Automated appointment reminders are the one feature that can help you tackle the challenges of no-shows and last-minute appointment cancellations, saving your practice time and money. It also allows the patients to confirm their scheduled appointments a day or two prior to the set date.
No-shows can impact your practice negatively more than you know. Whether it is because they forgot about the appointment, a miscommunication, or scheduling conflicts, your practice will have to bear its financial, operational, and customer service costs.
The cost of a missed appointment can hurt your practice regardless of its size. The irrecoverable time damages your revenue, builds on the patient waitlist, and affects patient satisfaction.
Automated appointment reminders have effectively reduced the no-show rates by an average of 34%. Studies have shown us how SMS text reminders have a successful contact rate of 97%. Let’s look at how a well-crafted appointment can benefit your practice.
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Benefits of automated appointment reminders
I’m sure a lot of ‘I forgot about the appointment’ or a ‘When was it scheduled again’ have affected your office and staff efficiency. However, automated appointment reminders can help you rule out certain inefficiencies.
Improved patient experience:
Automated appointment reminders help to reduce missed appointments and keep patients on track with their care plans. This leads to a better patient experience, as they feel their health is being taken seriously and their time is valued.
Reduce workload on staff:
Your office front desk has a heap of workload just on its own. Why add to it when you can automate the whole process? Automated appointment reminders can streamline the scheduling process and reduce the workload for healthcare staff. This can lead to increased efficiency and improved overall workflow.
Increase revenue:
Missed appointments cost the healthcare industry a solid $150 billion a year. The only way to reduce this cost is to remind your patients about their scheduled appointments. Automated appointment reminders can help practices increase revenue by reducing the number of no-shows and freeing up staff time to focus on other tasks.
Reduce no-show rate:
No-shows in the healthcare industry can have a detrimental impact on both patients and providers. They can lead to missed opportunities for patient care, prolonged wait times for other patients, and wasted resources, such as staff time and medical supplies.
By delivering timely and consistent reminders to patients, the likelihood of missed appointments is significantly reduced. It makes way for improved patient outcomes and more efficient use of resources, helping ensure patients receive the care they need promptly.
How to structure the best appointment reminders?
Patients who receive an SMS appointment reminder are more likely to show up than those who have yet to receive it. To draft an effective test reminder, here are some tips to keep in mind:
Keep the message personalized
Simple personalization can create a difference, like adding the patient’s name in the beginning or mentioning their physician’s name. Personalized messages can increase engagement and improve patient satisfaction.
Concise and brief content
A long detailed message can lose the focus of the subject. Keep it brief and easy to understand. It should include the practice name, appointed physician’s name, date and time, and confirmation request.
Confirmation or cancellation request
Allow the patient to confirm or cancel the appointment by clicking a link or responding to the SMS text. Allowing the patient to cancel reduces no-shows and increases staff efficiency.
When to send the reminder?
You should notify the patient one or two days before the appointment; select between these two lead times depending on the impact of patient cancellation and whether you have a waitlist.
Reminders sent one day before will produce a slightly more accurate confirmation rate, but if the patient cancels, there is less time to re-schedule with a different patient. Studies also prove that messages sent at 4 PM produce the best response rates.
Switch to automated reminders and save billions
Make the switch to automated appointment reminders. With solutions like trillium.health, you can send out personalized reminders to boost your efficiency and patient experience. A quick reminder can save you billions. In addition to reminders, you can make it easy for your patients to schedule appointments online. You can also reduce no-shows by offering pre-paid appointments, encouraging no-shows to reschedule, or implementing no-show policies.
