With the correct patient engagement technology, your business can enhance treatment adherence, patient engagement, marketing ROI, and, most crucially, patient outcomes.
Patients are now beginning to evaluate their medical coverage in a manner similar to how they do when purchasing a car or making retirement investments. They do not want choices made for them regarding their health. They would rather gather more information concerning their own wellness from reliable resources and make these choices in consultation with their doctor.
However, with improper planning regarding Medical Billing and knowledgeable collaborators, your implementation will most likely fail. The following are some dos and don’ts of patient participation.
Patient Outreach:
Patient outreach is any external contact with patients, mechanical or automated, that is intended to keep them involved in their healthcare, require changes to care plans, and urge them to take action. It frequently entails calling patients who have missed visits, lab work, screenings, immunizations, or other preventative and follow-up treatments.
In order for patients to remain committed in their care, health systems need to develop trusting connections. In fact, when particularly compared to uninvolved patients, patients who are engaged are three-fold lower likelihood to have unfulfilled medical requirements and two times as inclined to seek care promptly.
Importance of Patient Outreach:
Sustaining your relationship with patients requires staying in touch with them between appointments. Patient education is also an important component of patient outreach since it keeps patients educated about their health, which improves results and boosts loyalty. By keeping patients connected with their healthcare and your practice, this strategy helps them regard you as a valued source of health information.
For your communication program to be effective, the education you deliver does not have to be directly tied to the goods you provide. It is, however, more beneficial to address patients with data that is pertinent to them or their families. You may achieve this aim by categorizing patients based on medical criteria in the EHR and tailoring training content to each section.
Do’s in Post-Care Patient Engagement:
Automated patient outreach is being used by medical clinics for more than simply appointment reminders and schedule updates. They frequently use this technology to convey marketing communications. Healthcare leaders must keep HIPAA in mind as they try to increase market awareness, visibility, and reputation.
Good approaches for HIPAA compliance while establishing a retail presence have included the following:
Obtain Consent:
Before physicians can use patients’ personal health information (PHI) for commercial or marketing reasons, HIPAA requires patients to obtain their consent. The major exception to the general norm is when the supplier provides a little promotional gift. The only other restriction is when the advertising involves a direct interaction between the physician and the patient.
DO Prioritize the Patient:
Make sure that any engagement plan you use meets the patient’s needs. Your success is contingent on the patient using your service. Your investment is squandered if patients do not utilize your application, no matter how attractive, technological, or medically advanced it is.
Billions of lines of technical code have been created to tackle issues that no one else has encountered. Most mobile health applications only have a few users. Consider the following factors to promote patient involvement in solution adoption:
- Accessibility. Ensure that your services are available on the most popular platforms, including mobile and desktop.
- Simple to use. From sign-up through assistance to cancellation, adopt the KISS (keep-it-simple-stupid) approach.
- Affordability. Having a chronic condition is already costly. Making your patient management services available for free to patients benefits both them and you since you have more users to interact with.
- Connections. Individuals desire the ability to interact with others; make this possible.
- Flexibility. There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all solution. Your application will be used differently by each patient. Patients, for example, desire to be able to handle all sorts of drugs when it comes to treatment plans. They anticipate receiving communications via many channels. They would like to track a range of health measurements and objectives, and they require the platform to adapt to their changing health.
Do Proceed with Client Engagement Options:
Engaging patients is key to initiatives for improving healthcare delivery. Implementing engagement services that foster long-term partnerships brings your brand to the forefront. Furthermore, you will increase goodwill throughout the healthcare sector.
Go ahead and tell the world. It’s always satisfying to be a decent person.
Don’ts in Post-Care Patient Engagement:
Don’t Place It and Forget It:
All sectors are changing dramatically as a result of 24-hour internet access. However, we feel that the most stressed industry is healthcare. The hurdles are significant, with government pressure to integrate IT, a lack of standards, partners that do not work well together, copyright cliffs, value-based healthcare, and widespread fear of change.
With this in mind, your software will be obsolete by the time it is released. Product adaptability should be factored in from the beginning. You’ll also need to maintain a roadmap for support, new platforms, upgrades, and integrations. Unfortunately, developing patient engagement tools is a long-term endeavor.
Don’t overlook the patient experience:
The patient experience is vital for surveys and reimbursement, but it is also essential for patient payment collections. Patients that have a good experience pay their bills faster, believe it or not. If you haven’t already begun to focus on enhancing patient outcomes in your urgent-care facility, now is the moment.
Don’t Try to do Everything Yourself:
Software engineering is likely not in your job description as a healthcare salesman or patient communication specialist. Building a smart patient engagement product is also unlikely to be your marketing agency’s main competency.
Initially, homegrown apps are thrilling. The engineering staff is motivated to master new skills and tackle new challenges. Project managers might use this chance to improve their CVs. An indigenous system can endure for decades in a steady environment.
However, if your business and demands change frequently, the homegrown application rapidly becomes cumbersome and out of date. There are no new resources available, and the present crew has moved on to the next great thing. In the end, your customized system is a costly learning experience. Instead of constructing your own or working with an advertising agency, hire the pros.