Archive for the tag 'automated appointment reminder'

Is it mandatory to go for patient reminder service?

Dr. Maulik January 20th, 2010

Nothing is mandatory, including your life insurance! But then, you should stop expecting your medical management go flawlessly! More and more health care providers now opt for patient reminder service at their hospitals, clinics and health care centers for a better management. Patient reminder service improves the relationship between doctors and patients as a result of that there could be a significant increase in numbers of satisfied patients.

There are many places where health care providers can get patient reminder service with no extra cost. Nevertheless, many of such service come with multitasking options –for instance, patient reminder service can be used as online appointment scheduler. Online appointment scheduler fixes patients’ appointments with doctors at their preferred time. Automated reminder service automatically makes calls to patients and informs about their forthcoming center visits and appointments whereas online appointment scheduler fixes appointments and informs the doctor by synchronizing it with Google Calendar, which is accessible through handheld devices such as iPhone, Smartphone and Blackberry.

Another benefit that comes with patient reminder service is apart from using it as online appointment scheduler, the system can come with multilingual options; it can be set with French, Spanish or English etc languages to have better communication with foreign patients.

One of the most important factors that contribute to revenue loss of medical center is patient no-shows. Minimizing patient no-shows is quite possible with online automated reminder service and pre-paid appointment facility. And that is why; most of the health care centers are now powered with office automation using online appointment scheduler cum patient reminder system.

You can have an automated virtual receptionist that perform automated phone reminder calls. An automated virtual receptionist can be your standby front desk receptionist 24/7 that makes health care center more accessible for the patients.

When you have an automated, voice controlled virtual receptionist, you patients can contact your medical office anytime and doctors will not miss any potential call or inquiry. Unlike human medical front office receptionist, voice controlled virtual receptionist is tireless and is dependable for performing its tasks without errors. As such system can handle multiple call at the same time, no patient would get a busy tone at any given time that otherwise frustrates the caller forcing him or her to keep the phone down.

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Online Doctor Appointment Scheduler –A Layperson’s Guide

Dr. Maulik December 16th, 2009

Online patient appointment scheduler is software that fixes up patients’ appointments with health care provider by patient self-service. Other than patient login to doctor’s scheduler to book appointment, they can also make call to the system and ask for appointments, the system, in the voice of an virtual receptionist,  automatically arranges the schedule without bothering medical staff at counter. A top class online appointment scheduler usually has multiple funxtions.  For instance, it can be used as front desk standby receptionist that pickup a business call when doctor’s staff is too busy.

Such virtual assistant or virtual receptionist can speak to your patients in a very professional way. Also, health care providers can also use them as patient reminder software. i.e. the calls can be made to patients from the automated system about their forthcoming appointments or any schedule with health care center.  Automated reminder call has been proven effiective in slash patient no-shows and increase practice revenu.

More and more health care providers are now opting for automated office that has online patient appointment scheduler for better medical management. 24/7 customer service support makes the clinic more accessible and famous among other competitors. Another benefit of getting office automated with online patient appointment planner is it can synchronize the schedules with Google calendar, which make your schedule accessible on handheld devices such as Blackberry, SmartPhone and iPhone. For health care providers who travel frequently, this system has proved itself as perfect tool for manage your schedule away from office and computer.

Other benefits that come with patient reminder system include customization. A doctor can tailor the system as per his or her medical specialty. Also, the system comes with multilingual options such as French, English, and Spanish for better communication with foreign patients.

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All-in-one online scheduler with automated virtual receptionist

Dr. Maulik December 16th, 2009

Medical practice has witnesse advancement in medical technologies and that has brought much useful software, systems and office automation that can smoothen the medical practice routine and generate more revenues.

All-in-one online scheduler with virtual receptionist is one of the most sought-after systems that help health care providers to run their clinic or health care center with efficiency. The system makes reminder calls to the patients automatically. It informs patients about their forthcoming appointments, regimens and simple follow-ups. The system can also be used as online patient self service appointment scheduler. Top class of such systems can, in addition, function as your front-desk virtual medical receptionists.

The benefits that come from such a all-in-one system are many. This is 24/7 customer service support that helps patients to access the health care centers at any time they want. In addition,  The automated system is capable of multiple calls at the same time thus will never put your patient on-hold. The reminer system can be set into other international languages such as Spanish, Chinese and French. Which will sure please your non-English speaking patients.

If you are one of those doctors who frequently away from your office and  need to view and reschedule patients appointments, you are now find a online patient appointment scheduler that synchronizes with Google Calendar. With is feature, your appointments will be accessible on handheld devices such as iPhone, Smartphone and Blackberry.

In today’s world of cutthroat competition, every bit of advantages you gain from automation will help you get ahead of your game.  It is worth your efforts to find a great all-in-one system that is both your online scheduler and virtual receptionist, the type with a lot of nice features that help you run the most efficient, friendly medical practice.

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Online scheduler –an automated system for patient appointments

Dr. Maulik November 10th, 2009

Have you ever wonder how to tackle hundreds of patients’ call at a time without recruiting dozens of front office receptionists? The condition that may make things more thinkable is none of those calls should come busy i.e. the patients should never get a busy-tone! Well, all this is possible with a single wise step –installing an online scheduler, an automated system for fixing patients’ appointments.

Online patient scheduler is a system that fixes appointments that the patient books. Advanced version of online patient scheduler also synchronizes the data with Google Calendar that can be directly viewed on handheld devices such as iPhone, SmartPhone and BlackBerry. This has been proven to be very helpful for the health care providers who are away from their centers but still want to keep an eye on their schedules. No matter whether the task is to be performed during or after the office hours -as all this comes with a 24/7 service!

The best part of online appointment scheduler system is it can perform multiple tasks that even a virtual human receptionist cannot. Apart from fixing the schedules, the system can be fed with tailored answers and can be played as and when required. In this way, it turns an answering machine with a sweet voice that a caller would love to hear. In addition, the software can also perform the tasks of patient reminding by making calls automatically. Patient reminder service can call the patients and remind them about their forthcoming appointments with doctors or a formal visit to the health care center. The system can also be rescheduled to make important follow ups. Its multi-language options (such as Spanish, English, and French etc) make it easy for the doctors to tackle customers who are foreigners.

There are many firms and companies that provide the system free of cost –i.e. no installation charges. The system that can work as online scheduler, answering machine and patients’ follow ups can boost the sales and betters the revenue. An ideal for health care centers, online appointment scheduler is a no-nonsense way to tackle patients without having any hassles. The software is designed in a user friendly way that is quite easy to operate and it does not require any hi-fi configuration at office system.

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Tired of Front Office Management at Your Clinic? Think About Automated Answering System

Dr. Maulik October 26th, 2009

You really feel frustrated when come across ‘never heard’ reasons from reception managing people when you get a complaint from your patient that they were not assisted when required! It actually becomes very difficult as you cannot virtually present in your clinic or health care centre all time, throughout the day! The things may become worst when it comes to assist, fix up an appointment or answer patients when they call during night hours, off the clinic hours!

With betterment and advancement in technology, you can now make your office automated! The automation is also the best solution for a smooth clinic management. The product called online appointment scheduler can solve all the worries that you have come across. Virtual medical assistant comes with software to be installed in your health care centre in order to tackle every patient’s call. This is a 24/7 online answering medical service that keeps your medical reception activities alive, all the time!

Whether you want to feed your own answers and want to play then as and when required or if you have planned to make reminder calls to all the patients who are potential customers about their forthcoming schedules of meeting and consulting you or just visiting the health care center for some general purpose; online medical answering automated system can get into all!

Automated medical assistant can be used as online appointment scheduler to fix up an appointment automatically, answering machine to answer patients’ calls anytime and also as patient reminder automatic service that calls up potential customers about their coming schedules at your clinic. The benefits that come with such office automation are it is round-the-clock service and never keeps your patient away from clinic assistance. Patients can call and get help from your front desk any time they want. Also, such medical answering service comes with multilingual option to tackle foreigners for a better communication.

Online patient reminder service can also be set into multilingual answering machine in case the staff at your front desk finds it difficult to communicate. Also, such online scheduler comes with very affordable price and in a long-run; it is really worth installing and making your medical office automated. More and more health care centers are now installing 24/7 virtual medical assistant for a smooth and hassle-free medical clinic management.

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Which Medical Appointment Reminder Suits your Practice; the Email Reminder or Telephone Reminder?

Martin Wright July 14th, 2009


When you decided to become a private practitioner you probably started out with a handful of patients. Appointments were easy to keep track of and you probably thought that your medical receptionist was the most efficient front desk receptionist available. You knew each patient down to their dog’s name and so did everyone in the practice.

Your practice has probably grown since then and keeping track of your patients and their appointments is becoming more of a challenge for both your patients and especially for your medical receptionist. You can help ease the burden on your front desk receptionist and the rest of your medical staff by investing in an email reminder or telephone reminder. A telephone or email reminder will remind patients of their appointment either online or via a telephone call according to your preference.

The success of your reminder service will directly affect the success of your practice. Deciding on which type of appointment reminder service will suit you best will be influenced by your practice and your patients. Check your patients’ personal records for their contact information. If most of them have email addresses then an email reminder would be suitable. If most of your patients do not have email addresses then a telephone reminder would be more logical.

You ought to consider the type of practice you are running and the type of people you receive as patients. If majority of your patients are elderly or from poor neighborhoods, an email reminder may not reach as many of your patients as you would like. Even if these patients had email addresses they would not spend much time surfing as they either cannot afford to or do not know how to. An email reminder would be suitable in a practice where the patients have access to the Internet and check their emails regularly.

Doctors should also consider the preference of their patients. Some patients will be irritated by receiving telephone calls reminding them of appointments at regular intervals. Such patients would much rather have an email reminder sent to their email addresses. Others would prefer to be alerted via telephone as they are probably prone to forgetting about their appointments easily. This is especially true for elderly patients.

Both a telephone and email reminder are only 90% effective. No doctor can be assured 100% of the successful delivery of all reminders on either service. A telephone reminder may not be delivered as the patient may not answer the telephone. An email reminder may not be read as the patient may fail to check his or her email in good time.

It is therefore advisable for a doctor to invest in both a telephone and email reminder. It may seem expensive in the beginning but the returns will be well worth it. Both services are inexpensive to maintain and working together will guarantee you a more successful delivery. Your patients can even choose the reminder service they prefer.

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Turn “uh-oh no-show” into $$$ with automated reminder service

Jon May 21st, 2009


Some doctors insist on letting their own staff to make patient reminder calls instead of using reminder service! They believe such calls make the service more “personal”.

Is it really better, for patient or for medical office, if a reminder call is made by staff (or more “personal”) than automated system?

Let’s face it. We all live busy lives, and none of us have too much extra time for small talk. The last time my doctor’s office called me to remind me of an upcoming appointment the receptionist began with, “Hi, how are you feeling?” It was a very nice sentiment – but one in which my busy day, I don’t have time to be engaged in. I was very nice, but a call that should’ve taken 10 seconds, ended up taking 3 minutes. And, really- who wants to waste anytime let alone speaking to a receptionist at your doctor’s office?

Vice versa, I am pretty sure there are receptionists that get caught into an undesired long conversation by patients bring up issues that are beyond their control. “Can you tell doctor that I still have this pain over…”. “How comes the medicine I took is not working…”.

It got me to thinking – wouldn’t that a receptionist’s time be better served talking to patients in person at the office and not bantering over the phone? And, wouldn’t it make more sense for the receptionist to be doing something more productive for the practice?
And, that’s where the idea of the automated reminder service comes in.

A reminder service automatically calls patients and reminds them of their appointments. With the virtual system in place, the call is made on time and is quick and easy. Patients like it because you’re not taking up their valuable time. And, there is a hidden benefit for the medical practice as well.

The hidden benefit is by using a reminder service – you are actually cutting your cost and increasing revenue. Why? First of all, you are turning potential “no-shows” into returning patients. The more patients you can maintain in your practice, the more your revenue increases. In addition, this frees up your live receptionist to do more important business around the office. For example, because the automatic reminder service is handling reminding patients about their appointments, the receptionist can focus on attracting new patients. Attracting new patients is something an automated system may not do – but reminding current patients of their appointments is absolutely something the virtual service can and will do effectively. And, when no-shows at your medical practice go down and customer satisfaction goes up because of the automated reminders – you have struck gold!

And all of this, without perhaps alienating your patients by unnecessary small talk or – even worse – by being put on hold during the appointment reminder process. The automated reminder cuts down on many different things that could adversely affect the patient’s experience.

And, there is one more thing to keep in mind as well. An automated appointment reminder system can be programmed to do many different things. Calling and reminding patients of their appointments is just one small aspect. Imagine programming the system to speak in the language the patient speaks – automatically! Or, imagine the automated reminder system calling to remind patients about prescription refills or other necessary items that could impact their health? There are many different uses for the virtual reminder system – all of which help bring in more patients and help keep your current patients satisfied. And, when your patients are happy, the practice is happy because chances are those patients are telling their friends what a wonderful office experience they had!

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Online Medical Office Assistant Technology Is a Great Business Solution

Richard E PANTALONY April 19th, 2009


Are you considering using an All-in-One virtual receptionist for your medical practice? Is it a good time now to consider your overall technology needs within your medical practice?  If you feel your own medical office is out of step with technology, what should be done to improve your office efficiency?

Online an All-in-One virtual office assistant offers numerous features that will certainly elevate your practice into the 21st century as far as your telecommunications are concerned; At a fraction of the live agent cost, you can expect an virtual receptionist to performe most of your medical front desk tasks. To name a few; making patient reminder call, dispatch emergency call and believe or not, talking to patients in natural language and set appointment for them. 

There are vendors of software designed specifically for the medical community and as you are upgrading to an online medical office assistant service you should investigate other forms of technology to improve upon office organization and performance. If ever there were a business practice that lived up to the motto “time is money” it would be the medical field. Better use of time through technology means your staff will be operating at peak performance.

There is no better time to take the final step into a computer literate environment for your office then when you are in the process of introducing a virtual receptionist. Your staff will be excited by the new technology and if they are even somewhat literate with computers and certain software applications such as windows OS’s or other basic programs, they will adjust to new software applications you introduce at once with your remote reception service.

Once you start to investigate various technologies for your medical practice, someone within the office should be responsible for keeping up to date with these programs and upgrades. They would act as your in-house IT go to person if there were operation questions, quick fixes required etc. It might even be prudent to send one of your trusted employees or even yourself for classroom training to become current with new technology and Internet based software applications in general.

The thing about computer technology and becoming accomplished with it is it takes a basic understanding of how computers work and some fundamentals of software applications – web based and off the shelf. The more you work with it the more comfortable you will become. Before you know it, your staff will not only be enjoying their lightened workload due to the new virtual medical office assistant online but they will also develop into skilful medical software virtuosos!

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