Several months ago, we launched our 2-Step Appointment Cancellation feature, which has proven a boon for Vital Interaction™ clients.
Using this tool, patients are able to easily cancel their upcoming appointments via text or email by simply entering their date of birth and their reason for canceling.
Not only does this feature save a considerable amount of time spent on the phone following up with patients, but it also reduces false-positive cancellation requests from patients pressing the wrong buttons.
Because of the popularity of our 2-step verification process for text and email messages, we developed a similar process for voice calls.
Read on for a look at the key advantages and cost-savings of this new feature for voice call “cancel appointment” requests.
Using the 2-Step Appointment Cancellation Feature for Voice Call ‘Cancel Appointment’ Requests
We’re confident that the voice call option for automatic appointment cancellations will also be instrumental in saving Vital Interaction™ users countless labor hours and costs.
Using this tool, practices can now ask patients to verify their cancellation the same way they can cancel by text or email: by entering a date of birth and providing reason for cancelling or rescheduling, which then automatically becomes available in your appointment worklist.
For EHRs that our system is closely integrated with, cancelled appointments can actually be removed right then and there from the schedule!
Let’s take a look at how 2-step cancellations have helped a Vital Interaction™ client improve their providers’ schedules, in addition to the patient experience.
Real Time- and Cost-Savings Using the Vital Interaction™ 2-Step Appointment Cancellation Feature
Recently, I closely examined a local practice using all 2-step cancellations for email, text, and voice. Approximately 4% of their total appointment volume is using the 2-step process and having appointments removed from the schedule in real time.
This allows their staff to automatically free up 4% of each provider’s schedule and fill it with incoming requests or outgoing campaigns.
Assuming a provider sees 20 patients a day (this varies by specialty and other variables), 2-Step Appointment Cancellations enable him or her to see up to 16 more patients in a month.
And if a practice has a large enough patient population to fill those slots, this makes a ton of sense. If, for example, these 16 additional appointments are Well-check exams and valued at $150 each, that’s an additional $2,400 per month — nearly $30,000 a year — in revenue.
But the cost savings don’t stop there.
In terms of labor costs and time used by staff to follow up with patients to fully cancel and/or reschedule their appointments, this tool conserves about 30 hours of staff time a week. Thirty hours a week can add up to sizable savings in labor costs for most practices.
In addition to substantial time- and cost-savings, automated cancellations and reschedules will enable your staff to have more time to really focus on patients and build stronger relationships between your practice and your patients.
I would strongly encourage all Vital Interaction™ clients to consider implementing the 2-step verification process for text, email, and voice — especially if you have the volume to fill those slots that open up.
However, even if it you don’t have a large patient volume, these features are still worth using to save time that staff can instead use to focus on patient requests that need their attention and care.
Two-step cancellations and reschedules work very well with our new Patient Chat tool. They also work in concert with reactivations, which focus on patients who cancel and/or no-show and never rescheduled.
Stay tuned for new features we’ll be releasing soon to give your practice the power to automatically reschedule patients, as well as automatically schedule recalls.
Is your medical practice equipped with the right tools for streamlining patient communication? Call (512) 487-7625 to learn how the Vital Interaction™ system can go to work for you and improve patient satisfaction and care.