Cindy Borders
Client Account Executive, Streamline Health, Inc.
Patient Scheduling is a critical but often underappreciated element of care delivery. Despite the high profile role it plays in influencing everything from the patient experience and financial performance, many organizations often see it as a necessary evil of sorts, relying on dated systems or add-on functionality from their EHR to manage appointments. Whether each department manages its own scheduling or you have a call center, using an Enterprise Scheduling system improves the experience for all stakeholders in care delivery.
- Improves Physician Relations
- Ease of access to schedule with minimal points of contact is a win/win for office and hospital staff
- By automating scheduling orders through integration or faxes, you can eliminate the phone call shuffle and free up staff resources to focus on more crucial tasks
- Becomes the Launch Point for Financial Clearance
- By collecting key data elements via a sophisticated rules engine, financial clearance can begin at the point of scheduling. With HDHPs and increased self-pay, engaging the patient and confirming financial responsibility earlier in the process is more important than ever.
- Reduces Errors
- With embedded clinical rules for sequencing, time allocation, and procedural conflict checking, scheduling errors are minimized. This enables greater resource management while improving the patient experience.
- Empowers the Patient
- An integrated Patient Portal provides patients with easy access to manage their schedules. In the era of patient consumerism, this convenience and visibility is no longer a “nice to have”. It’s a competitive differentiator to keep market share.
- Improves Resource Utilization
- Through ongoing reminder notifications, no shows rates are minimized and resources are utilized to capacity. This improves your ability to forecast resource needs and optimize financial performance.
Patient scheduling may be the “front door” to your organization, but leveraging an Enterprise Scheduling solution will go far beyond increased curb appeal. With improved processes, enhanced stakeholder satisfaction and optimized results, it’s an investment that will reap large returns now and in the future.
