Long thought to be primarily a means to reduce infectious diseases, the role of vaccines has expanded to include the prevention of non-infectious diseases.
Expect to see an increased use of vaccines as a way to prevent or treat conditions such as cancer, Alzheimer's, type 1 diabetes, etc.The challenge is to increase the rate of vaccinations. Rates of adult immunization continue to be lower than what U.S. health officials recommend and this is particularly true for the elderly and Hispanic population. One reason for these lower than recommended levels of vaccination is the communication gap between physicians and their patients. The National Foundation of Infectious Diseases surveyed patients and physicians and found evidence of a significant communication gap:
- 87% of physicians said they discussed vaccines with their patients
- 47% of patients said their physician did not discuss vaccines with them, except for the flu vaccine
Dr. Susan J. Rehm, medical director of the National Foundation of Infectious Diseases stated that "we really need, as health care providers, to do a better job of conveying the importance of immunization to our adult patients."
At the same time, physicians have less time to spend with patients as they're forced by economic necessity to see more patients. This is precisely the type of situation that can be helped by using currently available broadcast voice messaging technology. Rather than communicate with each patient one on one, this technology makes it easy to send reminder calls to all your patients who could benefit from a vaccine. The total time involved for your front staff is just minutes. They would need to generate a file with the names of patients who require a reminder call and then transmit that file to the call reminder service.
Because of the high levels of trust patients have in their physicians, these types of calls are likely to be quite effective at raising vaccination levels.
Broadcast voice messaging powered by telephone dialer software makes sense for practices of all sizes, offering an affordable way to improve communication between the practice and the patient and ultimately to improve population health.
"Your patients are already getting and using health information online – shouldn't they be getting more from you? The report suggests providing patients with online health tools such as reminders, instructions and educational information about their diagnosis and treatments."
The quote comes from a recent article in
Healthcare IT News entitled
"Top 10 ways to engage patients with IT." I particularly liked how the article talked about how patients trust their physicians/healthcare providers and how they online social media should be thought of as a valuable opportunity to engage and educate patients, while building your own brand, managing your own online reputation, and strengthening the provider-patient relationship.
It's easy to continue to communicate to patients the way you always have and call it a day, but if you want your practice to continue to be successful in the future, you need to be responsive to changes in the environment.
It's clear that relationships are crucial in the healthcare service industry and finding new avenues to communicate with patients can help set a practice apart from others. Many practices are struggling to keep up with patient communications and not taking advantage of affordable automated patient communication services.
An automated notifications system that uses telephone dialer software is able to quickly send broadcast voice messages to the patient base, making communication easier than ever. Some notification services can send automatically send email and text notifications as well. Automated messages can inform patients of upcoming appointments, lab results availability, outstanding account balances, and more. By automating some outbound communications, practices can keep patients better informed and decrease incoming call volume. In turn, informed patients will feel more satisfied with the practice.
Patient communication preferences have changed and many of them are highly engaged online. Opening a Facebook or Twitter account is free though it takes time to contribute content. Blogs can be created for free as well, on sites such as blogger.com and wordpress.com
Facebook and social networking sites like it help build visibility and make it easier for current, past and future patients to find useful information. Online review sites provide free feedback from patients that is usually honest.
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.
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: ConfigurationSome 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 InformationPractices 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 callsIt 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.
In light of recent outbreaks of whooping cough (also known as pertussis), the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends that adults receive the whooping cough vaccine. Adult vaccinations protect the adults who receive them but they also reduce the chances of passing whooping cough to those most at risk, infants. Whooping cough can be life-threatening to infants.
The CDC says the best protection is to get the tetanus, diphtheria, and pertussis (Tdap) vaccine. Tdap was first introduced in 2005. It's estimated that in 2008, only 5.9% of U.S. adults received the Tdap vaccine.
Unfortunately, many practices are unable to contact their patients quickly and economically. And many adults are likely unaware of the importance of getting the Tdap vaccine. Calling each adult patient to explain the need for the vaccine is unrealistic. Postcards are expensive and not all that effective.
Broadcast voice messaging technology allows practices to quickly and effectively reach any number of patients, for just a few cents per call. Because the telephone dialer program does most of the work, using this technology helps the front desk accomplish more in less time.
Phone reminder software can be used for a variety of patient messages, including appointment reminders, account balance notifications, lab test results, and more.
At larger practices, making manual appointment reminder calls can take hours a day and so many of them have found it economical and practical to use automated telephone dialer software. What many smaller practices don't realize is that using employees to manually make your appointment reminder phone calls is still a losing proposition. Appointment reminder software does much more than just place appointment reminder calls; it will single-handedly make your practice more productive and efficient.
Appointment reminder system will save your practice time and money, not only by freeing employees to focus on other less routine matters, but also by improving customer relations and communications.
Automated caller software reliably delivers routine messages and makes it easy to track confirmations and cancellations
When you rely on an employee to make routine reminder calls, there will be days that there just isn't time to make all the calls or the task is forgotten. An automated service is a more reliable way to deliver appointment reminders. Most reminder appointment calls are routine and automated notifications service can easily convey the appointment details to your patients.
An automated reminder system allows for flexibility and choices in the type of messages that are sent to your patients. This includes offering an automated way to respond to the reminder message. The patient can press a button on his touch-tone telephone to confirm that he has received his reminder and that he will be attending his appointment. Or he can press another button to cancel the appointment. Responses are automatically tracked and can be easily viewed online by your office staff.
Time once spent making phone calls can be spent with patients
For your staff, adopting an automated notifications service means that you recognize that they could use a helping hand. They'll have more time for other valued tasks, including assisting patients.
Frees up phone lines
Automated reminder calls can be made without tying up your phone line and since your staff is no longer making reminder calls manually, your patients will find it easier to get through to a live person when they call.
Provides valued service to your patients
Today's patients prefer to communicate by cell phone and e-mail. Today's medical practices can respond to changes in patient communication preferences by using a
multi-channel automated appointment reminders service. A good automated reminders service sends interactive messages that allow patients to easily confirm (or cancel) the upcoming appointment, whether that message is sent by e-mail or by phone.
Reminder postcards and reminder calls from your front desk are no longer as effective as they used to be. Automated notification services are more effective at reducing your no show rates. And lower no show rates mean that you'll have more money to invest in your practice and your employees.
Today I read a
blog post on Physicians Practice that has practical suggestions for how physicians can use Facebook to market themselves and build relationships with patients and others. Since it's free to sign up for an account and create a fan page, there is little downside to at least having a fan page. As long as the content the administrator adds doesn't reflect poorly on the physician or the practice, chances are patients will be impressed to see their healthcare providers on a platform that they already use to connect to other businesses and brands. Updating one's Facebook page is so easy that the practice can easily use the page to solicit patient feedback, introduce new staff members, post holiday closures, introduce new services, and more.
Facebook and social networking sites like it help build visibility and make it easier for current, past and future patients to find useful information. Review sites provide free feedback from patients that is usually honest.
It's clear that relationships are crucial in the healthcare service industry and finding new avenues to communicate with patients can help set a practice apart from others. While most practices are struggling to keep up with patient communications,
an automated notifications system that uses telephone dialer software is able to quickly send broadcast voice messages to the patient base, making communication easier than ever. Some notification services can send automatically send email notifications as well.
Automated messages can inform patients of upcoming appointments, lab results availability, outstanding account balances, and more. By automating some outbound communications, practices can keep patients better informed and decrease incoming call volume. In turn, informed patients will feel more satisfied with the practice.
Your practice may never have considered telephone dialer services (aka automated calls) as an option. It is time to consider these services and rid yourself of the preconceived notions you harbor about computerized patient reminders. Here are some truths about automation that will put your misconceptions to rest.
1.
Automation is easyJonathan McAllister, a client-site IT manager for a major healthcare consulting firm, spoke of the ease of going from manual to automated.
“While you might think setting up such a system could require an advanced degree in computer science, take heart. These days, virtually any practice can take advantage of telephone-based automated appointment reminder systems with minimal technical skills required,” he says. That's right. All you need is your medical degree, your business savvy, and very little technical know-how to get your system up, running, and saving you money.
2.
Automation is practicalYou've probably heard the potential for automation to save you money and decrease your no-shows. It's true. While results vary depending on the particular practice, automated reminders are effective and they will produce results.
“These systems . . . have practical applications in healthcare environments by decreasing your no-show rate and providing a convenient service to your patients, while freeing up your staff to perform other tasks,” says McAllister.
3.
It's an indispensable assetThe overwhelmingly positive response to dialer software doesn't lie. Most practices find that once they've tried an automated system, they can't live without it. Lorraine Laurio, a medical assistant at Springhill Dermatology Clinic in Mobile, Alabama, agrees. “
I can’t imagine why any practice wouldn’t have a system like this,” she says.
4.
It's like making money for freeAutomated appointment reminders save you money. Even better, since these reminders reduce your no show rates, they make money for practice. The software literally pays for itself, sometimes in a matter of days.
Give automation a try.
Visit Webley for more information. You'll be glad you did.
Large and small medical practices are both dedicated to providing the best medical care possible to their patients. Successful practices must also learn how to run an efficient business and serve patients.
The Typical Large PracticeA large practice typically has more support personnel, including an IT staff. They tend to adopt automation technologies before smaller practices. As they see a larger patient volume, many of them turn to
automated phone calls, automated phone messaging and telephone dialer software. This wise use of available technology allows their staff to spend less time on routine tasks that can easily be automated. Automation also increases consistency, reliability and the ability to track actions taken. For example,
an automated phone reminder system may generate reports that show the result of every call made, including whether a live person answered the phone, a message was left on an answering machine, the phone number was invalid, etc.
The Typical Small PracticeA typical small practice has staff people dedicating time to calling patients about appointments to avoid no shows, and an answering machine for after hours calls. This practice believes that this is all they can afford. However, a small practice could save money with an
automated appointment system because this system is effective at reducing no show patients and it frees up staff time - time that could be spent with patients and on higher value tasks.
When a patient is ill and calls after hours, they often end up at a costly, crowded emergency room unless they receive a timely response to their inquiry. With an
automated answering service, when the patients calls after office hours they are guided through a menu that lets them leave their message directly to the on-call medical personnel. The service helps screen calls, so that calls for non-clinical issues are directed to dedicated voicemail boxes and calls for clinical reasons are treated appropriately. The on-call physician is immediately notified that a new message concerning a clinical issue has been received. This makes it easier for him/her to respond quickly.
For most medical practices, dealing with no-shows and late patients consumes a large portion of the time that office staff could otherwise spend on billing, coding, digitizing patient information, answering the phone, etc.
Over 75% of physician's practices use reminder telephone calls to remind patients about their appointment time and date. High demand for medical care sometimes necessitates that less urgent appointments are scheduled weeks or months in advance -- enough time for appointment cards to be lost and previously wide-open schedules to become packed with events. Many practices have found that the longer the lead time between the time the appointment is made and the actual appointment, the higher the no show rate.
While the patient's side of the dilemma is understandable, for the practice, a missed appointment means a lost revenue opportunity. Reminder phone calls from a phone dialer program help maintain peak patient flow. An automated appointment reminder system uses a computer 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. One study found that leaving a reminder message on an answering machine was as effective as reaching a live person.*
Reminder call software can automatically draw information from appointment databases and customize each reminder message. The technology also works in a similar fashion to create custom email reminder messages. Few practices send appointment reminders via email though most people have email addresses that they use on a regular basis. Patients will likely appreciate email reminders from your practice and sending these reminders will help differentiate your practice from the competition.
* Haynes & Sweeney, The Effect of Telephone Appointment Reminder Calls on Outpatient Absenteeism in a Pulmonary Function Lab. Respir Care 2006;51(1):36–39.
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