Staffing Challenges: No one solution
Staffing challenges continue to be the top challenge for medical practices in 2022. While the problem is faced by virtually all industries today, its impacts have been significantly worse in healthcare which has been on the frontlines of the pandemic for the past two years. [...]
Why Patient Engagement Really Does Matter
The practice of great medicine includes a hefty dose of patient engagement because excellent medical care requires a partnership to achieve the outcome. The patient and/or the caregiver must be active participants in the care plan. Unfortunately, the phrase patient engagement has been hijacked. Many physicians [...]
Client Story
Client Alabama Neurology and Sleep Medicine Tuscaloosa, Alabama, U.S.A. Results Within the first two months of implementation, VoCall was able to handle call volumes equivalent to one full-time employee, freeing up front desk staff to do more critical work. Since patients were able to [...]
Best Practices for Patient Appointment Scheduling
Scheduling is at the heart of healthcare. Poor, or even mediocre, scheduling processes can cost a small clinic hundreds of thousands of dollars. Creating and using meaningful appointment types to optimize scheduling for your practice is important for the bottom line and decreasing stress and burnout. [...]
Do you know what your Medical Scheduler really does?
Patient Scheduling. Most physicians think is it’s so simple. A patient calls the practice, talks to a scheduler who enters the information into the scheduling application and poof - it’s done. The reality is that medical scheduling is one of the most complicated and stressful positions [...]
Voice Assistants in Healthcare
Voice assistants are computer programs that receive audio inputs and respond with audio output in a manner perceived as listening and “answering” questions from a person. A user can ask “What is the weather going to be for today?” and the voice assistant will respond with a weather report [...]
Managing Provider-Initiated Appointment Cancellations
Provider-Initiated Appointment Cancellations arise when the provider will not be available for the encounter. These can occur for many reasons including illness, family obligations, vacation, office closures (for the weather, COVID-19, or the provider being needed elsewhere). Even when planned far in advance these reasons for cancellation can still [...]
Managing Patient No Shows
Managing patient no shows are a big problem, with many clinics facing no-show rates as high as 30%. This has been an even bigger problem during the COVID-19 pandemic. Every missed visit affects the bottom line. Just as important, if not more so, missed appointments don’t affect just the [...]
Patient Waitlists
Many patients want an earlier appointment. Many offices have cancellations and no-shows. Often offices use a waitlist to try to solve both problems, but waitlists have their share of problems, especially when not optimized. It is possible to address waitlist problems while enhancing the patient experience, however. Managing patient [...]
Appointment Reminders
Almost every office and hospital use patient appointment reminders. Some are poor, others mediocre, and some do a relatively good job. In the present climate, we cannot stand for anything less than great. Appointment reminders increase appointment attendance and early cancellation when needed, which opens the slot to be [...]
Phone Tree Best Practices
Virtually every patient satisfaction survey reveals patients’ dissatisfaction with getting through on the phone to their healthcare provider. Phone trees should be a helpful bridge not an impenetrable wall. Careful planning and utilizing phone tree best practices improve your system and your patient satisfaction. When is the last time you [...]