Has your appointment scheduling system moved to the 21st century yet?
If you haven’t switched to online scheduling, it’s about time!
Take a look at these numbers:
30% – The rise in the proportion of patients booking online in 2014, continuing eight years of uninterrupted growth. Accenture predicts that within four years two-thirds of all medical appointments booked in the United States will be booked online.
986 million – Number of medical appointments online patients will make in the U.S. in 2019, accounting for 38% of all appointments made that year.
$3.2 billion – Amount in savings or added value for U.S. health systems generated by online appointment scheduling by 2019.
A quick look at the benefits of online scheduling makes it clear why everything is headed in that direction. A good online scheduler empowers your patients (both old and new) to schedule their own appointments online, 24/7. Your patients are also used to a lifestyle of booking online – that’s how they reserve their hotel rooms, flights, and movie tickets. And they will love not having to wait on hold for your busy office staff!
And that’s just for your patients. Your office staff will be freed up for more critical tasks and will generally have more time on their hands. Online scheduling streamlines your appointment scheduling process, not to mention the all important bottom line – that better efficiency translates into lower costs. That’s something we can all appreciate.
Manual scheduling could put your practice in bad shape.
Put simply, manual scheduling is just bad business practice. Here’s why:
Drains staff time and budget. Manual scheduling requires setting up appointments over the phone, recording them in an appointment book or electronic calendar, making reminder phone calls, recording cancellations, resetting cancelled appointments, and all the while, scrambling to fill those workday gaps. All of this means lots and lots of your office staff’s time is taken up with scheduling tasks. Goodbye, productivity; hello, increased payroll and operational costs.
Inconveniences patients. No one is interested in picking up the phone just to wait interminable minutes on hold for your staff to pick up. All they want to see a choice of available practitioners and time slots, and schedule an appointment with just a few clicks. Now combine today’s patient preferences with the limited hours of your office staff, and you’ll see why an online appointment scheduler beats the manual version every time.
An online scheduler keeps your practice fit as a fiddle.
Ease your workload. Boost your savings. Engage your patients and make them happier by giving them the convenience of scheduling their own appointments. Here are 9 reasons that make online scheduling software, such as Patient Communicator’s Online Scheduler, it’s just what the doctor ordered:
- Increase your savings – Why pay staff to manually schedule and confirm appointments, when you can invest in a solution that will do the work for you?
- Make it convenient for your patients – Enable them to schedule their own appointments (and even wait-list themselves for preferred dates) online anytime, anywhere.
- Stay in control – You determine all the parameters of the appointments that can be scheduled online.
- Block chronic cancellers– Patients who are habitual no-shows will not be able to use the online scheduler, thanks to its Black List feature.
- Stay connected – With appointments list online (and not in just your office), you can easily access this information wherever there’s an Internet connection. Review future appointments remotely!
- Keep patient data safe and secure – Strong encryption and anti-hacking features stores customer information securely online – better than if it were in an appointment book at your front desk.
- Enjoy flexibility – Easily make schedule modifications, such as closing off certain hours or providers, or taking certain days of the week off of the scheduler.
- Streamline operations – Freeing up staff from manual scheduling means they can provide better service when your patients arrive, and lend their attention to other critical tasks.
- Reduce no-shows – Automated SMS and email reminders advise patients of a pending appointment. This gives them the chance to confirm or reschedule, and gives your staff a heads up regarding any last-minute rescheduling.
Sounds great? Find out what our Online Scheduler can do for your practice – totally risk-free!
Contact us for your 30-day FREE TRIAL.
PatientCommunicator provides state-of-the-art solution designed for medical and dental practitioners. A win-win system for both your patients and your practice, its sophisticated features include Automated Confirmations & Reminders, 2-Way Texting, an Online Scheduler, Reviews & Surveys, and Marketing Tools. The solution makes no-shows a thing of the past, and makes it easier for patients to book appointments. It also enables providers to build stronger relationships with their patients, increase revenues, and grow their practice.
About the author: Meir is the founder and CEO of Patient Communicator, a simple but feature rich platform that helps medical and dental practices of all kinds to better communicate with their patients. Meir is passionate about helping practices grow by enhancing the patient experience and improving practice efficiency. Learn more about Meir and Patient Communicator here.