How Appointment Reminders Save You Major Money Today—Part 2

How appointment reminders can save you thousands of dollars tomorrow

In part 1 of this blog series, we discussed the cost of appointment no-shows for the average medical office, as well as the typical costs of traditional reminder techniques such as postcards and in-house reminder phone calls. In this post, we will examine how modern automated appointment reminders can save you thousands of dollars tomorrow, with lower implementation costs than you might expect.

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Benefits of modern automated reminder systems

There are many benefits of using automated reminder systems. Here are a few to consider:

1. Customization and personalization: In the digital age, more and more patients expect a degree of personalization in all their interactions. This includes reminders from physicians’ offices. Automated systems allow for a diversified approach to appointment reminders. For example, some of your patients may prefer voice messages, while others prefer text messages or emails. Giving your customers information in the manner they prefer will increase the likelihood that your reminders will not be ignored.
2. Instant response ability: Unlike a postcard, a text message is interactive. Surveys show that more than 90% of text messages are opened and read. With the touch of a keypad, your patients can easily respond to a text message with a confirmation or request for re-scheduling. This allows your staff sufficient time to fill the appointment. Similarly, emails provide a quick option for your patients to let you know about any scheduling conflicts, thus reducing the likelihood that patients will forget to give you advance notice about an appointment time they realize they can't make.
3. Customized and guaranteed delivery time: An automated reminder system allows you to specify a delivery time for your reminder message, delivering maximum impact. Unlike a postcard that is delivered at the whim of the postal service, with an automated reminder system in place, you can send your messages in the morning or early afternoon, when patients are more likely to be able to respond to them quickly.
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Calculating ROI of modern automated reminder systems

Just as the costs of traditional reminder methods were considered in the first blog of this series, it makes sense to consider the potential return on investment that you can achieve with an automated system. After all, the determining factor for utilizing a new reminder system is largely the cost versus the potential reward of doing so.

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Delivering a reminder message to your patients using a method they prefer and at a time that is most convenient to them will reduce your office's no-show rate, directly increasing your revenue. Use of automated reminder systems reduces missed appointments by an average of 35 percent. How does that translate into improvement in your bottom line?

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Let’s do the math. Consider the following scenario:

1. Assume the average appointment revenue is approximately $200, and the average number of appointments per month is 800. Additionally, assume that the average current missed appointment rate is 10 percent. Doing nothing to change the percentage of missed appointments will cost about $16,000 per month.
2. The cost of our reminder appointment solution is as little as $79 per month.
3. On average, our reminder solution recoups 35 percent of lost revenue from missed appointments. Of the $16,000 currently being lost, a whopping $5600 is likely to be recovered.
4. In one year’s time, this amounts to an additional $67,200 in revenue, representing approximately 7,000 percent return on your monthly investment with an automated reminder solution. By any standard, an ROI of that size is impressive.

Delaying implementation of an automated reminder system is a costly decision. Using the numbers from the scenario above, such a delay can easily cost over $250 per working day, more than three times the monthly cost of the service.

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Reminderly’s automated system integrates with your existing software systems and business processes, making it easy to implement within one to two days. Considering the ROI, why hesitate to try our system? Please contact us today for more information about how our technology can work for your practice.

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