Reduce Patient Effort To Increase Patient Delight and Business Results

“Communications works for those who work at it.” – John Powell

Patients are busy juggling multiple responsibilities. Making and checking in for appointments, filling out forms and paying their healthcare bills. However, these activities can be nearly effortless if you pay attention and consistently respect patient preferences. Healthcare providers that improve the ability of patients to engage and self-service are noticed and appreciated. This starts with how you communicate.  Using only one channel or “set it and forget it” is not going to result in the best outcomes.

RevSpring’s 2023 Voice of the Patient national survey, which received responses from 1,000 patients spanning all demographic groups, confirms it. People (87% of total respondents) told us that it’s very important or somewhat important that their providers communicated with them using their preferred channels. 

That might sound simple, but it’s not. Patients have different engagement preferences and behaviors, even among those within the same demographic group. These differences also can vary according to the type of communication you’re sending. For example, email was the most preferred method of communication for more than half of all respondents for pre-care estimates, post-care instructions, test results and marketing materials. Yet for appointment reminders and pre-care instructions, most patients said they preferred text messages. 

Despite the popularity of email and text, don’t assume all patients want digital engagement all the time. The majority of total survey respondents told us they preferred printed statements in the mail, including 38% of patients between the ages of 18-26. And one-third of all respondents (spanning all age groups) said they preferred print for an array of other provider messages. 

This survey confirms what we have long understood about patient engagement: one size never fits all. That also applies to how patients make payments. There is a broad range of patient payment preferences, spanning payment portals, IVR (phone), digital wallet transactions, and even paper checks. When you make it easy for patients to make payments their way, not only do you delight them, you receive payments faster. In fact, 70% of overall survey respondents said they would pay sooner when presented with the option that best fit their ability to pay.  Automated Intelligence can execute the optimal mix of communications costs, payments yield, patient satisfaction and patient self-service. 

Allowing patients to leverage their preferred method for communications and payments allows more patient self-service, which reduces calls to provider staff.  Especially in these times of staffing challenges, reducing staff effort is good for business. It means less time and money is spent managing routine tasks that can be efficiently handled with automation and smart software.  More time is available for staff to work on important and complicated situations.  Reducing effort for patients delivers big dividends—for them and for your healthcare organization. 

That’s a win-win for patients and for you.

Let Technology Show You the Way

Personalization that is patient-specific can be accomplished at scale with smart technology.  Start with an OmniChannel engine, which leverages patient data and analytics to reveal granular-level information about patient communication and payment preferences. That’s the brain of smart patient engagement because it enables you to see, understand and respond to patient preferences today and as they change over time.

When you know how to engage with each patient, don’t hesitate to use automated technology to act on that information. Tools—such as system-wide digital consent engines, text-based appointment reminders, self-serve appointment scheduling, and QR codes in print billing statements to drive patients to online payments—all should be part of your automated, personalized patient engagement strategy. Such tools make it simple to connect in ways patients prefer without any new human resources. In fact, automation will reduce strain on staff members and free them up to work on more high-level tasks.

Provide Connected Patient Experiences for Maximum Results

Offering patients a personalized engagement experience that is connected and seamless eliminates costly data errors and administrative overhead. It also tells patients that you know and value them as individuals, and that you respect their time. We worked with Next Level Medical, a Texas-based healthcare company that operates multiple urgent care locations, to offer patients a completely connected patient journey that begins with preservice and continues through clinical interactions to post-service payments. 

These solutions work together seamlessly according to Next Level’s specifications for the urgent care market. Price estimations, co-pay and insurance determinations and collections, digital forms using optical character recognition (OCR), self-service pre-registration and appointment scheduling, a virtual patient waiting room and more all work in concert. Purpose-built to support one seamless patient experience, Next Level has been able to increase patient self-service, eliminate gaps in data and the patient experience, and reduce staff effort required to deliver a remarkable patient experience with better outcomes. 

Using connected and personalized technology has empowered Next Level to scale and drive efficiencies, including doubling its urgent care locations to 44 without adding any administrative staff.  Another win: existing staff are freed to focus on higher level revenue cycle work instead of time-intensive (and error prone) tasks like entering patient data, validating insurance or collecting copays. Next Level founder and CEO Juliet Breeze, MD, says using connected innovative solutions that empower patients to self-serve is a “game changer” for her fast-growing company.

Ignore Patient Preferences at Your Peril

Patients have expectations for personalized and efficient engagement, including how they render payments. They are modern consumers who engage on a digital basis daily in nearly every aspect of their lives. They are conditioned to have their preferences respected. 

Recognizing patient preferences builds trust: 81% of total respondents agreed that they were more likely to trust providers that communicated with them in ways they prefer. Conversely, patients who believe you’re ignoring them may ignore you. Their behavior will speak volumes. The majority of patients said they would switch providers due to a poor engagement or billing experience. 

As technology continues evolving, it’s becoming easier to listen and respond to individual patient engagement preferences. Just remember that personalization is a dynamic process. Patient preferences and behavior should be continually monitored and adapted to accommodate changes.

Also, we should not limit all interactions to digital communications. How many people have been stuck on a phone tree trying to get to a real person for a complex situation? It is frustrating and angering. It’s important to have offramps to assistance. Also, some patients who prefer print communications and billing statements today may wish to migrate to digital channels as they become more comfortable with technology. Others are reminded by a paper statement, but pay online. Providers need to stay in tune with preferences of people who may have very different engagement requirements than another demographic or generation. Respect the listener. Bottom line: Know and respect your customer. One size does not fit all in communications, but you can let technology adjust to each patient and situation to optimize the outcome in today’s highly dynamic communications environment. Personalized patient communications journeys are the answer and the technology is there to make it happen.

The stakes are high.

Patients crave convenient personalized engagement and won’t hesitate to look elsewhere if you can’t deliver on their expectations. Fortunately, technology is continuously evolving to empower providers to understand and act on patient preferences (and observed behavior) in a timely and dynamic manner. With combined intelligence—demographic and behavioral data—providers can understand patients at scale and drive desired actions. Doing so will delight your patients, leading to increased trust, loyalty and better business outcomes.