An analysis of Dialog Health client data reveals that healthcare organizations are using the two-way text messaging platform to significantly reduce the time spent by staff on patient outreach concerning upcoming appointments.
Dialog Health data indicates that clients, on average, can use texting to communicate with about 86.3% of patients about their future appointments. Text messaging is allowing users of the Dialog Health platform to:
Ensure more patients receive the care they need, including critical preventive services such as mammograms and colonoscopies
Achieve substantial reductions in cancellations, no-shows, and no-goes
Increase patient volume and revenue
Considerably reduce the time spent by staff calling patients about appointments
Assign staff to other essential tasks that improve patient care and satisfaction, increase patient volume and collections, and strengthen operational performance and efficiency
Reduce time spent on overtime and PRN (as-needed) staff
Under 14% of patients will require outreach by means other than text messaging. Only about 1% of patients are opting out of communication by texting. About 2% do not provide a mobile phone number. Notably, the data analysis revealed that about 10% cannot be reached via the mobile phone number associated with their account. This represents an opportunity for organizations to further increase the number of patients who can be communicated with via texting if the mobile number is corrected.
"For healthcare providers, making sure patients show up for their appointments is critical for helping keep patients healthy and decreasing the risk of future health issues while generating the revenue needed to keep an organization financially solvent," said Brandon Daniell, president and co-founder of Dialog Health. "Our latest data analysis shows that text messaging can play a central role in achieving these objectives and other noteworthy benefits. As we say, if you want to get a message out fast to a significant number of people and with a high degree of confidence they will receive, read, and respond to it, send that message as a text."
