In healthcare, referrals play a crucial role in connecting patients with appropriate specialists and services. However, this essential process is not without its operational pitfalls. First understanding and then addressing these pitfalls leads to improved patient care, reduced inefficiencies, and an enhanced overall healthcare experience.
Projects frequently fail or stall out due to vague goals and metrics, leaving organizations with a lot of time and revenue invested in a project that isn’t pushing towards business and revenue growth. The best way to know if you are successfully reaching your desired outcome is to have a defined metric that measures the impact of a process or technology change.
Putting together a cohesive set of processes to reduce patient no-shows can be challenging and time intensive, especially for busy practices. But, doing so is critical to both optimizing revenue and increasing the quality of patient outcomes.
As practices look to drive down their rate of no-shows, there are several strategies we see practices put into place that seem promising, but ultimately aren’t effective, and in some cases have the opposite effect and drive patients away from the practice.
Patients forgetting and/or not receiving a reminder of an upcoming appointment was found to be the leading cause of patient no-shows. Scheduling conflicts and transportation issues followed as the next two most common factors. When combined, these top three issues account for nearly two thirds of all missed appointments.
Top 5 Proven Ways to Grow Your Healthcare Business Today. #5 Invest in your future. An experienced consultant can be an effective and efficient sounding board.
Top 5 Proven Ways to Grow Your Healthcare Business Today. #4 Refresh your pitch. Armed with a concise pitch, ensure your whole team understands it and buys in.
Change is hard. Spearheading projects and implementations designed to assist with change, is even harder, especially when you already have a full plate.
Top 5 Proven Ways to Grow Your Healthcare Business Today. #3 Get the word out about why you’re different.
Top 5 Proven Ways to Grow Your Healthcare Business Today. #2 Don’t undervalue reviews. Few businesses stop and take the time to categorize this information.
