For example, technology can now offer patient calling systems that will automatically remind patients of scheduled appointments and deliver a whole range of messages by phone, fax or email. The article I plan to email to the editor today, even six months ago would have been faxed. Dental consultant Dr. Barry Freydberg reports that his patients who have access to email overwhelmingly prefer email to a call at their workplace during the day, or even to their home at night for appointment reminders and other important messages. Flexibility is the new name of the game for many of the tools. Some providers who use automated patient communication systems for appointment reminders, also utilize them for birthday greetings, lecture announcements, or the local Girl Scout car wash.
Community outreach is a natural for such powerful communications technology.
Helping patient reactivation, recall, and kept appointment rates with outbound efficiency is only part of the communications solutions now available. With next generation technology, your patient records are integrated with your scheduler, which is integrated with your electronic billing to insurers and to your email-enabled patient communications systems. Companies like JulySoft and SmartTalk offer integrated, email enabled, inbound and outbound communication solutions for anything from a single provider practice to large multidisciplinary healthcare organizations. But even a one or two-person practice can easily profit from computerized practice management and automated calling systems for both incoming and outgoing calls. These applications of the new technologies are specially designed to streamline routine office tasks and free provider and staff for more quality time on patient care.