Ten mistakes all new healthcare businesses make with appointment management

A brief overview on patient scheduling and its benefits

Good patient appointment scheduling is something that should be straightforward but can be relatively difficult to achieve. Patient scheduling should optimize your resources in a way that allows you to see and treat as many patients as possible, but all while keeping client satisfaction high with short wait times. With the correct appointment management, this balancing act can be made accessible, with many healthcare companies providing appointment scheduling software for healthcare businesses. Automating this process can mean you can see more patients while ensuring a high level of care for your practice. 

Not only this, but there are many benefits to scheduling appointments efficiently, including some of the following:

1. More patients! - Online booking systems are a much more new and convenient method to booking than making phone calls and speaking in person. Many patients feel more comfortable having the freedom to book themselves and not talk over the phone - which is excellent in attracting more patients to your practice.
2. No more empty slots - Following on from this, appointment slots are more likely to be filled as patients can view specific timeframes and quickly jump into any gaps. 
3. 24-Hour availability - Online scheduling allows patients to book regardless of the time of day and even when your clinic is physically closed. This also attracts more patients in having more flexibility around scheduling. 
4. Effective patient management - Because patient information is online, it can be more easily managed as it can be accessed from one place. In the case-patient information also needs to be updated; online systems can easily accommodate this. 
5. e-Marketing - Online systems provide patient information such as phone numbers and email addresses, especially beneficial for promotions. Information can be easily retrieved from the online data, which means you can keep patients better informed about offers from your practice.
6. Online payments - Patients can also pay online, which is excellent as online payments tend to be very secure with security systems to encrypt private information. 
7. Reduces administrative work - With online scheduling of medical appointments, office staff may not be needed to do this with patients having the ability to do it themselves. This reduces costs for your healthcare practice, which can be used to fund other medical services or equipment. 

What Are the Costs of Frequent Scheduling Mistakes?

A lot of energy, time, and money, goes into good appointment management to ensure little to no scheduling mistakes. From big to small details, when it comes to caring for your patients, everything matters. Healthcare businesses want to make sure that they feel satisfied with your service and that every requirement on their end is easy to manage, such as scheduling appointments. Happy patients mean a comfortable clinic, as it will allow the day-to-day in your practice to run much more smoothly. 

Having scheduling mistakes can also result in significant losses for your healthcare practice, including losing a fair chunk of your finances. For example, the US healthcare system loses an estimated $150 billion each year due to no-show patients, meaning a $200 loss with each empty appointment slot. When a patient fails to attend a session, the provider’s time is not being optimized. 

It is essential to look at why patients may not be showing up to their appointments, which could be due to various reasons. For instance, if a patient finds it difficult to schedule sessions, which doesn’t improve, they are less likely to return to use your service. This can result in a loss of patient clientele, and in turn, a loss of revenue for your practice. 

Common mistakes healthcare businesses make during appointment scheduling (and tips to overcome them)

To avoid losing revenue and patient clientele, we have compiled the most common mistakes health businesses make in appointment scheduling in hopes you can overcome them. Knowing what to avoid in appointment management can ensure you take the utmost care to provide the best treatment for your patients and supply the best healthcare scheduling systems. 

Lack of information - When a patient is looking to schedule an appointment, you must gather essential details to ensure they receive the right specialty and care that caters to their needs. For example, this retrieves information on whether the patient is new, their health concerns, and whether it is an urgent appointment or annual check-up. Doing so will also ensure that your scheduled time slots are correct and provide sufficient time to accommodate patient needs.

No appointment reminders - To prevent patients from failing to show, it is essential to send reminders, so their appointment is brought to the forefront of their minds. Automated reminders are the most efficient method and don’t require much effort on your part due to it being automatic. If a patient does cancel, scheduling software also allows patients to look at the following available appointments to reschedule immediately. 

Overbooking - One of the most significant mistakes healthcare businesses can make is that sometimes patients can be booked simultaneously, which is difficult for both providers and clients. Using an online appointment scheduling system is the best way to overcome this issue, as protocols can quickly identify and alert users if there is a problem. This way, you can fill appointment time slots more efficiently, with patients using up more and what suits them. 

Inaccurate information - Sometimes, we can get distracted, and that’s okay, but doing this too often can become an issue. If staff are multitasking when working with patients, they may enter inaccurate information into the online systems. This is in addition to relaying wrong information, such as mixing up patient health concerns with similar names, etc. Double-checking and using online systems is the best way to avoid this. 

It is a great disservice not to use online software that only uses office schedules to incorporate artificial intelligence systems. Online scheduling management systems streamline the scheduling process, attracting more patients and increasing revenue for your practice. The retention of patients is essential, and so using an optimized software service allows you to cancel easily, book, and reschedule appointments in addition to having reminders. They’re very client-friendly and provide a secure way for you to ensure patients show up and can easily manage the booking process. 

Don’t Make the Same Mistakes as Everyone Else

For efficient appointment management, there is a lot that goes into making sure that patients can easily book appointments and that they can attend. Preventing no-shows and complicated booking processes can make sure you don’t lose unnecessary revenue for your practice and that you can effectively provide treatment to those who need it.

Many healthcare businesses, such as Carepatron, provide online platforms that supply you with the right avenue to schedule client appointments, manage patient information, as well as to send out automated appointment reminders. Carepatron can guide you in the appointment management process by directly addressing common mistakes such as overbooking and filling information gaps, making them a solid option for you to start your transition towards a successful healthcare practice. 

Further reading:

• Trends in health care spending
• Federal Efforts to Define and Advance Telehealth—A Work in Progress