As patients move through their care journey, from acquisition and onboarding to ongoing care, to their financial experience, there should be consistent, reliable communication touchpoints. Appointment automation can help deliver on these. Better engagement with patients means better care plan adherence, outcomes, and, of course, patient satisfaction.
While appointment reminders are critical for ensuring patients attend their visits, there is so much more to automation than just that. Let’s discover how automation can help your organization throughout the entire care journey – beyond just appointment reminders.
Automated Referral Management
Nearly 50 percent of patient referrals are never completed. Many times it’s due to a communication breakdown between patients and providers, other times patients may forget to schedule or keep an appointment.
A robust referral management system can address these issues by simplifying the communication between patients and providers and streamlining the workflow around referrals.
Artera Referrals Management improves the patient referral process, cuts down missed appointments, and reduces patient leakage. Artera Referrals Management also contributes to preventing hospital readmission by ensuring patients get the care and medical expertise they need right after hospitalization. The Artera platform helps office staff to schedule appointments and helps patients to keep them. Coupled with Artera’s powerful automation engine and appointment reminders, this creates a concierge patient experience.
Post-Visit Follow-Ups
Many of our customers send automated messages to their patients after a visit – whether it’s to follow up with medication instructions or directions, inquire about patient feedback, or request to provide a review on Google.
Artera’s Conversation Builder can help with this, as it utilizes multi-step decision trees to handle complex patient inquiries, bringing in a live staff member if needed to close any gaps for patients.
At Sansum Clinic, 95% of Conversation Builder conversations with which patients engaged were addressed without staff intervention.
Equipped with Natural Language Understanding (NLU), the platform can interpret multiple patient responses, creating conversational interactions for patients over SMS and avoiding scripted, robotic interactions.
Customers using Conversation Builder have customized workflows to help new pediatric patients schedule, follow up on patient cancellations or no-shows and help patients more easily access telehealth services. These types of touchpoints wouldn’t be possible with manual outreach over the phone or through low-engagement surveys; instead, Artera facilitates these automated conversations with patients how they prefer, leading to better engagement and meaningful communication.
Recall Automations
The days are over of having patients complete a self-addressed postcard reminder to schedule their next annual appointment. So too is having your staff manually call each patient to schedule a recall. An automated system can make this process more efficient, increase your patient retention, and open up valuable time for staff members.
Scheduling follow-up appointments through the Artera platform can help free up front desk staff to handle higher-value tasks like patient check-in or answering inquiries from patients either in person or by phone.
Instead, you can set up automated Artera Recalls to send your patients the nudge they need, in the medium they prefer. Not only does it ensure your patients receive much-needed care, but it also keeps patients within your healthcare system. This can include things like scheduling a preventative wellness visit, dental hygiene appointment, or reordering medical supplies.
Why You Should Be Using More than Just Appointment Automation
Automation is a key component of leading the charge to create modern patient engagement, but it doesn’t need to be a heavy lift. At Artera, we are helping you to get started by providing numerous features and predefined automated conversation templates for common tasks and workflows to supplement your team AND increase patient throughput.
Appointment automation can extend beyond just appointment reminders and play a significant role in improving patient engagement, adherence to care plans, and overall satisfaction. With features like automated referral management, post-visit follow-ups, and recall automations, organizations can streamline communication with patients and create a more personalized, concierge experience. These touchpoints not only benefit patients but also help reduce missed appointments and prevent hospital readmissions.
So while appointment reminders are important, it’s essential for healthcare organizations to utilize automation throughout the entire care journey for better outcomes and patient satisfaction. And with Artera’s user-friendly platform and various pre-defined conversation templates, implementing appointment automation has never been easier. So don’t limit yourself to just appointment reminders – explore the many ways that appointment automation can benefit your organization and patients. With Artera, the possibilities are endless. So why not start exploring today? Your patients will thank you for it!