March 30, 2016
You have an opportunity to be ahead of the curve by offering recall messages via text message, findings from a Nielsen survey released in November 2015 by the Council of Accountable Physician Practices and the Bipartisan Policy Center, suggest. According to the survey, the majority of medical providers in the U.S. still do not use e-mail or text messages to communicate with their patients, despite the fact that some patients demand such communication channels. Some 49 percent of U.S. consumers who responded to the survey said their doctor’s office still reminds them by phone of appointments. Just 9 percent reported that they receive text messages about upcoming appointments.
Do you want to reduce unnecessary patient visits? What about missed appointments? On its web site, SolutionReach claims that appointment reminder software reduces missed appointments by over 80 percent. That is something every practice should want. So, why do the majority of doctors communicate with patients with 19th century technology (i.e.: postcards), or 20th century technology (i.e.: telephone), when 21st century technology has better results? A U.S. News & World Report article suggests there are three reasons: economics, business and regulations.
Doctors currently do not want patients sending them e-mails or texts. The economic question is why would a doctor answer a patient’s question via e-mail or text when it is not a billable procedure? Under the current third-party reimbursement structures, doctors are not paid for managing patients via e-mail or text messages, so doctors avoid patients’ e-mails and texts. In the new value-based reimbursement models coming from the Affordable Care Act, doctors need to reduce costs by preventing unnecessary office visits
Put in practical terms, if e-mail or texts reduce unnecessary office visits, doctors will learn very quickly how to utilize this approach to avoid suffering financial penalties.
The existing business problem is that the solution is more complicated than just agreeing that texting and e-mailing can reduce unnecessary office visits. The problem is the doctor’s workflow must be adjusted so that while the doctor is delivering care to patients in the office, the doctor is not distracted by e-mails and text messages. Managing e-mails and texts needs to become as efficient as generating patient reports. We are not there yet. In fact, some practices still struggle with efficiently creating patient reports.
The growing mountain of regulations doctors face cannot be ignored.
Doctors have a reluctance to be the test case in a lawsuit brought by the government for non-compliance. HIPAA demands doctors protect patient health information. That means the issue of HIPAA-compliant messaging must be addressed. The appropriate HIPAA-compliant software and hardware must be used. The doctor and staff must be educated on the correct HIPAA-compliant procedures to communicate correctly with patients. As much as we feel regulations interfere with the doctor-patient relationship (I just heard it this morning from a doctor: “I just want to care for my patient instead of spending the majority of my time pushing buttons on my computer in order to follow government required regulations!”) we must know and follow the rules.
Whether we like it or not, digital communications with our patients is here now. One option is to wait until digital communications with patients is demanded from us, or a better option is to take this week to create a well-defined digital strategy for the practice. The well-defined digital strategy includes digital communications with our patients. You can start this week by addressing the communications portion of your digital strategy by using 21st century technology to manage reducing missed appointments. This beginning step helps prepare you for what is to come.
References
SolutionReach Appointment Reminder Software
U.S. News & World Report: The Doctor Won’t Text You Now
