Why Healthcare Organizations Are Turning To Automated Communication

Effective communication is essential for patient engagement, adherence and optimal health outcomes. Digital communication in healthcare is transforming how practices like yours stay connected to their patients. Automated software streamlines communication operations, saving your practice valuable time and money while complying with Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) requirements. And the perks don’t stop there—you can reach your patients on their preferred communication channels, including automated short message service (SMS), emails or phone calls, boosting patient satisfaction and saving time.

Automated communication can take your healthcare organization to the next level by providing a convenient and effective solution for maintaining patient engagement.

How Your Healthcare Practice Can Leverage Automated Communication

Using an automated communication solution for your healthcare organization has many advantages for both the practice and its patients. Practices can leverage these tools to share important updates and several types of patient notifications, such as:

• Patient appointment reminders: Send timely reminders about upcoming appointments to the patient’s preferred channel. These messages lower no-show rates and improve appointment attendance, enhancing patient care and boosting revenue.
• Billing and payment reminders or confirmations: Send alerts regarding patient billing activity, such as automatic reminders of upcoming payment due dates (with a link to the online patient payment portal) or confirmations after receiving an online patient payment.
• Lab result status: Notify patients that their lab or test results are available to access in their online portal or by contacting your practice. These messages must adhere to health information privacy laws.
• Medication reminders: Send reminders about taking medication or picking up prescriptions, helping keep patients on track for better health outcomes.
• Health tips: Send educational health tips and preventive care recommendations to patients. These notifications help keep patients engaged, inspiring them to take control of their well-being and schedule an appointment if needed.
• Last-minute updates or emergency alerts: Share timely alerts about emergency health advisories, last-minute appointment cancellations or office closures due to severe weather.
• Surveys and feedback: Request patient surveys to learn more about patient experiences and discover areas for improvement.

6 Reasons To Use Automated Communication For Your Healthcare Organization

Healthcare practices like yours use automated communications to optimize patient journeys and reap the following benefits:

1. Reduce costs

Automated communication platforms significantly reduce the time, energy and money spent on patient outreach. 

Manual communication processes require more administrative tasks, paperwork and hours on the phone, contributing to less productive and efficient operations. Sharing automated messages with your patients can help prevent missed appointments and late arrivals, reduce scheduling issues and minimize wasted gaps in your healthcare practice’s schedule. 

Consistent communication with patients after they receive a treatment plan can also help increase the likelihood that they will adhere to guidance from your medical experts. This helps save costs on potential complications or readmissions. 

2. Enhance the patient experience

One of the best reasons to use automated communication is to boost the patient experience and their satisfaction with the care provided by your healthcare practice. Software provides the convenience of interacting with your practice through their preferred communication channel, whether that’s SMS, email or phone call. 

You can enable simple self-service and two-way communication to support better care delivery, connection and collaboration between those providing and receiving care. Fostering a positive patient experience is essential for establishing long-term relationships and supporting your bottom line.

3. Boost efficiency

Automated, omnichannel communication solutions help your healthcare facility optimize productivity and efficiency, transforming daily operations. These tools can handle many of your team’s time-consuming outreach tasks without human intervention. By handing over these duties to an automated tool, your staff can focus its energies and attention on providing high quality care. 

These communication solutions are also invaluable for patient payment processing, saving time and energy that would otherwise be spent manually tracking down late, unpaid bills. Automated systems deliver messages at the right time via the right channel to increase the likelihood of patient engagement and attention.

4. Improve patient engagement

 Many healthcare organizations leverage automated mobile notification software to stay in touch with patients. These tools boost engagement with both the messages received and the practice as a whole, contributing to better treatment adherence and health outcomes for patients. 

Your practice can also utilize a virtual assistant powered by automated conversational artificial intelligence (AI) to address general inquiries about billing or scheduling.

5. Enhance scalability 

A huge advantage of using automated communication solutions for your healthcare practice is being able to easily scale the volume of incoming and outgoing messages. This is essential for organizations with a rapidly growing patient base. From sharing follow-up messages after an appointment to sending reminders about upcoming bill payments, your staff can streamline daily communications no matter how many individuals you need to contact. 

Patient outreach personnel who are overwhelmed with communications can rely on automation to assist with or even take over thousands of time-consuming interactions. 

6. Ensure compliance

Automated communication software helps your healthcare organization comply with HIPAA regulations regarding all patient outreach efforts. These solutions offer a structured, consistent approach to contacting those receiving care, respecting the patient’s privacy and adhering to important regulations. 

You can standardize your messages and check them for compliance before sending them to avoid potential fines and legal consequences. Automated tools provide documentation to track communication history and provide a clear audit trail.