Does anyone have any experience/advice with automated patient reminder call systems?
I’m thinking about using an automated patient reminder call system for our small surgical practice. Doing manual reminder calls is a pretty time-consuming task for the staff. Do you have any experience with them, are there things to watch out for that may not be immediately obvious? Are there systems you’ve used and love… or hate? Why?
I’ve Googled a bit and there seem to be MANY options out there, all SEOed to hell and back, which makes it difficult to do an objective comparison of what’s out there.
Thanks so much in advance for sharing your experience.
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9 Answers
My doc’s practice uses one and it works great for me as a patient. I can see if they’ll tell who they use if you want.
I do not know the systems that they use but I do appreciate the auto reminders I get from Walgreens pharmacy and my doctor’s practice.
Our practice used one, and it worked well. Patients liked it. I can’t recall the name, but PM me if you want to know and I’ll email them to find out.
Biggest thing to watch out for is when scheduling a patient who is not new to the practice but who hasn’t been seen in a while, to be really on top of asking for their updated contact info so the system calls the new number.
Our patients complain about it all the time. When the administrators told us they were getting it, we told them it was a bad idea because our patients are hearing impaired… they did it anyway. Our EMR system allows us to change to SMS or email messages, so I try to use those whenever I can, but many of my elderly patients also don’t have those technologies.
Please don’t make your message 3 minutes long with the appointment date and time at the very end. Sorry, that’s all the advice I have for you.
I have a couple doctor’s that use automated systems. I don’t mind it but I wish they would talk faster and get to the point. I hate sitting through the system waiting until I can press 1 to confirm. I prefer the kind that use text messages. I can reply with a C to confirm. So much faster and I don’t miss the call that way.
Also, it would be nice if your patients could opt whether or not to use the automated system. An option to select their contact preference (call, email, text) would be great.
@Juels -As I mentioned, that’s one feature I like about our new system.
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