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What are appointment reminders?
Appointment reminders remind patients of their scheduled appointments. Reminders can either be automated or manual, and are often distributed through text, email, and phone calls. All practices rely on have some sort of reminder system.
What are practices doing today?
- 42% do automated reminders until patient confirms
- 25% do automated reminders and day-before personal phone call to unconfirmed patients
- 22% do automated reminders and a day-before personal phone call to all scheduled patients
- 11% do automated reminders and a day-before personal phone call to patients who are predicted to most likely no show
What is the most effective strategy?
Despite only 11% of practices engaging in this strategy, automated reminders + day-before personal phone call to patients who are predicted to most likely no show is the most effective practice.
Key reasons:
- Automated plus personal calls are the most effective - it’s important to have patients hear directly from your staff
- Patients will often confirm via text but not show - only calling unconfirmed misses these patients
- The no show problem is highly concentrated - 50% of no shows are caused by 10% of patients
- Front office staff time is highly constrained - unlikely that you can call everyone, so most efficient to predicted no showers