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Reducing Patient No-Show Rates: A Comprehensive Guide
High patient no-show rates have a negative impact across the healthcare network. They damage provider revenue, and they prevent patients from receiving optimal care – a serious lose-lose.
A central cause of no-show rates is patients lacking a convenient and easy way to communicate with providers. Many providers still force patients to pick up the phone, or wrestle with clunky portals. They fail to meet them in a digital medium that is easy, convenient, and multilingual. When providers improve their overall patient communication, no-shows rates reliably fall.
How can providers implement the right strategies to reduce no-show rates in primary care? And what results can they expect? Read our guide for 8 tangible strategies.
The Cost of Patient No-Show Rates
When a patient doesn’t appear for a check-up, surgery, or consultation, it leads to wasted capacity and suboptimal care.
$200
per appointment
$150 billion
every year
Delayed care
for patients
U.S. research has shown that up to 31.5% of no-shows fail to show up because of poor provider communication.
8 Tips to Reduce Patient No-Show Rates
Use the patient’s preferred method of contact
Help patients understand the need for the appointment
Use automated patient appointment reminders
Calm patient fears
Reduce the time between scheduling an appointment and the actual appointment
Reduce the time between scheduling an appointment and the actual appointment
Read the guide for more details.
Offer digital check-in and updates on scheduling issues
Offer digital check-in and updates on scheduling issues
Download the guide for more tips.
Text patients to reschedule
Send follow-up messages
Download the guide
Download the guide
How can providers implement the right strategies to reduce no-show rates in primary care? Read our comprehensive guide for more strategies.
70%
of American healthcare consumers prefer texting to schedule their appointments
91%
want to be informed about the status of their ill loved ones via text
83%
like to receive reminders from physicians for prescriptions, schedule confirmations, follow-up appointments, and more.
How WELL Improves Patient-Provider Communication
The WELL platform reliably cuts patient no-show rates by equipping healthcare providers with a sophisticated and centralized communication software that simplifies patient-provider communication. From a unified platform, providers can engage patients in one-on-one, back-and-forth text conversations at scale.
Providers can tailor their messages based on their patient’s profile, previous interactions, and current treatment plan. Personalized messaging empowers patients to become more engaged and involved with their health, thus contributing to the reduction of patient no-show rates.
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Case Study
Community Memorial Health System
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Case Study
Eisenhower Health
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Case Study
Tiburcio Vazquez Health Center
Community Memorial Health System (CMHS) is a large healthcare system that had a legacy appointment reminder system that didn’t allow patients to respond. Every day, CMHS staff had to call patients to remind them of their appointments. But after using WELL for two months, CMHS saw immediate results.
CMHS’s no-show rate dropped by 29%, resulting in an estimated $1,169,600 increase in annual revenue.
“It became obvious to us very early that (WELL) was going to eliminate a lot of work… and it did.” – Lori Hooks, Director of Quality and Practice Systems.
Located in Coachella Valley, CA, health system Eisenhower Health grappled with high call volume. Staff spent as much as two hours on the phone each day dealing with appointment reminders yet patients were still frequently no-shows. Eisenhower Health had to find a way to decrease no-shows to maintain revenue. After using WELL, the staff saw the time they spent on the phone drop from as much as two hours to as low as 15 minutes.
With WELL, Eisenhower Health saw a 40% reduction in no-shows and a 23% growth in appointment confirmations.
With all the extra time, Mark Steffen Chief Administrative Officer, Primary and Specialty Care Clinics said, “We can focus our care team on more patient-focused activities and follow-up.”
The Tiburcio Vazquez Health Center (TVHC) caters to 115,000 patients, a large proportion of which are Hispanic. The language barrier was making it difficult for TVHC physicians to connect with such a large volume of patients, resulting in high patient no-show rates and lost revenue. By implementing WELL Health, TVHC overcame the language barrier issue.
TVHC saw its no-show rate drop by 20%. Confirmed bookings skyrocketed from 25% to 80%.
WELL “has given us a better way to talk to our patients, an easier, more efficient way to reach out to patients, and a better way to handle scheduling,” said Caleb Sandford, TVHC Chief Operations Officer.
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