Staff at Allied Physicians Group in Melville, New York, used to leave a lot of voice messages reminding patients of upcoming appointments at its 33 offices.
Then in early 2017 the practice switched to a text-messaging-based system and it has been reaping the rewards of greater efficiency ever since, said Leslie Baker, vice president of patient experience and marketing for Allied Physicians, which is primarily focused on pediatrics.
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“It more than pays for the system,” Baker said in a phone interview. And patients embrace it, she added. “The parent can do it when it’s convenient for them. I think that’s the biggest thing with text communication. It’s a lot faster than having a phone call.”
Allied Physician, which has offices on Long Island and New York City, uses a product developed by Solutionreach. Based in Lehi, Utah, Solutionreach is one of many tech companies looking to overhaul communications between patients and providers. Others include Luma Health and Medumo, which was bought this year by European tech giant Philips.
Patients at Allied Physicians are not alone in preferring texts. According to a survey earlier this year by DrFirst, a company that provides e-prescribing and medication management solutions, texting is heavily favored by patients.
Healthtech companies, meanwhile, have been working to automate conversations using artificial intelligence and other software.
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Solutionreach is beta testing new AI functions with several customers after rolling them out in mid-October, Nagi Prabhu, chief product officer for Solutionreach, said in a phone interview. He declined to name the customers. The 20-year-old firm has with about 400 employees and annual revenue of about $100 million. It handles about 1 billion text messages per year, largely for dental and physician groups.
After analyzing texts sent through its platform, it found that 30% of patients often text outside normal office hours and that 60% of those conversations were related to scheduling, whether it was to reschedule an appointment or ask about parking, Prabhu said. The goal has been to automate replies as much as possible so that providers don’t have to answer the same questions over and over and so that patients get replies more quickly.
The automated features, however, are being rolled out in stages so that customers can grow more comfortable with handing over conversations to AI, Prabhu said. Users can opt to start with human control over sending AI-generated replies, then move on to giving people a time-limited opportunity to review and edit replies before they are automatically sent. The final stage would be to remove human involvement altogether.
“We’re actually walking them through that journey because not many people are ready to rely on AI entirely,” Prabhu said.
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