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CASE STUDY – DELIVERING PAYMENT REMINDER TEXT MESSAGE VIA OHMD BROADCAST, PRACTICE GENERATES MASSIVE INCREASE IN WEB PAYMENTS OVER 2 MONTHS
CHALLENGES
- Limited staff available to answer incoming calls made for a missed call rate of 41% and an abandoned call rate of 12.6%
- Antiquated, manual, and expensive process for sending billing reminders to patients, with patients typically taking 2 ½ – 3 months to pay their bills
- Web payment volume was a low – at roughly only $2,500 a month
SOLUTIONS
- OhMD Texting to offer alternative to phone calls ultimately reducing missed patient connections
- OhMD Web Chat for omnichannel communication, allowing patients to connect through website
- OhMD Broadcast for one-to-many, personalized payment reminder text message sending
- OhMD Saved Replies to create a cohesive organization workflow, saving staff time
RESULTS
- 900% web payment collections increase, rising from $2,500 to $25,000 over two months
- 22% decrease in missed incoming calls, improving their ability to schedule appointments
- 11.4% decrease in abandoned incoming calls, reducing abandonment call rate from 12.6% to 1.2%
- 98% reduction in A/R days (time to payment). A third of patients receiving a broadcast patient reminder text message paid within 48 hours, a drastic reduction from the previous 2.5-3 month average time to payment
Expert in the healthcare field and Principal Consultant of Primary Care Sports Medicine, Tania Chevalier CPME, launched a service company, My Practice Bridge, to provide solutions for medical practices. As a consulting group, their objective was to address staff shortages and alleviate the overwhelming volume of phone calls.
Primary Care Sports Medicine (PCSM), their pilot practice, faced challenges in managing patient appointment scheduling due to limited staff availability. With a 41% missed call rate and a 12.6% abandoned call rate, the practice struggled to meet patient demands and generate revenue.
To address these issues, PCSM partnered with OhMD. They implemented OhMD’s two-way texting and website chat functionalities to enhance patient-provider communication. By alerting their patients to the new offering of a text-based alternative to phone calls, the burden on staff was reduced, which allowed them to focus more on delivering a better patient experience.
Their immediate need was a solution to relieve the burden on their staff and get patients scheduled. Utilizing OhMD to expand beyond calls to text message and website chat, the practice enabled an omnichannel approach to patient communication.
Leveraging Two-Way Texting to Decrease Missed Calls
Within 60 days of starting with OhMD, Primary Care Sports Medicine saw incredible results.
The missed call rate decreased to 22%, resulting in more appointment bookings. The abandonment call rate dropped to a nearly invisible 1.2%.
The ability to send a text or chat directly on the website reduced the burden on staff to take phone calls and allowed them to spend more time focusing on the patient experience.
The upside to it was pretty immediate that those patients were being taken care of and those questions were being answered, appointments were getting booked. We’re definitely seeing that has taken a lot of the burden off of the staff inside the practice. They have more time to focus on the person that’s standing in front of them. And that’s so big. It’s so important in customer service.
Additionally, the Saved Replies feature played a vital role in faster responses and saving time. Staff members could respond to common inquiries using pre-built templates, ensuring consistent and efficient communication.
Building on their success with two-way texting, PCSM decided to explore other OhMD features for billing reminders.
Looking for an alternative to calls at your own practice?
We can help with that. Two-way HIPAA compliant texting is the preferred communication channel for patients.
A payment reminder text message approach to improve the bottom line
The traditional snail mail billing approach caused delays of 2 ½ to 3 months in bill payments. Recognizing this, Chevalier and her team adopted the OhMD’s Broadcast feature to improve A/R days through payment reminder text message.
Patients received text alerts with links to conveniently pay their bills using their mobile devices. By sending approximately 300 text reminders per week, Primary Care Sports Medicine achieved a significant decrease of 98% in billing time for a third of the patients. Payments that once took three months were slashed to 48 hours for a good portion of their patients.
Moreover, web payment collections surged from $2,500 to $25,000, a 900% increase in two months.
Chevalier’s first pilot practice boomed in web payments. With a better missed call rate, billing reminders was the solution they were looking for. With an efficient, organized practice, Chevalier is looking to develop other use cases alongside OhMD as she continues to help other practices succeed.
Simplify your payments using OhMD
Want to deliver payment reminder text messages at your own practice?
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