Patients are consumers, and clinics and physicians should communicate with them in their preferred style to build effective relationships. For many patients, that means text messaging; however, most clinics still primarily use phone calls or regular mail to engage with patients. As a medical practice, we wanted to have a better relationship with the consumer and quickly took steps to do so.
For nearly 30 years, North Florida Women’s Care has provided obstetric and gynecologic services to women across North Florida and South Georgia and has been regarded as a top OB/GYN practice in the area for several years. The number of patients has increased as a result, making communications and engagement critical to properly guide them through their healthcare journey.
In 2017, the clinic implemented new patient engagement technology to support our mission. Here’s what we achieved:
Replacing 20-minute holds with a simple text message
As a high-volume practice, patients often waited 20 frustrating minutes or more for us to answer their calls. If they couldn’t get through to cancel or reschedule an appointment, they simply didn’t show up. With the new communication system in place, our protocol is to send reminders one week in advance of an appointment, then two days prior and finally two hours before a patient’s scheduled visit. Patients prefer communicating with us via text messaging, and now they can easily cancel or reschedule an appointment by simply responding to one of these texts. The drop in the number of no-show appointments has been dramatic, decreasing by about half.
Automated waiting lists bring more patients to care
Our physicians are very busy, and it can be somewhat difficult for patients to schedule an appointment. If an appointment is not available, the system can place patients on an automated waiting list. If someone cancels their appointment via text, it is removed from the calendar and the system automatically offers that slot via text to the first patient on the waiting list. Each person in the queue gets five minutes to accept the appointment. If there is no response, the system will automatically offer the appointment to the next patient and so on. Since August 2017, our providers have been able to see 927 patients who responded to open waiting list offers.
Saying goodbye to referral phone tag
Regardless of how we receive a patient referral from another doctor — fax, call, Regional Health Information Network (RHIN), mail, etc. — our referral coordinator can now put patients into our digital referral system. From there, we can immediately activate patient communication with a text message to make it as easy as possible for patients to see the referred physician. This has eliminated playing phone tag when attempting to reach new referrals. Our physicians have been able to see more than 1,100 referred patients this way, which is approximately a 25% increase. We’ve also been able to add a link to our dedicated phone line for referrals directly in the text message, allowing patients to call and speak to a person should they prefer. We can now also track how many referrals come from each doctor and generate reports that help us better align our resources.
Guiding patients with clinical information to ensure a better visit
For ultrasounds, physicians need patients to arrive with a full bladder to perform a quality image scan. Otherwise, they have to wait for patients to fill their bladder once they arrive, which affects the entire schedule. With the patient engagement platform in place, we can automatically generate a message two hours in advance of their visit by tapping into the appointment categorization in our EHR system with which the Luma Health platform integrates.
Managing online reviews
Finally, my favorite thing about our patient relationship management platform is how it helps drive our reputation through online reviews. Roughly three hours after an appointment ends, our patients receive a text message asking them to rate their appointment. We’ve received more than 200 new reviews compared to our previous request process. The feedback helps us understand where we excel and where we can improve our services. We’ve deployed several review links over the past year including Google, Yelp and Facebook reviews. We are very proud that our average Google rating is now 4.4 out of 5 stars.
In healthcare, the times aren’t just changing — they have already changed. As CEO of a successful clinic and a member of the MGMA Board of Directors, I see a lot of emerging technologies. By far, patient-provider communication is an area that needs to be upgraded to better serve patients and help improve their long-term well-being
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