How technology can address the patient no-show problem

Did you ever miss or forgot your doctor's appointment? Ever felt like you got an appointment with the doctor at the time, which was a bit unfeasible or inflexible for you? According to statistics, it has been revealed that patient no-shows and appointment misses may cost a healthcare service provider up to $150,000 a year and with multi practices been following up could lead to loss of up to $1 million.

Healthcare service providers and clinics have been thinking now to integrate or devise an automated program that can remind patients of the significance of the process, how to get prepared in overall for the same, how to cancel or reschedule in any case of emergency or if they are not able to attend the appointment, in all letting them be flexible and decide by themselves without impacting patient privacy laws and norms. Every appointment means, fixing a particular time out of your schedule in the patient's name. The more the appointments will be, the time slots will be filled accordingly and appointment no-shows could impact both tremendously. Few practices even charge patients with a specific amount in case they missed the scheduled appointment without prior notice and skipping the same could result in a loss to hospitalization or the clinic cost care down the run.

What do you think - whose fault it is?

Well, the responsibility of taking an appointment or letting the healthcare service aware of whether you would be able to make it up on that day or not, is on the patient. But, if there could be a system or an approach that could ease out the concerns through proper communication and considering patient's preferences, then it will resolve all problems. Want to know of the different ways through which the problem could be fixed or resolved? Well, keep on reading and see how technology and proper system integration can help in getting rid of the patient's no-show problem.

In a shell, these are some of the ways through which patient no-shows and appointment misses could be cut down as the technology is providing them the leverage of going for cancellations or re-schedule of appointments in case of unfeasibility. The no-show rates or number is after all not only about the revenue loss but in fact; real quality of life issues and concerns are involved in the process.