With everything going on in the world, running a successful medical or dental clinic is harder than ever. Office staff is overtasked as they try to juggle scheduling, appointment changes, insurance authorizations billing and collections. Patient levels may ebb and flow with the changes in virus cases in your area and medical and dental professionals have to constantly reassure clients that best practices are being followed.
During these times it is really important to keep in close contact with your patients. Timely reminders about upcoming appointments and needed preventive care visits create another customer touchpoint that helps keep your practice from being lost in the shuffle with everything going on in your patient’s life. With the right system you can send out professional communications that keep things on track.
Reduce No-Shows and Boost Revenues
It’s easy to lose track of revenues when there is a lot going on. A missed appointment here, a gap in scheduling there and pretty soon day after day there is lost revenue. With every empty slot in the daily schedule you have a missed opportunity to make money that can never be recouped. There has to be a way to reduce no shows without adding additional, expensive staff.
Fortunately, with automated appointment reminders you can dramatically reduce costly no-shows and increase your practice revenues and profitability. By sending timely reminders via text, phone or email you can remind your patient of their upcoming visit and receive confirmation back from them. If the individual does need to cancel the appointment, you’ll be notified and can schedule a different person for that time.
Increase Office Efficiency
If you observe most medical or dental practices, the front office is a whirlwind of activity. There are constant interruptions and new demands to handle tasks including scheduling, billing and insurance issues. Patients have to be checked in and transactions processed before they leave. There are lots of things going on every minute of the day.
By automating your appointment reminder calls, you free your staff to handle other critical functions. Rather than spending hours on the phone or sending out emails, they can simply monitor the process and respond to requests for clients needing to cancel. When a patient needs to select an alternative appointment time your staff will be notified and can work the call list to set up the new appointments as requested.
Ability to Send Custom Communications
You can also use your patient communication system to send out specialized communications quickly and easily. For instance, if you have a snow day or severe weather issue in your area you can broadcast a message letting everyone know about changes to office hours or if you are going to be closed for the day.
It’s also possible to use the outbound communication capabilities to automate the delivery of lab results to your patients. The details can be sent out accurately and securely. Patients will be notified on a timely basis and you will free your staff up from having to make calls to contact your customers.
If you are looking for solutions to streamline your front office operations and improve your revenues and profitability, consider implementing a top-notch automated patient communication system. Your customers will appreciate the professional reminders and no-shows will be greatly reduced as a result of your timely communication.
Laila Azzahra is a professional writer and blogger that loves to write about technology, business, entertainment, science, and health.