The world is ready for a more digital healthcare experience, with the front lines at the intersection of scheduling and patient engagement. When done right, combining these two key front-office functions can transform new tools for healthcare access.
It’s a combination of once isolated features that didn’t exist in a single solution even a few years ago. For example, think about how different work was in business before shared team spaces like Slack or Teams came along. This is where the healthcare front desk is today.
Most forward-thinking providers have been trying to cobble together multiple solutions to schedule patients, communicate with them in various ways, and process documents and records before services, while optimizing their schedules for the right patients at the right time. Only now can providers adopt a single-source solution to seamlessly allow patients to self-schedule, provide two-way lines of communication for their staff, provide an easy way to manage intake before patients walk in the door, and optimize all supplies Providers schedule their unique rules and preferences.
For provider practices, adopting tools that can manage this continuous patient engagement can transform ROI, enabling the ability to completely re-architect the patient experience around a seamless, mobile-first tool, while increasing provider revenue.
Healthcare gets its slack moment
If I ask you to imagine your standard front desk experience in a normal clinic, you’re bound to think of the vision of post-it notes, fax machines, and clipboards. Today, driven by patient expectations, the world is rapidly evolving into a digital future.
To develop and meet these expectations, providers are turning to tools that help them send patient documents, direct them to the office, receive chats from potential patients, or remind existing patients who have not yet uploaded new insurance cards to do so before their appointments. Perhaps most importantly, both patients and schedulers can view the clinic’s upcoming availability calendar to find available times and optimize schedules.
Transparent scheduling and built-in tools make pre-service workflow seamless and communication effortless throughout the care process, which is how the practice can radically expand throughput. Provider schedules are more optimized, and patients can manage their needs on their own terms, while feeling more connected to the provider’s office and more responsible for their own care journey. Questions are answered quickly and the schedule is public, so the overall patient experience improves.
When providers improve patient access, they increase productivity, increase patient satisfaction, and increase revenue. This turns the experience of going to the doctor into a more digital, positive and profitable one.
Optimize your calendar to increase revenue
It helps patients experience seamless digital interactions when looking for a doctor, message them for the first time, follow up with ongoing communications, understand documents to fill out, get specific instructions, process payments, and resolve eligibility or authorization issues make a difference.
And consider how the same improved access will impact provider office operations, keeping provider schedules optimized while improving efficiency in all aspects of pre-visit patient interactions. From records and forms to scheduling and copays, all managed under one digital platform, delivering transformative efficiencies and a fully optimized calendar that increases revenue.
Two-way experience is the new standard
If rolling scheduling and patient engagement to newer and more robust platforms sounds a little disruptive to office operations, here’s a caveat: these are the experiences consumers are looking for in every market. To survive the digital health transformation, providers must change some of the underlying framework around their operations and adopt systems that continue to solve problems better and faster, with the patient experience in mind.
Today’s consumers are in an era of a major shift toward digital, two-way relationships with brands. They’re looking for ways to connect quickly, without friction. 24/7 access. self service. Intuitive chat functionality. These are common tools that patients have come to expect from other industries.
Healthcare providers that offer a similar experience will win over more consumers in our evolving healthcare digital transformation.
They will win them not just because of the patient experience, but because those providers who see the benefits of an optimized schedule will solve downstream problems, operate more efficiently and gain a larger share of their business, not to mention healthier schedules .
It’s interesting to think about how much potential there is at the intersection of scheduling and patient communication. Suppose a patient uploaded the wrong document prior to their visit. If they show up at the office without proper documentation, that patient’s placement period is effectively a loss of income that is further transferred into the calendar when they can return with what they need. But if the provider’s system can check ahead and turn those outbound communications that ask for proper documentation into two-way chats to clarify any concerns, more patients will arrive on time after preparations are complete. Add to that process over thousands of interactions, and a vision for more effective care and more efficient scheduling is taking shape.
Finally, easy-to-use integrated scheduling and two-way engagement are critical to enabling healthcare providers to deliver a better patient experience in the digital future. When built properly, they demonstrate the power of digital organizations to providers and patients in the form of increased engagement, reduced friction, and more optimized daily schedules. The future of healthcare is here, and seamless digital tools for scheduling and engagement are the right entry point.
Photo: Raycat, Getty Images
