Appointment scheduling is a time-consuming and challenging process for physician practices and patients alike. In many physicians’ offices scheduling is still highly manual and managed using a combination of phone calls, paper scheduling books, spreadsheets, or electronic scheduling tools that don’t provide full visibility for either administrative staff or patients.
Scheduling can also be highly inconvenient for the patient. In a typical scenario, patients have to call during office hours, then listen to a staff member read a list of available slots that may be weeks away, while trying to match what the person is saying to their own work and home calendars.
According to an Accenture 2013 consumer survey, it takes an average of 8.1 minutes to schedule an appointment. For the patient, that’s time on the phone that could be spent doing something more important. In addition, the patient may have to call back and go through the process all over again if they later discover a scheduling conflict. Phone-based scheduling can make it difficult to coordinate each patient’s work and family schedules around the available appointment times because it’s impossible to get a comprehensive view of all schedules simultaneously.
The process is also frustrating because some patients can’t call during office hours to speak directly to the scheduler and 63 percent of the time agents transfer patient calls – potentially making the process take even longer.
Practices can save time and increase convenience for patients and staff with electronic self-scheduling solutions.
Appointment scheduling is a time-consuming and challenging process for physician practices and patients alike. In many physicians’ offices scheduling is still highly manual and managed using a combination of phone calls, paper scheduling books, spreadsheets, or electronic scheduling tools that don’t provide full visibility for either administrative staff or patients.
Scheduling can also be highly inconvenient for the patient. In a typical scenario, patients have to call during office hours, then listen to a staff member read a list of available slots that may be weeks away, while trying to match what the person is saying to their own work and home calendars.
According to an Accenture 2013 consumer survey, it takes an average of 8.1 minutes to schedule an appointment. For the patient, that’s time on the phone that could be spent doing something more important. In addition, the patient may have to call back and go through the process all over again if they later discover a scheduling conflict. Phone-based scheduling can make it difficult to coordinate each patient’s work and family schedules around the available appointment times because it’s impossible to get a comprehensive view of all schedules simultaneously.
The process is also frustrating because some patients can’t call during office hours to speak directly to the scheduler and 63 percent of the time agents transfer patient calls – potentially making the process take even longer.
For the physician’s practice, 8 minutes per call can quickly add up to hours per day on the phone for staff members – and that’s in addition to time administrative staff spend phoning patients for appointment reminders, recalls, and confirmations.
Online self-scheduling can fix these problems while providing more convenience to patients and saving hours per week in lost labor for physician practices. Online scheduling solutions are common in other industries and are now being adopted in healthcare to help streamline and improve the scheduling process.
Patients are also asking for them. According to Accenture’s data, 77 percent of patients want to be able to self-schedule. Use of these systems is expected to grow, with 66 percent of U.S. health systems offering digital self-scheduling and 64 percent of patients scheduling appointments digitally by 2019. On average, a health provider that offers self-scheduling will provide the ability to self-schedule 80 percent of their total appointment volume. That represents a huge opportunity to improve efficiency.
Online self-scheduling tools give patients the ability to view the physician scheduling online, at a time that is convenient for them, and then compare it to their own schedules. This reduces the need for rescheduling, eliminates phone calls, and reduces frustration for patients and staff.
Self-Scheduling Saves Time
Self-scheduling software can be integrated directly with practice management (PM) software to provide real-time coordination of the schedule.
With online scheduling, patients can be directed (via links on the practice website, via email, on social media sites, through Healthgrades, or even through links available via Google searches) to the scheduling system. They can see available appointment times, select the time that works for them, and receive immediate confirmation. Office staff receive an immediate notification that a new appointment has been booked, so they can ensure that there are no scheduling conflicts, and that the patient has scheduled the right length/type of appointment for their treatment needs.
When staff members book appointments the traditional way (over the phone or at the desk), they can input those appointments into the PM system, and those changes are reflected in the self-scheduling tool to provide a real-time view of available appointment slots.
Patients can access the system 24/7 from their laptop, desktop, tablet, or phone. If the practice offers different appointment types or lengths (e.g., a check-up versus an outpatient procedure or a complete physical), those parameters can be customized in the system and presented to the patient as options when they schedule their visit.
By giving patients visibility to all available appointment slots and eliminating phone calls, the 8-minute scheduling time can be cut down to just 30 seconds or less. As a result, administrative staff at the provider’s office can spend less time on the phone and more time on value-added activities.
Online scheduling can also be augmented and integrated with patient relationship management (PRM) solutions to further empower patients, automate scheduling, and reduce no-shows and scheduling gaps. PRM solutions can provide automated reminders and recall outreach. Emails and texts generated by these systems can provide direct links to the online scheduling tool. If patients need to cancel or reschedule an appointment, they can do so in a single, seamless electronic transaction that allows them to notify the office and schedule a new appointment quickly from any location. This allows the office to identify gaps in the schedule at an earlier point, and then try to fill them via the recall process.
Providers also have better visibility into the schedule, as well as a view of which appointment times are the most in demand.
Finally, with the ability to schedule appointments online, patients will view the practice as technologically advanced and easy to work with, which can improve patient satisfaction and loyalty. Patients are able to do nearly everything online – from booking a hotel room to scheduling a visit from a plumber to buying a car. They expect their healthcare providers to be just as easy to interact with.
Fast, Easy Deployment
Physician’s practices, dental offices, and other healthcare providers are often reluctant to deploy new software because of the potential cost and the disruption these implementations can generate in their offices.
Online scheduling tools can be quickly deployed in a cloud-based, subscription model. The system can also directly integrate with the practice management system, so the schedule is automatically synchronized. Staff simply have to enter a few simple parameters (appointment lengths, available times, etc.) to set the system up.
However, practices may worry about revealing too much information about their schedules – there may be open appointment times or types, for example, that shouldn’t be made available via an online tool because they involve complex procedures, or because staff need to keep specific time slots open for other reasons.
With a self-scheduling tool, though, providers have full control over which appointments are visible to patients. Certain types of appointments can also be configured to require a phone call to schedule them if staff-patient interaction is necessary.
Because the online tool reflects the provider’s actual schedule (it’s not a separate schedule maintained in the solution), there’s also no chance of double-booking or over-scheduling. Staff are notified as soon as a patient requests an appointment online to ensure that they are aware that time slot is taken. The self-scheduling tool holds appointment times automatically so another patient trying to schedule online can’t book the same time.
Conclusion
Healthcare providers and their staffs are under increasing pressure to reduce costs, streamline their operations, and manage expanding patient loads and administrative requirements with fewer resources. Patients want more control over their healthcare experiences, and their expectations of healthcare practices are rising because of their experiences using technology to interact with other businesses and service providers.
Online scheduling tools can be quickly set up and configured with minimal software installation and training – the process can be easily integrated into a practice’s existing workflows. Moreover, the time savings enabled by the solution can make administrative staff’s job easier than ever by eliminating the number of appointments that have to be manually scheduled.
Online self-scheduling has the potential to improve patient satisfaction and increase convenience, while saving the provider’s administrative staff hours each week by eliminating phone calls. Both patients and providers can also have better visibility into the schedule, and providers can do a better job of managing their schedule and filling available openings.
Patients will increasingly expect to be able to schedule appointments online. By meeting this demand via self-scheduling, providers can reduce costs while providing better service to their patients.
About Solutionreach
Solutionreach, the pioneer of automated appointment reminders, is now the industry leader for patient relationship management technology. Their robust platform is used in a variety of healthcare practices to help providers effectively and consistently engage their patients throughout the continuum of care. In addition to improving outcomes and increasing patient retention, the Solutionreach cloud-based tools help providers boost their online presence and generate new patients by automatically collecting and distributing patient surveys, monitoring patient reviews, and integrating social media. To learn more, visit www.solutionreach.com.
