Overcoming Financial and Operational Challenges in Healthcare with Advanced Technology

Research has shown that patients who are least engaged in their care are more likely to have unmet medical needs. On the other hand, numerous studies have demonstrated that patient engagement is essential for improving patients' health outcomes and satisfaction with their care experience. Patient engagement empowers patients for better:

• Healthcare decision-making
• Health behavior changes
• Chronic disease management

Why is patient engagement essential? One reason is that most adults need to make daily decisions about their health-whether for chronic disease management or to change their daily health behaviors. Patient engagement also helps improve patients' knowledge, making it easier to understand their care decisions and the changes they must make to manage their health effectively. Engagement encourages patient autonomy and self-determination.

Positive patient experiences can directly impact the profitability of healthcare organizations while low levels of patient engagement can significantly impact your practice's bottom line. This is partly because improved patient engagement lowers overall costs of care while simultaneously increasing patient satisfaction and retention-patients are more likely to return to practices where they feel empowered to participate in their care decisions.

Today, we address how you can put patient engagement to work for you and your practice via a simple, 3-step process that will help you determine the best solution to drive positive changes in your organization.¹

Step 1: Look internally

The first step toward improving patient engagement is clearly defining your practice's ideal patient experience. Consider what you want this ideal experience to look like at each step of the patient journey, from first contact with your office to the patient visit to scheduling future visits and follow-up. Ask questions such as:²

• What do your current patient experiences look like?
• What are you doing right in these patient experiences? What could you improve?

Be aware that your patients' "pathway" through your practice will continue growing and changing as your practice grows, making it critical to regularly reevaluate the patient experience.

Once you've identified a target area for improvement, you're ready to dig deeper. Ask yourself, what larger problem(s) are you trying to solve? How would a successful solution impact your practice? How would failure to solve these problems affect your practice? If you identify a possible solution, what are its potential effects?

Finally, take inventory of any existing solutions. What contracts do you already have for solutions or services related to patient engagement?

Step 2: Marketplace items to consider

One common strategy for improving patient engagement is using technology to simplify care delivery. Whatever system your practice uses currently, it's worthwhile to periodically assess how well that system streamlines patient care. Are your current patient engagement tools lessening the burden on your staff? Could other tools further simplify care delivery?

The marketplace for patient engagement solutions has grown significantly over the past decade, making it essential to understand the services different vendors can or cannot provide. Some vendors specialize in only one area of patient engagement, such as scheduling or check-in reminders; others cater to a specific practice specialty.

However, if you've taken time to identify the specific problems you're trying to solve, you can evaluate vendors based on their abilities to solve those problems.

Here are some essential marketplace items to consider:

Platform vs. multi-vendor approach

With the many players in today's market, healthcare practices have multiple options for promoting patient engagement. Your practice could deploy multiple vendors, each specializing in different aspects of patient engagement. Or your practice could deploy a platform approach, a single solution that oversees the patient engagement experience from end to end. It's essential to assess your overall business needs to determine the best strategy for your practice.³

When considering a multi-vendor approach, keep in mind the time this requires. For instance, working with 3 different vendors could create multiple time demands-e.g., separate meetings, sales meetings, and discussions of new features or your current needs for each vendor. Managing each vendor relationship requires time, and time translates into money-which is one reason a single relationship with a single platform vendor can be beneficial.

Fee structure

Today's vendors offer numerous payment options, including flat fees, transaction-based fees, and fees based on a percentage of product use. In some cases, one option will be more favorable; however, as practices grow and develop, initial "favorable" payment systems can inflate beyond their initial budget.⁴

Your practice's patient volume is critical when considering the cost of various patient engagement systems. Understanding the full complement of vendor fees is also critical. A software company may quote a figure as their "per provider per month" fee-but it's essential to ensure there aren't additional costs they have failed to mention.

When evaluating a vendor's fee structure, consider their payment system. If the vendor uses a third party to process payments, will those transactions generate additional charges? Whatever vendor you select to evaluate, ensure they provide the full story of their fee schedule, including any external charges for processing, transactions, or other services.

Patient-centered messaging

One of your practice's key tools for driving patient engagement is patient messaging-which is why it's essential that your messaging is patient-centered and authentic. Not all practices have the same specialties or serve the same patient demographics. As a result, no vendor's out-of-the-box messaging will fit every practice.⁵

You need the ability to configure both content and timing for patient messages. Configuring messages to reflect your practice's brand can make an immense difference in patients' conversion rates for messages such as appointment confirmations and mobile check-ins.

Strategic problem-solving approach

The fourth factor to consider when evaluating vendors is whether they can implement a strategic, problem-solving approach. In most cases, when your practice decides to implement a specific patient engagement campaign, the reasons behind the campaign extend beyond the specific feature. For instance, say you're adding telehealth functionality. The telehealth feature is not the actual reason behind the campaign. It's a tool intended to help solve a larger problem.⁶

Telehealth may be intended to improve patient communications or appointment timing. These factors will help improve patient satisfaction and, as a result, patient loyalty. Improving patient loyalty helps your practice to be more competitive in a world where independent practices struggle to compete against expanding hospital health systems and urgent care facilities.

Step 3: Tracking is key

Tracking is essential for whatever vendor or system you ultimately select. Tracking enables you to understand whether you're solving the problem or problems you set out to solve. It helps you evaluate whether a solution is a good fit, its overall cost, what value it provides, and more. If your vendor doesn't offer tracking, find out why. If they do offer tracking, access it and learn to use it. Tracking can provide you with a great deal of invaluable information once you understand how it works.⁷

Tracking enables you to define and measure metrics to help evaluate a platform's performance. Metrics to consider include:

• Average number of no-shows
• Average number of appointments per week
• Number of daily phone calls
• Number of new appointments booked

By evaluating these and other data, you can start to identify changes resulting from new patient engagement strategies. Tracking can help you analyze data trends and pinpoint areas that could benefit from changes.

Collecting key practice metrics can also help you evaluate how your practice's operations compare to those of other practices. Data sharing with other successful practices enables you to identify areas for improvement. It can provide access to new ideas to implement into your practice's workflows.

Veradigm FollowMyHealth

Today's patient consumers want the ability to manage their daily activities using mobile technology, with 85% preferring SMS over voice calls or emails and 83% expressing the desire to receive appointment reminders via text. The Veradigm FollowMyHealth Mobile Patient Experience (MPE) is a comprehensive solution that enables healthcare practices to engage with patients using the mobile technology so many prefer while eliminating the administrative burden of phone calls and manual reminders.

With features such as online scheduling and automatic appointment confirmation and reminder texts, MPE enables practices to better serve patients throughout their healthcare journey. The mobile check-in feature allows patients to check in, update demographic information, complete intake forms, sign consent forms, process co-pays and bill payments, and more, from their mobile devices-saving time for staff and patients on the appointment day. These and other MPE features add up to improve vital patient communications and care management.

The result? An improved care experience for patients and lowered costs for your practice. Clients utilizing Veradigm FollowMyHealth MPE solutions have experienced benefits such as a 10% reduction in cancellations and no-shows and a fill-rate of over 40% for eligible cancellations using the wait list feature with automated outreach. ⁸

Contact us today to learn how Veradigm FollowMyHealth MPE can help your practice improve patient engagement-and, in the process, increase staff efficiency, reduce practice expenses, and improve patient outcomes.

Watch the Webinar

References:

1. Webinar: Hidden Costs and Untapped Opportunities: What is Patient Engagement Doing for You? Accessed November 7, 2024. https://veradigm-1.wistia.com/medias/1g3s5w6bst.
2. Webinar: Hidden Costs and Untapped Opportunities: What is Patient Engagement Doing for You? Accessed November 7, 2024. https://veradigm-1.wistia.com/medias/1g3s5w6bst.
3. Webinar: Hidden Costs and Untapped Opportunities: What is Patient Engagement Doing for You? Accessed November 7, 2024. https://veradigm-1.wistia.com/medias/1g3s5w6bst.
4. Webinar: Hidden Costs and Untapped Opportunities: What is Patient Engagement Doing for You? Accessed November 7, 2024. https://veradigm-1.wistia.com/medias/1g3s5w6bst.
5. Webinar: Hidden Costs and Untapped Opportunities: What is Patient Engagement Doing for You? Accessed November 7, 2024. https://veradigm-1.wistia.com/medias/1g3s5w6bst.
6. Webinar: Hidden Costs and Untapped Opportunities: What is Patient Engagement Doing for You? Accessed November 7, 2024. https://veradigm-1.wistia.com/medias/1g3s5w6bst.
7. Webinar: Hidden Costs and Untapped Opportunities: What is Patient Engagement Doing for You? Accessed November 7, 2024. https://veradigm-1.wistia.com/medias/1g3s5w6bst.
8. Internal data on file at Veradigm, November 2024.

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