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The Cost of Neglecting Text Appointment Reminders

The Cost of Neglecting Text Appointment Reminders

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In today's fast-paced world, missed appointments can be a significant headache for medical practices. Simple solutions like text appointment reminders have emerged as effective tools for reducing no-shows. They offer flexibility by allowing patients to manage their healthcare appointments on the go. Whether they're at work, running errands, or attending to family matters, patients can easily respond to reminders and make necessary adjustments to their schedules. In this blog, we'll explore the tangible costs associated with not utilizing text appointment reminders in medical practices.

Missed Appointments: A Costly Conundrum

According to the National Institute of Health, the average cost of a no-show visit in the United States is around $200. If you could prevent just one no-show visit per provider each week, you would be increasing your monthly revenues by $800 per provider.

Imagine if you could prevent one no-show per week for each provider at your practice for a full year. That’s an additional $9,600 per provider of revenue your practice could collect!

Administrative Overhead: Time is Money

Manual outreach is not without its hardships. Many patients don’t answer the phone or listen to voicemails. Most patients prefer to communicate via text and manually calling is more expensive than you might think.

Texting patient appointment reminders can increase attendance rate while saving your staff valuable time by eliminating the need to send additional reminders, place reminder calls, or reschedule missed appointments.

Patient Satisfaction: A Critical Component

Instant Access to Information: Patients receive automated text reminders shortly after scheduling their appointments. This provides them with immediate confirmation of their appointment details, including the date, time, location, and any necessary preparation instructions.

Ease of Communication: Text reminders often include features that allow patients to confirm, reschedule, or cancel appointments with a simple reply. This two-way communication stream provides patients with a convenient way to manage their appointments without having to make phone calls or visit the practice's website.

Reduced No-Show Rates: By receiving timely reminders, patients are less likely to forget about their appointments or double-book themselves. This reduction in no-show rates not only benefits the practice financially but also ensures that appointment slots are utilized efficiently, reducing wait times for other patients.

The Solution: Text Appointment Reminders

By recognizing the hidden costs associated with missed appointments and administrative overhead, medical practices can make informed decisions to enhance their operations and prioritize patient care. With Criterions text appointment reminders, not only can you reduce costs but also improve overall efficiency, patient satisfaction, and increase your revenue.

 

Fill out our contact form below to learn more about Criterions integrated text appointment reminders and how it can help your practice today!

Direct Messaging with Criterions EHR

Direct Messaging with Criterions EHR

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The Basics of Direct Messaging with Criterions EHR

 

Direct Messaging allows for communication across disparate platforms. Nationally renowned professionals and organizations have recommended the usage of Direct because it is safe, simple to use, and reasonably priced. A doctor who uses Epic EHR, for example, could send a Direct Message to a doctor using Criterions EHR and the Direct Message would be received within Criterions EHR. The process would work the same in reverse. Direct messaging utilizes identity-proofing to ensure messages are only accessible to the intended recipient per the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protection regulations.

You will need to obtain a Direct address to send and receive health-related direct secure messages.  Direct addresses resemble email addresses in appearance and can be assigned to certain people, groups, departments, or devices. For example, “drabc@abcmedical.clinic.org” serves as a Direct address. It's important to understand that while this may appear and work like an email address, standard email accounts (like gmail, yahoo mail, or your company's email) are NOT Direct addresses. Traditional email accounts do not comply with the security requirements for Direct, thus messages sent to or from those accounts will not send over Direct. You or your coworkers may have a unique Direct address, just like you may have separate fax numbers for each of your office connections. You will need to consult available resources to find the Direct addresses of those with whom you generally correspond to use it.

Also, several incentive payment program requirements include the need to transmit C-CDA type documents with other providers. Direct exchange of a C-CDA may help you meet incentive payment measures.

How can you obtain a Direct address?

Criterions has partnered with EMRDirect which can assign you a Direct Address. There’s a small fee for participation which the Criterions Support team can assist you once you fill out the contact form below.

Webinar: 2023 Texting Enhancements

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In this webinar series, The Criterions Team showed the benefits of automatic texting appointment reminders and how that can save your staff time managing schedules and ultimately, increasing your practice's or business's revenue. 

With Criterions Texting Appointment Reminder Module, you can send messages to your patients in either English or Spanish! This webinar recording walks you through the set up process step-by-step on how to configure message language and how to customize what your patients will automatically receive. 

SMS Segments are estimated by volume of appointments per month. For an accurate quote on Texting Appointment Reminders, please email Sales@criterions.com

If you would like to see more on the SMS Segment Tool to help customize your messaging or to dive deeper into configuration, please fill out a form here for a demo. 

Request a Demo!