patient engagement

Patient Recall – a Multi-faceted Tool for Patient Communication

Have you considered that your patient recall solution not only helps your patients to adhere to treatment plans, but also helps you to avoid lost revenue for your practice?

When you consider the value of an appointment, any missed or "unscheduled" appointment will impact your practice and potentially impact a patient. By developing a recall strategy and utilizing a patient recall solution, you can assure proactive patient care management, enhanced patient engagement and better revenue forecasting. As an additional benefit, these additional appointments mean more revenue for your practice.

Obviously, managing patient recall manually is not a viable solution and thus the efficiency of an automated recall system, as part of your pediatric EHR, can effectively assure proper care management.

Recall messages using automated calls, text and email allow your practice to conveniently reach out to patients to schedule future appointments. With patients requesting more device-centric forms of communication, diverse features within a patient recall solution will drive the appropriate efficiencies while helping patients adhere to their care guidelines. It is less expensive to keep existing patients coming back than attracting new patients, thus viewing your recall solution as a key component of patient satisfaction is key.

Utilizing a Patient Recaller

It is important to consider the time of day that messages are delivered, as well as the urgency surrounding the messages. For a message to be effective, it is best to get a hold of patients between 5pm – 8pm. To create the right urgency, messages can be crafted in such a way that the recipient will be compelled to call back to schedule an appointment.

It is also crucial to understand the patient engagement component of a patient recall solution. When patients and families feel that their provider relationship is positive, they will be compelled to make follow-up appointments. Consider patient recall to be an important part of your relationship with your patients and their families. Utilizing it in a highly personalized way will help patients and their families plan for care in a timely fashion. A well-implemented patient recall solution will assure appointment compliance, referrals and treatment acceptance. Understanding that a patient recall system can dramatically improve childhood immunization rates and asthma management, one must put aside the perceived barriers to adoption, such as increased financial or human resources. Your pediatric EHR must have the ability to incorporate a patient recall solution.

It is important to focus on "long overdue" patients and patient care givers, the ones that have missed appointments or that have not been seen in your practice for a long time. These patients have been lost and a patient recall solution can bring them back to your practice, allowing you to address the most important aspect: a healthy patient.

Do you know the top mistakes of pediatricians?

Bettina Dold

Bettina Dold, M.S. was the Director of Marketing at PCC.