A Closer Look: Last Week's Appointment Activity
(1) Patients Seen: we look at patient appointments in your practice management system (PMS) and see how many were not deleted or moved as a proxy for an appointment occurring
(2) Future Appts Made: total appointments that were scheduled last week
(3) New Patients: we look for all patients that were created in the PMS in the last week
(4) Scheduled this week: This shows the total number of appointments for each day
(5) Confirmed this week: For the appointments we see in the PMS, how many of them have been confirmed by the patient
5 Things you can do to get better at this:
- Pre-schedule every patient for their future visit when you see them. You’d be shocked at how many practices we know don’t have a consistent process for this, whether it’s a post-op visit or routine recall appointment. Once you have, make sure you have a solid Appointment Confirmation process configured so these appointments don’t sneak up on patients whenever they have their next visit.
- Make sure every patient is enrolled to receive text and email messages. Put it this way, the more contact information you have on file the better your chances of connecting with your patients about the care they need. Texting seems to be the way of the future, but email also has its merit. So, make sure to check in with your patients briefly, find out how they would like to be communicated with, and modify their patient contact preferences accordingly. You can also give them a quick coaching session so they know what to expect and how to respond to the appointment confirmation when it arrives. And, if you are looking for an effective way to open up the communication channel, consider automatically enrolling your patients into texting.
- Activate all 5 attempts of RevenueWell’s Appointment Confirmation messages. Your patients are busy people too, and they forget to act on the first email, text or postcard you send them. Today’s marketing science suggests an average consumer needs 5-7 “touches” to do what you want them to do. Your patients are no different. The good news is that RevenueWell sends different types of messages, through various media, and at unique times to ensure your patients are in the chair consistently. Don’t worry, if the patient confirms at any point, RevenueWell can send a friendly "reminder" without asking the patient to confirm again.
- Set the most effective schedule for your appointment confirmations and reminders. Sadly, there isn’t a one-size-fits-all reminder schedule to bring your no-show rate to 0%. However, there are some recommended settings we see with a majority of practices that prove successful in reducing your no-show rates and allowing patients ample time to reschedule if needed. Remember you know your patients best so adjust the below accordingly, and if something isn’t working, change it.
Recommended Settings:
- Use email, text, direct mail, and phone calls (you can select to use phone calls just for patients that can’t get a text or email)
- Set the 1st Reminder around 14 days
- Set the 2nd Reminder around 2 business days but use the “Advanced Settings” to pick a custom schedule based on your open times
- Set the Same Day Reminder to 2 hours
- Use email, text, direct mail, and phone calls (you can select to use phone calls just for patients that can’t get a text or email)
- Increase your new patient count. Easier said than done, but one great way is to increase your online visibility and SEO through patient feedback. When prospective patients find you and see how credible you are it’s very enticing. Here are a few quick reads on new patient acquisition that can also really help drive an action plan. Feel free to contact our Customer Success team to give you some pointers.
Here's a quick video from our rockstar office manager Laura on why you should check out the Patient Reactivation campaigns in RevenueWell!
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