Ophthalmology Patient Portal and Online Communication Editorial

Don't send staff home - get them calling patients!

March 1, 2009

As the economy cools off, many practices are responding to lower patient volumes by laying off administrative staff. A much better option is to put those staff to work calling overdue patients. With the right tools, every hour of outbound calling will add about $200 to practice revenues -- you won’t find a more cost-effective way to fill your schedules. Bringing these patients back also improves care and reduces liability.

A few years ago, identifying and contacting lost patients was an arduous task, requiring manual chart review and tedious record-keeping using various paper reports. Fortunately, software is now available that makes it easy to contact lost patients.
 

 Brett Gerlach, MBA
 President & Founder
 Brevium, Inc.

1. Analyze data in your practice management system every night to identify patients that are lost, so your list is always current and complete. These systems look for patients who have ignored recall notices as well as patients with diseases requiring regular care who are overdue for an appointment.
2. Complete cross-checks and gathering everything for the call onto a single screen. The software automatically checks for an existing appointment, deceased, in collections, recently sent a recall, etc. and puts everything you need for the call on a single screen, so you spend your time talking to patients, not traversing patient records.
3. Provide control over which patients get calls. Focus on specific doctors, locations or specific diagnoses, such as cataract patients or high-risk conditions.
4. Report results. You will know who is making calls, how many appointments have been made, and how much revenue has been generated every month, so you can evaluate how successful the product has been at filling schedules and improving financial results.

1. Adequate history. A good rule of thumb is that you need to have been running your current practice management system for at least 2 years. Without a good amount of history to mine, there will be few patients to contact.
2. Available appointments. If your doctors are too busy to see more patients, then there is no benefit from demand for additional appointments. On the other hand, some of these systems can target specific patients, such as those with cataracts or high-risk conditions, and even busy physicians may be willing to work these patients in.
3. The ability to make outbound calls. The more calls you make, the more you get out of these systems.

1. Do you want humans or computers making the calls? Using an automated system to invite overdue patients back relieves you from the burden of having to staff and manage outbound calling. However, a real person can resolve concerns, warn patients of the risk of refusing care for high-risk conditions, gather feedback about why patients have decided not to return and clean up inaccurate patient records. The patient experience is also much better with a real person on the line.
2. Ask the vendor about their pricing, terms and guarantees. Because the returns are so rapid and positive for recall software, you can find vendors who offer terms that effectively guarantee a positive return from the very beginning, with strong guarantees of minimum ROI and the ability to cancel anytime without penalty. Some even charge based on results, so you aren’t locked into fixed fees in the event you lose a doctor or suddenly face full schedules or the loss of call staff.
3. Look carefully at reporting. The best systems will provide a rich set of reports allowing you to track results in terms of appointments, procedures and revenue generated. They’ll also provide reports to help update records for deceased patients and bad phone numbers, or mail patients who refuse case once contacted.
4. Ask about targeting options. A good system will allow you to focus on different doctors or diseases at different times, and provide doctor-level settings for the types of diseases you’re calling for.
5. Finally, ask how long it takes to get started. Deployment timelines vary from 2 days to 2 months, depending on the vendor and whether or not an integration is available for your practice management system.

Brett Gerlach, MBA
Founder and President of Brevium Inc., the maker of patient recall solution Total Recall.
Email: brett@brevium.com