Problem
For years, Ridgeview Rehab Specialties was challenged with its no-show rate. Like patients at other medical organizations many of Ridgeview’s patients would forget about their appointments or experience last-minute conflicts and never reschedule.
After recording 6,264 rehab no-shows in 2016, leaders at Ridgeview explored ways to improve patient outreach and overall engagement without adding work for its staff.
Ridgeview realized that it could use new technology — specifically text messaging — to keep patients engaged and have fewer no-shows.
Results
Over a two-year period, Ridgeview Rehab Specialties used PerfectServe’s patient and family communication platform to reduce its no-show rate by 12.6%.
Generating an average of $175 per visit, Ridgeview Rehab Specialties reduced no-show rates by 792 visits, and estimates its total revenue recovery from 2016 to 2018 to be $138,600.
Other Ridgeview facilities are also using PerfectServe’s patient and family communications platform to reduce no-show rates, enhance patient engagement, reduce readmissions, gauge patient satisfaction and gather feedback from patients. As an organization, Ridgeview sends more than 235,000 messages to more than 100,000 patients each year to help them become more involved in their care and take charge of their health.
Solutions
After comparing vendors, Ridgeview Rehab Specialties chose to implement PerfectServe’s patient and family communication platform to improve patient engagement and reduce the no-show rate.
With PerfectServe, Ridgeview Rehab Specialties’ clinicians can send valuable appointment information to their patients via SMS, including:
- Automated pre-encounter visit reminders, including scheduling and location details
- On-demand messaging to alert patients of unexpected scheduling changes
- Automatic recall messaging to request that patients rebook missed appointments
- Automated patient experience and satisfaction surveys after an appointment
From a patient’s perspective, the secure text messages from Ridgeview Rehab Specialties are written clearly and it’s easy to respond. Staff using Perfect- Serve’s secure, web-based platform find it simple and intuitive. Clinicians log in on their desktops and have instant access to real-time data, including overall patient engagement dashboards and individual text message responses.
Since most of Ridgeview’s provider-to-patient text messages are automated — including visit reminders, rebooking messages and patient satisfaction surveys — staff don’t have to manually call every patient to remind him/her about upcoming appointments or rescheduling. Instead, they can focus efforts on the small percentage of patients who haven’t responded to text messages.
Ridgeview administrators use PerfectServe to see a global view of how patients are engaging with text messages including participation, response and click-through rates.
