If you have a successful medical, chiropractic or other health care practice, you know how much work is involved in keeping all the moving parts synchronized and working in harmony. There are constant demands for last minute appointments, schedules to juggle and administrative tasks that seem to go on endlessly. You have to manage your staff, recruit and hire in a smart way and present a professional and reassuring image to all of your clients.
In the midst of all the tasks that need to be juggled, you have to also be concerned with office visits and revenues. Getting your patients to come to their scheduled appointments and seeking new ways to maximize services to build a solid revenue stream is critical. While on the surface your primary focus is delivering top-quality medical care, underneath you are running a demanding, difficult business. Fortunately, patient engagement and communication solutions are available that truly help streamline business operations and add much needed practice revenue.
Automated Appointment Reminders
The cornerstone of a top-shelf patient communications solution is its ability to send out fully automated appointment reminder calls. With this feature, patients are notified in advance when their appointment is coming up and are asked to confirm the scheduled visit. The appointment message can be customized and may be delivered by phone, text or via email.
By keeping in touch with your clients and reaching out to confirm upcoming visits, you help maximize revenues and eliminate costly last minute no-shows. Practices that utilize this feature typically reduce missed appointments by 50% or more. In addition, because the system is automated, you eliminate the need for follow up phone calls and your staff can focus on generating revenue by filling any cancelled appointments.
On-Demand and Custom Messaging
With a flexible and innovative patient communication system, you can connect with your clients whenever you need to reach them. If you have a local emergency where the office is closed due to snow or power outage, you can quickly send a message out informing everyone about what is going on.
You can also create custom message cycles that help build a connection with your patients and also increase practice revenue. For instance, you can create a quick survey with a single question to gauge satisfaction with a recent office visit. You can also set up no-show messages, so if a person misses their appointment they are given a chance to easily reschedule their visit.
Value Added Offers to Specific Customer Segments
Marketing your practice is always a challenge, but there are excellent opportunities if you really listen to your patients and you have a great client engagement and communication system. When you talk to your patients, find out what their needs are and see what really calls to them. Are they interested in treatment for specific conditions, passionate about improving their health or perhaps they enjoy meditation to help relieve stress.
When you take the time to actively engage your patients and learn more about them, you can create a marketing database that catalogues their interests. From there, you can send out customized offers for after-hours talks or mini-seminars that they would be interested in. Perhaps you could offer a four week meditation program, or a six week program on nutrition and improving your health. Your clients will appreciate your offerings when they are specifically targeted to their wants and needs.
If you would like to help automate your practice, increase patient revenues and be able to market your practice more effectively, consider implementing a customizable patient engagement and communication system. This technology solution will streamline your practice and greatly improve your cash flow too.
The Editorial Team at Healthcare Business Today is made up of skilled healthcare writers and experts, led by our managing editor, Daniel Casciato, who has over 25 years of experience in healthcare writing. Since 1998, we have produced compelling and informative content for numerous publications, establishing ourselves as a trusted resource for health and wellness information. We offer readers access to fresh health, medicine, science, and technology developments and the latest in patient news, emphasizing how these developments affect our lives.
