Missed appointments have been a big problem for hospitals and patients alike. Aside from the fact that it affects the business, missed appointments also affect treatments to help cure a patient. To address this issue, an innovative pilot scheme was launched recently. This appointment reminder is expected to lower the percentage of missed appointments in hospitals.
To illustrate the damage caused by not being able to attend appointments, take these statistics from Warrington as an example. Warrington Sheds Last year, about 16,775 patients were reported to have missed their scheduled appointments.
To translate the figure, that means millions of revenue for the medical industry. To make matters worse, it also means missed checkups and follow-ups on patient's condition. In other words, it is not just all about the business. It is the fact that certain missed checkups may be detrimental to a patient's condition. Delaying cure is almost as worse as allowing a certain disease to take over a patient's body.
Needless to say, missed appointments are indeed a big problem for hospitals. In most cases, scheduled medical visits are made within weeks or even months in advance. This has been the practice for most clinics since the traditional way of scheduling checkups require some time to prepare. In most cases, the time interval can cause confusion among patients.
This is why appointment reminder is very necessary in this day and age. The goal is to reduce the amount of time wasted by both clinicians and patients. At the same time, proper scheduling decreases the amount of time that patients have to wait for appointments.
In getting this kind of service, there are certain factors that have to be considered. For one, it is important to check the kind of technology that the service provider uses. It must be able to perform receptionist tasks at a fraction of how much the service costs.
Effective service providers can definitely cut patient no-shows to reverse the clinic's revenue loss. It also provides more time for medical staff to concentrate on other important tasks instead of dividing their attention in reminding patients about their appointment. In other words, the clinic gains higher medical practice revenue by means of improved medical filings and better patient care.
One of the biggest problems in most clinics is the occasional under-staff period. A good appointment reminder service provider can save a clinic's medical staff from being bombarded with too many tasks all at the same time.
The best providers also offer technology that is free of regular maintenance or installation of any hardware of software devices. This also means it becomes convenient not only to the staff but to the patients as well.
With a good service provider, patients can schedule web appointments online at their most convenient time. Choose a company that provides an online scheduler service to provide convenience both to the patients and the medical staff.