The world is ready for more digitally forward healthcare experiences, and the front lines are at the intersection of scheduling and patient engagement. When done well, combining these two critical front office functions new tools that transform healthcare access.
It’s a marriage of once siloed functionalities that simply didn’t exist in a single solution, even just a few years ago. Think, for example, of how differently work used to look in business before the advent of shared team spaces like Slack or Teams. That’s the same place the healthcare front office finds itself today.
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Jeff Gartland Jeff Gartland is the CEO of Relatient Inc., a SaaS-based patient scheduling company that utilizes a mobile-first approach to improving relationships between providers and consumers leading to increased revenue and engagement.
Most forward-thinking providers have been trying to cobble together multiple solutions to schedule patients, communicate with them across various modalities, and process documents and records pre-service, all while keeping their schedules optimized for the right patient at the right time. Only now can providers adopt a single-source solution to seamlessly let patients self-schedule, empower their staff with two-way communications channels, provide a simple way to manage intake before patients walk through the door, and keep all providers’ schedules optimized to their unique rules and preferences.
For provider practices, adopting the tools that can manage this continuum of patient engagement offers an ROI game-changer, capable of totally reframing the patient experience around seamless, mobile-first tools while boosting provider revenue.
Healthcare gets its Slack moment
If I asked you to imagine for a moment the standard front office experience at your average practice, visions of post-it notes, fax machines and clipboards for intake surely spring to mind. Today, that world is quickly evolving into the digital future, driven by patient expectations.
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To evolve and meet those expectations, providers are instead opting for tools that help them send patients documents, give them directions to the office, receive a chat from a would-be patient, or remind an existing patient who hasn’t uploaded their new insurance card to do so in advance of their appointment. Perhaps most importantly, patients and schedulers alike can look at the practice’s upcoming calendar of availability to find times that work and to optimize schedules.
Transparent scheduling, with built-in tools to make pre-service workflows seamless and communication throughout the episode of care effortless, is how practices are creating fundamental expansions in throughput. Provider schedules stay more optimized, and patients manage their needs on their terms while also feeling more connected to their provider’s offices, and more in charge of their own care journey. Questions get answered quickly, schedules are openly available, and the overall patient experience improves as a result.
When providers improve patient access, they expand productivity, drive higher patient satisfaction and increase revenue. This changes the very experience of going to the doctor into something more digital, more positive and more profitable.
Optimized calendars increase revenues
When patients experience seamless digital interactions when finding a doctor, messaging them for the first time, following up with ongoing communication, understanding what documents to fill out, gaining specific directions, processing payment and solving for eligibility or authorization, it makes a difference.
And consider what that same improved access does for the operations of the provider’s office, keeping provider schedules optimized while improving efficiency in every facet of the patient interaction leading up to a visit. From records and forms to scheduling and copays, it’s all managed under one digital roof, offering transformative efficiency and the fully optimized calendars that lead to increased revenues.
Bidirectional experiences are the new standard
If rolling scheduling and patient engagement into a newer and more robust platform sounds a little disruptive to office operations, it’s important to note: these are the experiences consumers are seeking out in every marketplace. To survive the digital healthcare transformation, providers must change some underlying frameworks around their operations and adopt systems that continue to solve their problems better, faster, and with the patient experience in mind.
Consumers today are in an era of significant transformation towards digitally-forward, bidirectional relationships with brands. They’re looking for ways to connect quickly, with no friction. 24/7 access. Self-service. Intuitive chat functionality. These are commonplace tools in other industries that patients have come to expect.
Healthcare providers that deliver similar experiences are the providers that will win more consumers in our ever-evolving healthcare digital transformation.
They’ll win them not because of patient experience alone but also because those providers who see the advantages of leaning into optimized schedules will solve for downstream problems, operate more efficiently and earn a greater share of business, not to mention a healthier schedule.
It’s funny to think just how much potential sits at the intersection of scheduling and patient communication. Suppose a patient uploads the wrong documentation prior to a visit. If they show up at the office without the proper document, the scheduling period for that patient is effectively lost revenue, shifted further out into the calendar when they can return with what they need. But if a provider’s system could check in advance and turn those outbound communications requesting proper documentation into a two-way chat to clarify any questions, more patients will arrive on time with their prep work completed. Multiply that process across thousands of interactions, and a vision for more effective care and more efficient scheduling takes shape.
In the end, simple-to-use integrated scheduling and two-way engagement are critical in equipping healthcare providers to deliver a better patient experience in the digital future. When built correctly, they showcase to providers and patients alike the power of a digitally-forward organization, in the form of increased engagement, reduced friction and more optimized daily schedules. The future of healthcare is now, and seamless digital tools for scheduling and engagement are the right place to jump in.
Photo: Raycat, Getty Images
Jeff Gartland is the CEO of Relatient Inc., a SaaS-based patient scheduling company that utilizes a mobile-first approach to improving relationships between providers and consumers leading to increased revenue and engagement.
