No-show appointments are costly to your practise, as you already know. They can leave holes in your schedule that are hard to fill, and they cost healthcare providers in the United States an estimated $150 billion or more each year in missed income. Appointment reminder services are one of the most effective strategies to prevent missed appointments. The conventional method of reminding patients over the phone, on the other hand, is inconvenient for your personnel since it takes time. Instead, using a mixture of text messages, emails, and phone calls to remind patients to come in can assist them remember without adding to your staff’s workload.
Effective Time Reminders
There’s a fine line between informing your patients about forthcoming appointments so they don’t forget and aggravating them to the point that they don’t want to come to your clinic anymore or stop paying attention to subsequent reminders. The actual number of reminders will be determined by the following factors:
How long do you have to wait between appointments?
Whether or not your patient has agreed to receive SMS messages
Whether or whether you have a current email address on file
What are the patient’s personal reminder preferences?
Request that they opt in to SMS and email reminders, making it easy for you to deliver many messages that aren’t intrusive or overpowering.
A broad timetable (that you may adjust depending on particular circumstances) can look like this:
Two weeks before to the appointment, an email reminder with any critical instructions on information they need ahead of time, such as insurance verification or blood testing
A second email reminder one week before the appointment that reiterates important information about what to do or bring on the day of the appointment (it’s best to use an automated system that adjusts based on their previous response, so you don’t repeat instructions for something they’ve already done).
The day before the interview, I received a text message
You might also provide patients the option of receiving a last SMS reminder closer to their appointment, similar to the one seen below.
Customize the Message
Personalization is one of the most crucial aspects of any reminder system. As previously said, having appointment reminder software that gets relevant and current information from the patient’s records in order to provide proper instructions is critical. For example, having a reminder system that can take the exact date and time of the appointment and include it, as well as directions like how to get to the clinic or where to park when they arrive, is essential. Your patient will be less helped if the message is general.
Reminders Can Be Automated
Attempting to do all of this manually will be unpleasant for your team, so obtain an automatic patient reminder system that can send texts and emails on a set timetable as soon as the appointment is set up. Integration with your practise management software, scheduling system, and EHR is essential for a successful automated system.
Schedule a demo with GoDoctor to explore our entire array of software solutions for your clinic and learn more about how you can implement successful patient reminders in your clinic.
