the communication gap between patients and practices. For example, a typical automated reminder call involves sending a clear, pre-recorded message (recorded in a studio with no background noise) to the recipient. Technology makes it easy for the caller to replay the message as often as desired. These messages can also be delivered in multiple languages. Email messages can be another way to close the communication gap. A written reminder that includes the date and time is easy to refer to as needed.

Automated medical communication technologies make it much easier to get your message across to patients and they save valuable staff time.

Online sources of practice management tips

Tuesday, October 11, 2011 by Susan Linton

I've scoured the Web to find websites that medical practice managers should bookmark.

MedPage Today: Check out Rosemarie Nelson's column, Practice Pointers. Ms. Nelson is a former practice manager and a principal with the MGMA Health Care Consulting Group.

Medical Economics: Access free articles on practice management and read blog posts from other practice managers.

Physicians Practice: Read the online version of Physicians Practice, the leading practice management journal. The site also has a buyer's guide, tools, podcasts, CME, enewsletter sign-up and more. Don't forget to read the Tech Doctor column: Appointment reminders, explore your options for setting up autodialing appointment reminders.

Manage My Practice: I've been reading Mary Pat Whaley's blog for years. She's an experienced practice manager and the top medical office manager blogger.

Medical Practice Trends: This is an attractive website with content (blogs, podcasts, articles) tailored to the interest of practice managers.

Medical Group Management Association: Since most medical group managers belong to MGMA, this list wouldn't be complete without mentioning MGMA's website, including its online courses, member directory, job listings, benchmarking tools and more. Members get additional benefits.

I hope you found these sites useful. Please share any sites that you know about by leaving a comment.

Mobile smartphone apps for patients, providers and practice administrators

Thursday, October 6, 2011 by Susan Linton

I've picked out a few of the best mobile apps that I've seen and included links to other articles about health-related mobile apps. Downloading the app is one thing but actually using it is another; an April 2011 survey by Consumer Health Information Corporation found that 26% of apps are downloaded and used only once.

Some of these apps look so useful and having them accessible on the phone is so convenient, that hopefully people will actually use these apps.

FOR PATIENTS

Enjoy access to WebMD's health information on your iPhone and iPad. Their mobile app has a symptom checker, first aid essentials, drug database, local health listings, pill identifier and more. WebMD mobile is free.

Additional patient health apps: http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/jan/26/iphone-apps-health

FOR PROVIDERS

Procedures Consult is a tool that offers procedure checklists, ICD-9 and CPT codes, universal protocols, video tutorials and more. It looks like they have a free trial.

Additional apps for physicians:
http://www.kevinmd.com/blog/2010/03/free-iphone-medical-apps-doctor.html
http://www.physicianspractice.com/mobile-health/content/article/1462168/1589750

FOR PRACTICE ADMINISTRATORS

The apps that I found are productivity boosters that anyone can use. If you like making task lists, try Remember the Milk. I first encountered this app through my very organized colleague. He had tasks and appointments set for a couple of years out. The application is free and it will send you reminders. Patients would benefit from using it too, to get appointment reminders (maybe your practice sends them, but most of us can never get too many reminders), medication reminders, bill pay reminders and more.

Additional apps for practice administrators: http://blog.mgma.com/blog/bid/32731/7-smartphone-apps-for-patients-and-medical-practice-administrators

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.

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.

The rise of convenient care clinics and what it means for your practice

Wednesday, August 10, 2011 by Susan Linton

Last week MinuteClinic, the nation's largest provider of walk-in retail medical clinics in the U.S., announced that it reached the 10 million patient visit milestone. They opened their first retail clinic in 200 and now have close to 600 clinics in 26 states. The rapid growth of retail medical clinics has been driven by their ability to offer convenient, affordable care. And patients have by and large been satisfied with the services they've received.

Medical practices have several key advantages over retail clinics and one major disadvantage, accessibility. By emphasizing advantages and addressing the major disadvantage, practices can better compete with retail clinics.

Medical practice advantages:

Wider range of available services
Stronger relationship with existing patients
Physicians and the trust that people have for physicians

Emphasize those selling points on your practice website, blog, Facebook page, newsletter, etc. (your marketing materials). Strengthen your relationship with patients by improving communication with them. Communicate more often and use different communication channels. Try to involve your physicians and increase their visibility (e.g., for the ones that are interested, encourage them to get involved in online social networking).

Automated patient messaging services make it easy and cost effective for busy medical practices to reach a large number of patients with reminder calls and reminder emails. These services also make it easy to personalize and customize messages.

Addressing the key disadvantage of medical practices

Consider making a few changes to make your practice more accessible. Start by reminding your patients that you are available after hours, that you have self-service features and that you are available by email for non-emergency situations.

Let your patients know about your after hours accessibility. When patients need medical advice, you want them to think of you - but they might not do so unless you make it clear that your practice can be reached after hours. Post your after hours policy on your practice website if you have one. Let them know that your after hours calls are listened to and that they can expect a call back within a short period of time. Setting expectations will alleviate your patient's anxiety.

The best way to provide after hours care to your patients and to keep them from making unnecessary emergency room visits is to use an automated after hours answering service with call routing and message notification features. An automated answering service puts the triage decisions back in the hands of the person best suited to make those decisions, the on-call physician, while saving the physician from dealing with callers who do not require clinical advice. The physician can screen each call, and decide to take the call or let the caller leave a voice message.

Offer self-service features. If your practice has a website, you can provide basic information on the site (e.g., directions, hours of operation). Or more sophisticated patient portals offer access to medical records, online bill pay, refill requests and e-consults.

Allow patients to email your practice. Many patients would like to communicate with their doctors via email and this type of communication has been shown to increase effectiveness of care and reduce healthcare costs. Make sure you clearly state how patients should use e-mail (e.g., not to email when experiencing a medical emergency) and expected response time. Also make sure these communications are secure (encrypted).

It may make sense for your practice to stay open longer hours and leave some unscheduled slots for drop-in patients. Patients who are experiencing discomfort are naturally concerned and most cannot wait weeks for the next open appointment. Increasing your practice's accessibility will increase patient satisfaction.

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.