Time and money: effects of no-shows at a family practice residency clinic

This study shows the seriousness of no-shows in any medical practice. Therefore, you cannot afford to take it for granted. You need to set up a good patient appointment reminder system to help your patients and your business. Most of the patient no-shows are as a result of the patients forgeting about their appoinments for one reason or another.

The secret here is the word good. There are very many reminder services in the market, and not all of them will suit your purposes. So, what constitutes a good reminder program?

The reminder software you are using helps you to get in touch with your patients in the best way possible. This means that it needs to have a way of reaching all types of people, hence it should get in touch with the patients in a variety of ways, including:

Telephone

Telephone is a very good way of getting in touch with many people. An automated telephone reminder is especially suitable for the elderly who do not often use the newer modes of communication.

You will cater to the needs of the patients who prefer using the telephone. However, you can still miss some people since not all people have installed an answering system in case they are away.

Email

Many people use email nowadays, which makes it a convenient way of reaching them. There are some people who use email as their main mode of communication.

If your reminder software uses email alone, however, you will not serve every person well. In addition, the prevalence of spam mail has resulted in spam filters that can inadvertently send your reminders to the spam folders.

Text message

Apart from the fact that very many people use cell phones, text messages have the added advantage that you will reach your patients wherever they are. This is an especially good choice for busy individuals who travel often.

However, the patients have to pay for the text messages.

Your patient reminder service should therefore include all these options. Preventing just one no-show in a month suffices to cover your subscription.

There are many important factors why you need to keep away from the free schedulers. Let us take a look at just two reasons that will show you the free offers are not the best option.

They are not really free

When you sign up for a free scheduler, you will believe that it is really free in the beginning simply because you will not fork out anything from your pocket. However, this is misleading. Have you ever asked yourself how the owners maintain the services?

Perhaps you have read – or you will read – that they have other means of generating money, so they are simply being generous. This is a lot of hot air. First of all, advertising the free online schedulers takes time and money. Why would they do this?

The real reason is that it is from these apparently free web-based doctor appointment services that they generate their revenue. They will simply sell your data. This is a serious violation of patient privacy that you will need to answer for in a court of law. It will also be a violation of the HIPAA. Even if your run a small business where privacy is not as sensitive as for medical practice,  using a “free” scheduler will eventually cost your business relationship with the customers; they are likely to be scared away as soon as they realized that their phone, address, and email are being used without their consent.

Lack of suitable features

The free online appointment schedulers will also cost your business in other ways. You will get very limited features that do not leave you with many options. For example, a good self-service patient appointment scheduling program will give your patients the flexibility to make their appointments independently while you still have control over what goes on. The patients will do this in a variety of ways depending on their personal tastes.

Telephone service will be of help to many people, particularly the elderly. The online option will be a good option for the tech savvy individuals. SMS service gives you the opportunity to reach people wherever they may be, which is a good option for busy people who move frequently.

Another important factor is that a suitable online scheduler will include a reminder service. This alone is enough to pay for your subscription. Avoiding just one patient no-show per month suffices to cater for your subscription.

If you are searching for an online scheduler, you are likely to find many offers of free schedulers. If you can get such an important utility for free, why should you consider the paid ones?

The fact is that there is really nothing for free, which is not to say that you must pay for everything. However, even if you receive something for free, it means that someone somewhere has paid the cost. When it comes to the apparently free schedulers, who really pays the cost?

The people offering the free schedulers will tell you that they have other sources of generating revenue. What they do not tell you, however, is that the revenue actually comes from the so-called free scheduler.

Online schedulers contain a vast amount of data. Your scheduler will not just contain your personal information but also your patients’ data. The owners of the ‘free’ schedulers sell this data to make a lot of money. Unfortunately, this is a violation of privacy that will cost you dearly in the long run.

Instead of looking for a free scheduler, choose an online scheduler that will simply pay for itself. A good online scheduler will help you to recover your costs even before the end of your initial subscription. Such a medical appointment scheduler has several features that make it quite valuable. For example, it will include an automated reminder that will get in touch with your patients.

One of the major sources of revenue loss in medical practice is patient no-shows. An online scheduler that incorporates reminder software will help you to cut no-shows. When you consider the fact that the cost of such a medical appointment scheduler equals just one no-show, you will see how much you stand to gain. Cut just one no-show in a month and you have effectively paid for the service. Yet you know that you will cut more than one no-show.

Do not sacrifice your reputation by using a free scheduler. Get a scheduler that pays!

When you set up a virtual receptionist, you will get rid of all of these problems and many others. If you want to get the best out of your investment, you should go for a virtual medical office receptionist that makes use of the latest technology.

Apart from the fact that your virtual receptionist will ensure that you serve every patient at any time, your office automation will also work in a way that satisfies the patients. For instance, with the use of advanced speech recognition software, your virtual medical office receptionist will communicate with the patients using natural language dialog. The software will understand what the patients are saying well and respond in an equally pleasant natural voice that make the interractions fulfilling. The back-up receptionist is also intelligent enough to differentiate between emergency calls and non-emergency ones and forward them accordingly.

Such an effective office automation will ensure that your clinic benefits from 24/7 medical reception, which means that your office will never be out of reach. At the same, you will not have to worry about maintenance since you will not install any software or hardware in your office.

The use of the latest technology will also ensure that you get the details of your virtual receptionist in real time irrespective of your location. This is possible because you will be able to access your records in a variety of ways using different devices. For example, you will synchronize your data with your Google calendar and hence access them wherever there is internet access. You can also use such devices as blackberry to access your details. And that is not all. Even without an Internet connection, you can still access your details through the use of a simple cell phone that has sms capability – and literally all modern cell phones do that.

The use of the latest techology in your office automation will make your medical practice more streamlined, which will boost your revenue.

When I say that there is nothing for free, it does not mean that you cannot get something that you do not pay for. Even in such an instance, however, whatever you get is not free. Someone somewhere has paid for it. So, when it comes to an apparently free online scheduler, somebody must be paying for it. The question you should ask yourself is: who is paying for it?

A common explanation that the companies offering the free online schedulers will give you is that they have other sources of income. They effectively imply that they are so philanthropic that they are ready to share with you a portion of their proceeds by giving you such an important service for free.

This is all very good. However, there is something interesting that should not pass your attention. If there is nothing that they get from the free online schedulers, why do they go to great lengths to advertise them? Just do a simple online search on these services and see the results you come up with.

Perhaps you are already wondering about what I am driving at. Well, first of all, if you are interested in any such service for your medical appointment scheduling needs, you should take the time to read between the lines. Go through their terms of service very carefully. Chances are that you will find some places that seem to negate other parts. Such discrepancies should warn you that they are hiding something.

What they are trying to keep from you is the fact that they are actually making money from the free online schedulers. How? Simply put, they sell your details. Try to imagine the number of people who will use your apparently free online appointment scheduler. You are effectively giving the owners a comprehensive database of user details that they can sell to make more money than you imagine.

If you think that this is unethical, then remember that you will be responsible for the details of your patients. The consequences of divulging their details can put you in a very tight spot.

Sign up for a reputable online doctor appointment scheduling program that will ensure the safety of your patient details in addition to giving you a great service. Do not be scammed!

The issue of free online schedulers is sensitive in any line of business you may be involved in, but it is even more serious as far as medical practice is concerned.

Making online schedules is quite involving. So, why would someone be willing to offer you the service free of charge? The companies give a variety of reasons for doing this, but they tend to boil down to the same thing: that they have other great ways of making money.

What is true is that they must have ways of making money. However, they are not really making the money from other sources as they would like you to believe. If the services were free as they claim, why would they go to great lengths to reach you in the first place? This in itself should tell you that the service is not as free as it is claimed. The plain fact is that the companies need people to sign up for their apparently free services for them to make money. But do you know that the way they make the money could easily land you into a lot of trouble?

Consider this:

When you sign up for the “free” online schedulers, not only will your own data but also the details of your patients go to the company’s servers. How safe can you ensure that this data is? As a doctor, you know that you are sworn to privacy as far as some of your patients’ details are concerned. Yet here you will be putting yourself in a situation where you have absolutely no control over this data.

Do you know how the apparently free services generate income? They SELL this data. The money that they get from your data is far more than what you would pay for a good online appointment scheduler. And you do not really know where your sensitive pieces of information could end up.

You can easily be charged for the violation of your patient’s privacy, and what you will be required to pay cannot be compared to the amount with which you could have subscribed to a good online scheduler. And you can be held in violation of HIPAA.

Even if your business does not grind to a halt, you will have a very bad reputation. Free online schedulers are actually too costly to risk taking.

Making appointments is certainly very important. However, if you leave it at that, you will still be losing out. You need an effective way of keeping in touch with the patients to ensure that they do not forget to come for the scheduled appointments.

You have already set up an appointment scheduler. Why should you spend on a patient appointment reminder service? Look at it this way. How many patients fail to show up to your medical practice each month? If 15% of patients do not show up because you do not remind them, how much will you be losing? Yet if you save just one patient no-show within a month, you will have paid for the reminder service.

Now that you have seen the importance of a patient appointment reminder program, what should you look for to ensure that you get the best service?

Avoid large up-front costs:

Just because you have read a good review about a given service should not make you commit to a program that requires a large upfront payment that will tie you up for a long time. You should preferably look for an appointment reminder service that you pay for on a monthly basis.

Different ways of contacting patients:

People have different interests and lead different lifestyles. This means that relying on a service that uses just one method of contacting the patients will not serve you well. Here are some of the ways through which you should be able to contact your patients.

Telephone

Very many people use telephone, both young and old. However, you will miss the patients who are not at home during the call and do not have an answering system.

Email

The advancement in Information Technology has made the use of email very popular nowadays. Email offers a fast way of getting in touch with people easily.

However, if your patient reminder service uses email only, you will not cater for those who who do use email, particularly the elderly. In addition, increasing misuse of email has has made email programs enhance their spam filters, and your reminders may not reach the patients at times.

Text message reminder

Text message gives a convenient way of keeping in touch with the patients wherever they may be. The greatest drawback, however, is the fact that the patients will pay for the text messages.

The automated patient reminder service you use should use a combination of all these methods.

The medical field is very broad and different medical practioners have different needs. This is one of the areas where a medical office scheduler that you can customise easily comes in handy. Whether you are a pediatrician or chiropractor, the automation system should serve your needs equally well.

In addition to suiting whatever line of medical practice you are involved in, the medical practice management programme you use should allow you to make several other customisations. It should allow you to give it as much personal touch as you would like to make your business stand out.

The following are some of the ways through which you should be able to customise your system.

i) Define your own appointment rules, name, appointement duration, what day of week you perform the service, if pre-payment is required or not.
ii) Customize your emails for appointment confirmation, reminder and appointment followup
iii) Customize your new patient signup form, what are the insurance you accept.

You should also have the ability to choose whether the patients can make their own appointments for the required services. You will thus set the services that the patients can book on their own and the ones that need to be booked from the office. If you want to give the patients an even greater personal attention, you should be able to give them special pieces of information relating to their appointments, which will help them to be better prepared.

If you can customise your online scheduler in such a way, you will manage to cut down the chances of incorrect booking. Pre-pay requirement, for example, will also help you eliminate no-show.  In short, the more your scheduler allows you to enforce your own business rule with customization, the more efficient your scheduling is.

The user interface

This is the place where both you and your patients will gain access to various features of the online scheduler you are using. The program you use should have a modern graphic user interface that is visually appealing. It should display the features you want in an attractive manner that makes it easy to find what you are looking for.

You will find it easy to use your own control panel while the patients will also enjoy booking their appointments on their end.

Ease of Use with those “auto helper”

Have you heard of auto-search, auto-complete, auto-display, auto-call?

Those auto-helper make the “search-and-type” scheduler a thing of the past!  In a modern scheduler, “look-and-click” should be all it takes to get the job done.

You should also find it easy to manage your appointments with those auto-helpers. For instance, if you have auto-search, you no longer need to manually search a ptient record first before enter his/her info. The helper will search while you are typing his name and the match is on your finger tip in a heart beat.

Auto-complete allow you to hit the return key while the match is found and voila! Your just filled the entire patient info form in one key stroke.

If you want to see details of an appointment, pointing at the patient’s name should be enough. auto-display will display the details of an appt where you mouse is point at.

Cancelling or reschedule appointments should be a breeze if you use auto-call. If you want to make a cancellation, auto-call program will ask you whether you want to place an automated call to the concerned patient. Do not expect to succeed if the patients are not happy with the system in the first place.

An online scheduler can not be effective without a nice friendly modern user interface. Check out small details and see if the scheduler is easy enough to you when you try it. Take advantage of the free trial offer to test things out. Ask for those auto-helpers. Remember auto-search, auto-complete, auto-display, and yes auto-call!

There are very many types of remote receptionist services that you can choose from, and here is where you should start determining whether you will be in control or not.

Live agent vs an automated system

This begins by considering whether you want to use an automated appointment scheduling programme or a live agent. While you may think of hiring the services of a live agent because of the human touch among other things, there are several drawbacks to using this method. For example, a live agent will simply relay all the messages without making any distinction between emergency and non-emergency ones. A good medical office assistant online, on the other hand, will filter the calls and give more priority to the emergency ones.

Another very significant consideration is the cost of the services. An effective automated system will give you 24/7 medical reception at just a small fraction of what you would otherwise spend on a live agent service.

Payment methods

Another way that you should determine whether your medical practice management program will have the upper hand is the way you make the required payment. First of all, a reputable system will give you the ability to test the services before you make any commitment. This will give you the best way of verifying whether you will really benefit from what is being offered.

You should as well consider whether the system requires you to make a large upfront payment that effectively ties you up for several months. You should find an online scheduler that you just use on a monthly subscription basis, without making such long-term commitments.

Another consideration as far as payment is concerned is the ability to choose different payment plans. For instance, would you like to go for a flat rate monthly payment? Or would you rather opt for a method that charges you per call? A good system will be flexible enough to offer you both methods among others.

Freedom of accessing your scheduler from your blackBerry, iphone or smart phone

This refers to both the way you will manage your online scheduler and how easy it will be to reach your patients. Basically, a good system will not tie you to your office to be able to check and make your appointments. For instance, it should be able to synchronise with Google Calendar so that you can check your appointments and make any necessary adjustments. It should even go further by allowing you to use it whenever you may be, even if there is no internet connection by using sms service.

You should as well have different ways of reaching your patients, which ensures that you cater well for the needs of different people. These ways include via the telephone, email, and mobile text message SMS.

Be in control.

You should know that the monthly fee of a good scheduler with telephone, email and mobile text message reminder is roughly about the cost of one patient no-show to you. So can you afford NOT to use a reminder service?

The appointment stage

Your first contact with a patient will often start at the appointment stage. You should therefore ensure that you use a medical appointment scheduling program that is friendly to the patients. Although the patients will obviously like to speak to a live human being, they would rather find a faster alternative than being put on hold.

There are also other patients who would prefer to use the internet to book their own appointments. Self-service patient appointment scheduling makes this possible, where you will set up an online scheduler.

Remind the patients

After the patients have booked their appointments, it is important to make a follow-up by having an effective reminder service. There are some important factors you should consider when finding a good reminder service.

First, it will be very boring for a live agent to keep calling patients with the same message over and over. The frustration and exhaustion that results can easily make the receptionist talk in an unpleasant tone to the patients, and this will cost your business.

You should therefore let a computer that does not get tired or experience boredom do the job. This does not mean that you need to install any hardware or software in your office, which will be unnecessarily expensive. You just have to sign up for an appropriate service to take care of your needs. In this way, preventing just one patient no-show per month will be enough to pay for your subscription.

The appointment reminder service you use should enable you to get in touch with the patients in a variety of ways. For example, you should be able to reach your patients via the telephone, email, and mobile text message (SMS). This will ensure that you reach different types of patients. Each method has its strengths and drawbacks, hence using all of them will offer you the best possible deal.

You can also opt to give your patients the ability to cancel their appointments during the reminder process to further eliminate patient no-shows. You will be able to re-schedule the empty slots in good time.

Your office automation system should help you to maintain a good relationship with your patients and cut patient no-shows.

Compatibility with your office work flow and multiple communication channels

You most likely already have some system in place. For instance, you are already using telephone in your clinic. The automated telephone reminder that you would like to set up should not create a complete overhaul because it will not be able to operate seamlessly with your present telephone system.

People use different modes of communication in today’s world of Information Technology. You should therefore ensure that the office automation system you want to use is compatible with many types of systems and devices. This means that apart from using the telephone, the program you are looking for should be able to send emails, and instant text messages among others. In this way, you will be able to cater for the needs of different types of patients. While there are those patients who will prefer to use the telephone, particularly the elderly, others will prefer using the Internet. There are still some patients who have busy schedules and would like to receive automated reminders on their cell phones.

24/7 medical reception with automated virtual receptionist

While your medical office front desk receptionist will not be able to work round the clock, the virtual medical office receptionist should give you a 24/7 service. You will therefore have a self-service patient appointment scheduling, whereby the patients will be able to book their own appointments at any time of the day or night.

This means that your system should be robust enough to handle unlimited number of appointments in a day.

In addition to these considerations, you should use a pre-paid medical scheduler. This means that the patients will make some small payments when they make their appointments. As a result, you will be protected even when some patients do not show up. Patient no-shows result in what are known as invisible costs.

The type of office automation that you use will either make or break your medical practice. You should therefore ensure that you get the best service that suits both you and your patients.

There are different types of reminder programs that you can use. If you would like to have the best deal, the appointment reminder service you go for should include a variety of options. Let us take a look at three of the most common appointment reminders in the market.

Telephone Reminder Service

You have just about 100% of your patient use telephones, which means that you will have the potential of reaching most people with this type of reminder program. You will be able to get in touch with both young and old people, who do not rely on other modern methods of communication.

The problem with phone reminder is that the patients need to be physically present at the time of call in order to receive the reminder. Although some people have telephone answering systems to save a message, this is not true for everyone.

Email Appointment Reminders

With the advancement of Information Technology, the use of email has become very common. Very many people use emails every day all over the world. The patients can check their mail boxes at any time and receive their appointment reminders, making it very reliable as reminder service.

One major problem with emails is the prevalence of spam, which has made many email programs to have different anti-spam features. Unfortunately, there are times when even genuine emails are labeled as spam, which means that they will not be delivered to the inboxes. Another disadvantage is the fact that you will leave out those patients who have not climbed the steep technological ladder, particularly the elderly.

Text Message Reminder Service

One of the most reliable patient reminder programs is the use of instant text messages, which enables the patients to schedule their reminders to just a couple of hours prior to their appointments. The mobility of cell phones also makes it possible to reach the patients whenever they may be.

However as common as the system is, you should not assume that every patient has a cell phone, or every cell phone can accept instant text messages. In addition, the patients will be charged for the messages they use.

Point is, if the patient reminder program that you use depends on just one method at the expense of the others, you will be suffer a small percentage of reminder failure one way or the other. To ensure your business will not loss income, you should therefore choose a comprehensive automated reminder service that includes all the various methods.

There are various areas that you need to take into consideration as you look for your office automation system. One of the crucial areas has to do with booking of appointments. You should use a system that gives your patients the opportunity to book their own appointments. The self-service patient appointment scheduling program that you use should enable the patients who would like to use the phone to do so. In order for this to be more effective, you should put up a very robust automated medical receptionist that will work round the clock, even during those times when your front desk receptionist is off duty.

In addition, the service should enable those patients who are Internet savvy to be able to carry out online medical appointment scheduling. You will thus take care of patients with different tastes.

The office automation system you use should also incorporate the ability to remind the patients of their approaching appointments. A good appointment reminder service will help you to deal with the problem of patient no-shows, which can affect your business significantly. Apart from this, you should use a system that will protect you in case a patient still fails to show up even after being reminded of the appointment. Are you wondering how you are going to achieve this? Simple. Just use a pre-paid medical appointment scheduling program, which will require the patients to make a small payment during the booking process.

You should ensure that the system you use gives you as much anywhere-anytime convenience and flexibility as possible. First, the program should be easy for you and your staff to use. Second, you should be able to access your records irrespective of where you are. You should be able to access your records either online or via instant text messaging, which means that the system needs to be compatible with a wide variety of devices, including ordinary cell phones, iphone and Blackberry devices. Remember that you are automating your office, not yourself!

Does it act as your virtual receptionist?

The system you use should be able to act as your medical front desk receptionist so that all your operations will be able to function seamlessly even when your receptionist is off duty. The patients who require your services should still be able to reach your clinic even when there is no one to pick the phone, which brings us to another consideration.

Does it operate 24/7?

You should ensure that you use a 24/7 medical answering service so that your office will never get out of touch and drive some patients away. People should be able to reach your clinic whenever they have the need.

Is it user friendly?

Self-service patient appointment scheduling will only be effective if it is easy for the patients to use in the first place. This means that it should have a simple interface where the patients do not need to fill page-long questionnaires! In case it is complicated in one way or another, the patients will simply look for another medical service.

Does it act as a reminder service?

The system you use should have an automated reminder service that will get in touch with the patients in a variety of ways to ensure that they do not forget their appointments. This will help you to minimize patient no-shows, which are among the major sources of revenue loss.

Does it protect you in case of no-shows?

In spite of all your noble steps, there are still some patients who will not show up after booking appointments. The online scheduler you use should protect your business without making you rub shoulders with the patients. It should therefore have a way in which the patients make some pre-payment during the booking process.

How easily can you access it yourself?

It is quite inconvenient to use a system that ties you down to the office in order to check your medical appointments. The program you use should offer you the flexibility of accessing it from anywhere in a variety of ways. For instance, you can just send single-word instant text messages in order to access the records you are interested in. In such a case, you do not even need an internet connection. When you are connected to the internet, however, you can achieve even more. If the system has two-way synchronization feature with Google Calendar, you will not only be able to access the medical appointments but also make and upload some necessary adjustments.

These are some of the important things you should ensure that your office automation service has.

First of all, let us look at the patients’ side. Is it convenient for patients ? They should be able to make their own appointments without having to wait in a queue. Secondly is it easy to use? If the patients will need to take some learning curve in order to grasp how the system works, many of them will simply give up and look for another service. Of course, you do not need to be told that such a step will be a blow to your business.

 Here is a check-list for a scheduler friendly for patients.

1) Is it easier to login? (i.e. the more access info it requires, the harder to perform login. is userid easy to remember by patient? Are they gonna forget about their login very soon?)

2) Does scheduler support automated new patient signup?

3) Is the scheduler easy to navagate? Patients will pickup their appointment slots easily?

4) How much info a patient has to fill in before an appointment is booked? i.e. Is there auto-search, auto-complete feature so booking an appointment should be point-and-click?

5) Is user instruction or alert message clear to users?

Your office also needs to have an easy time when using the online scheduler. In addition to the various features that enable the scheduler to synchronize with a variety of devices and applications, its interface should be intutive. If your medical staff will need to use a user manual in order to be able to operate your office automation system, then you need to think twice!

You should therefore ensure that you use a program that combines useful features with a easy to use modern Graphical User Interface (GUI). The user interface should have an aesthetic appeal,  it should be quick and easy for staff to access info they are looking.  Here is a check-list for a friendly scheduler for your staff.

1) Is the scheduler easily accessible? (can it be use it from home? on handheld device such as smartphones, blackberry, iphone?) Does it sync with Google Calendar?

2) Can your schedule be easily modified? (open or block your working time, modify schedule)

3) Does the scheduler includes office friendly features such as To-Do-list management, office messenger, auto-login to support desk?

4)  Can you make recurrent and emergency appointments easily?

5) Can you customize your appointments? (define name, duration, on what weekday it is available?, wether or not restriction applies to patient, wether or not it requires to be pre-paid on appointment booking?)

5) Can a shared practice with multiple doctor schedulers be managed using single login?

6) Can your scheduler make automated telephone reminder call to patients?

7) Can your scheduler act also as your virtual receptionist? i.e. taking phone call from your patients, engage in natural language dialog with them, booking appointment or dispatch them to emergency contact?

Believe or not, schedulers that meet this tall order do exist! Once you find one that meet this check list and your practice need, you will not look back again.

Synchronizing with your front desk reception

Your office automation system should not leave you with two different appointment programs that you have to deal with. Your receptionist will not work on one program while the online scheduler also does a different thing. The system should have the ability to synchronize appointments that are made both online and at the office. Example of a top class scheduler could combine automated virtual receptionist function with your schedule. It allows not only your live staff but also the 24/7 virtual recptionist booking appointment from the same book.

In the process, a efficient, automated fron desk will help your staff to have more time to pay closer attention to other duties such as taking care of the bills. The patients will also be more satisfied in the sense that they will not have to deal with an exhausted and irritable receptionist!

Integrated patient reminder service

A modern scheduler for doctors will have a built-in reminder service that will get in touch with the patients through a variety of modes to ensure that they do not forget about their appointments. Every person forgets occasionally. The reminder service is very useful in avoiding patient no-shows, which often results in loss of revenue, let alone the frustration you will experience!

Synchronization with Google Calendar

You will not always be at your office to check on your medical appointments. In fact, the very nature of your medical practice may require you to be out of the office quite often. For example, you may need to carry out some visitations or attend other important functions. However, your office automation system should allow you to access the appointments wherever you may be.

When the system you use synchronizes with Google Calendar, you will be able to receive the records on your hand-held device such as blackberry, iphone. Appointments can be retrieved via a single-word commands by SMS or instant text message. A modern scheduler for doctors will not let you be just a passive recipient of the details. It will have a two-way system where you can also make adjustments in the appointments and upload them. You will never be out of touch again!

Maintenance free

You need to make your medical practice management easier, not more complicated. You should therefore use an online appointment scheduler that does not require you to carry out any maintenance. You will have the opportunity of focusing on your profession without worrying about getting additional skills in a different line of profession. Your first priority is being a doctor, not an IT guru! Neither will you worry about hiring an expert to look after your system.

Ability to control patient access

With self-service patient appointment scheduling, you will not have to deal with every single patient as he or she makes an appointment. This is very convenient to both the patients and you as a doctor. However, this does not mean that you will have no control over how the patients access your system. A good program will give you the ability to control how the patients access the online scheduler you are using to ensure that everything operates smoothly.

Using a pre-paid service

Many doctors have incurred huge losses from missed appointments. Although they usually set up a program whereby the patients who miss their appointments pay a certain fee, the challenge comes in collecting that fee. This will just complicate your work and leave a sour taste between you and the patients. You should therefore opt for a pre-paid scheduler, whereby the patients make some upfront payment when they set up their appointments. In this way, you will always be protected even if the patients do not show up without affecting the relation between you and your patients. Such a system will also encourage the patients to show up since they will have made a deeper commitment.

These are some of the things that will assist you in finding a suitable medical appointment scheduler that will give you real value for your money. We will take a look at several other great benefits of such a good program.

To summarize, you should not rush to subscribe to any doctor appointment scheduling program that you happen to find. There are vast differences between the systems, and you should take the time to determine whether you are truly getting the best value for your money. After all, those modern features provided by a good medical appointment scheduler is at the heart of a efficient, dependable and friendly modern medical practice.

When a patient misses the scheduled medical appointment for whatever reason, you may have a system whereby you charge some fee, which may be a percentage of what the patient should have paid. While this is not a bad way of protecting yourself, it has a number of limitations. Let me ask you, how do you track and collect the fee? Is it easy? You will certainly spend time hunting down the debtors, who will not be prepared to pay for a service they did not get, according to their perspectives.

This hide-and-seek situation has serious consequences, as it damages the relationship between you and your patients. It also results in invisible costs, since you will fail to receive revenue that would have been yours. A pre-paid appointment program will easily avoid this unfortunate situation.

Here is an overview of how a pre-paid appointment scheduling program functions. When a patient makes a medical appointment, he or she will be required to deposit a small fee during the booking process. This is something that the patient does willingly as a show of good faith.

The pre-paid appointment scheduler has a number of benefits, examples of which are:

• Protecting you against financial loss:

In case the patient fails to come for the scheduled appointment, you will already have some fee to protect you from what could have been wasted time. As we have mentioned, it is difficult to collect the fees you may charge for such no-shows.

• Making the patients be more committed:

It will be less likely for the patients to fail to show up while they have already made some prior payments. This will help to reduce patient no-shows, thereby increasing your revenue.

• Maintaining good relations

Since the patients make the payments beforehand and wilfully, there will not be any sour taste between you and them.

A pre-paid appointment program is a boon to your business that you should take advantage of in order to protect yourself from financial loss.