ClientTell Blog

No-shows are expensive; there’s no doubt about it. Cutting down on those will increase your office’s profit incredibly (and keep the doctors and staff happy!). You could be losing up to $144,000 a year simply because of ten no-shows per day, at $60 per visit (that’s $600 per day). What’s the solution? Adequately reminding each patient of their appointment—close to their appointment date.

When a patient has several appointments to juggle, they do realize they’re important, but they may also slip a time or two, forgetting when each appointment is. The appointment card you gave them at the office is easy to misplace. That’s why you’ll need to call them one, two, or even three days in advance to remind them of their appointment verbally. This will be the quickest way to get a response on who is able to make their appointment and who, regrettably, is not.

Calling each patient from your practice can be a drain on time and employee energy. In reality, you’re paying an employee to do something a reminder service can do, and other areas of office function may need more immediate attention. If you do have an employee make the calls, you may be paying him or her more per call (based on their hourly rate) than you would if you used a reminder service like ClientTell (www.clienttell.net).You can increase employee productivity and office efficiency by handing off reminder calls to someone else.

ClientTell appointment reminders run between noon and 8:30 PM—later than most doctors’ offices are open—to reach as many patients as possible, decreasing your no-shows by up to 70%. Messages will be left on answering machines if no one picks up, enabling patients to listen to them again and again to make sure they have the time, date, location, and doctor’s name correct.

A few other tips for decreasing no-shows:

When a patient makes an appointment in your office, you’ll want to make sure they know exactly when their appointment is. Say it out loud and confirm that that day and time is okay with them. Point out your phone number on the card when you hand it to them so they’ll know where to call if they need to cancel or reschedule.

You also will need to inform them of WHY the appointment is necessary. If they realize how important it is for their health, they’ll be less likely to dismiss it mentally.

Send a letter in the mail. Make the font size large enough for your elderly patients to read. Keep in mind that since mailing a letter costs at least $.37, it will be cheaper to call them in most cases.

Simply taking the time to remind your patients of their appointments will cut down your no-shows and, in turn, increase your practice’s profit. The least expensive way of doing that is to utilize a reminder service. Calling at least two days before the appointment gives patients time to arrange for time off from work to make it to your office at the scheduled time, or cancel in time for you to fill the empty appointment slots again. Try it out and watch your no-show rates fall over the course of just a few weeks.

To ensure accuracy and make sure we don’t miss making any calls for your office, please try to send your files in early in the day. If at all possible, submitting your files by 10:00 a.m. will allow us enough time to troubleshoot if there are any problems with your files. We can then get them imported with enough time to make all the calls. We normally start the systems between 11:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m. and let them run until 8:00 p.m.

It is a joy working with every one of you. Thank you for your business.

When you login to ClientTell Online Reports, you will immediately see your current report displayed. The current report shows the results of your calls from the latest calling session. The appointment date is displayed at the top of the report. If you login while we make calls, you can see the results in real time, so if the report shows 0 calls it means that we haven’t started your calls yet. You can still go to custom reports and view your past calls up to 2 months back. For call results older than 2 months, please contact us at 877.244.9178.

Use your “Special Notice” feature as a promotional tool for your practice. The special notice is at no additional cost and acts as a mini-commercial for your practice! Educate your patients using the Special Notice feature by letting them know the importance of sunscreen during the hot, summer months, let them know flu shots are available during flu season, make them aware of the importance of self-breast examinations during Breast Awareness Month, if your practice does clinical trials, advertise for candidates. You decide what you would like them to hear and can change the message as often as you like!

You can record your “Special Notice” by accessing your submenu and pressing #4.

If you do not feel your practice is utilizing the Lab System to its fullest advantage, please call our office at 877.244.9178 and a representative would be happy to schedule a training for your staff.

University of Texas sent out patient surveys to test patient satisfaction and effectiveness of ClientTell Appointment Reminders. The results were overwhelming. 99% of patients responded that they received ClientTell call and they appreciated being reminded of their appointments. Add to that the consistent decrease of no-shows when using automated reminders and you get the best recipe for improving patient communication.

Below are several examples of successful solutions that medical practices have used to maximize their patient message retrieval. The more you incorporate, the higher your retrieval rates.

Train Your Patients - Be sure your receptionists gives out the ClientTell Lab (800 #) to patients calling to request their results and instructs them to call the (800 #). Do not take a message or transfer the call to the nurse. Once patients learn how easy and convenient the (800 #) is to use and that calling the nurse is not a solution, the faster the training process will be.

Record The ClientTell Toll Free Number On Your Voice Mail - If the nurses’ phone and/or your main line have voice mail, include the following message; “If you are calling for your lab/test results, please hang up and dial (800 #).”

Have 3 Points Of Reference Explaining How Patients Should Retrieve Their Lab Results.

At check-in: a nurse or MA should be appointed to relay the ClientTell Lab information to each and every patient. This can be done while weight and temp are being recorded.

In the patient’s room: get your providers involved with telling the patients to access the ClientTell Lab (800 #) for their results (Patients tend to listen to the one who is treating them).

At check out: remind your patients before they leave the office – “Don’t forget to call the (800 #) to get your lab results”.

Determine At Which Point Of Reference The Patient Will Receive Their Access Card

On The Access Card Write In A “Range Of Dates” To Call - For example; 5-7 days, 10-14 days.

Create A Generic Library Message For Your Abnormals – This will prevent your staff from having to call patients several times in order to reach them. Most importantly, your patients will learn to use the (800 #) for all of their lab/test results, not just their normals.

Ask Your Doctors To Pre-record Library Messages, Greetings and Special Notices - Patients feel very comfortable hearing their doctor’s voice when calling the (800 #).

Create An Explanation Letter To Your Patients – This letter should explain how calling the (800 #) benefits them. Give the letter to each patient upon arriving at your office. Consider placing additional copies in the waiting area and exam rooms. Please do not hesitate to contact us if we can help in creating this letter for your practice.

Below, is an example of the relationships that we have developed with our clients. Sandy Ariale with Trident Health System, a member of HCA Healthcare, was not only kind enough to give ClientTell a good reference, but she took the time to tell me about it.  This is exactly what we strive for with all of our clients, to meet and exceed their expectations.

“Good morning!

I received a call for a reference on Client Tell’s service yesterday and I was happy to report to them that the support was OUTSTANDING and the overall service was BEYOND BELIEF!

Just thought I’d let you know……it is so refreshing to work with a company that has extremely high customer service standards and does whatever it takes to implement and maintain a service that works so well for our patients and those of us who have to get the service implemented and monitor it. Thank you!!”

Recently, we have received several questions regarding Library Messages and their importance. Library Messages are the biggest time saver and the most efficient way to leave your lab results. Since, more than 80% of all labs are normal, there is no need to record each patient lab result individually. You have the capacity to store 199 library messages per 1-800 number, so you can have your doctor record all normal labs once at the beginning and then your staff just has to assign them to patients in a matter of seconds. In fact, using Library Messages you can leave 50 labs in less than 10 minutes. And the best thing is, patients will hear their doctor’s voice, appreciating the personal touch.

One of our clients, Aqua Blue Pool Services, informed us that our automated collection calls have lowered their account receivables by the amazing 40%. Imagine the impact the service would have on your business. The best thing is, you don’t have to make these uncomfortable calls. We can record multiple scripts with different tones, depending on the delinquency and make several consequent calls. To give it a free try, give us a call at 1.877.244.9178.

Do you know how much money is your practice losing from patients who don’t show up for their appointments? Consider this: Nationally, no-show rates average about 15%. If an average practice schedules 50 patients per day at a cost of $80 per visit and 15 % are no-shows, the practice loses approximately $600 per day in revenue. That’s $12,000 per month! Undoubtedly the best way to lower those no-shows is using appointment confirmations, which remind patients of their appointments and give them chance to cancel right over the phone, so you can schedule somebody else on their place.