Patient Reactivation: Healthcare Technology Enhancements to Drive Revenue

Recently, I wrote a blog here on Avtex Thoughts focused on the idea of reactivating patients, with five ways to recover revenue post-COVID. I wanted to circle back on that topic, because I believe that establishing a patient experience strategy is only the first step. To get patients rescheduled, providers need to not only create strategy, but also enhance technology platforms to deliver on their commitment.

Here are a few technology concepts to consider:

• Data Unification - View all of your data in one place. To proactively engage patients with a personalized message requires a 360° view of your patient. However, relying entirely on your electronic medical record (EMR) will result in significant gaps in communication and care. It is generally noted that today, EMRs contain only 10-20% of the data that determines a patient’s overall health. We’ve now learned that your zip code is more impactful on your health than your genetic code.
• Proactive communication – Utilize a platform that allows you to check in with your patients. Marketing technology platforms are an excellent solution for proactive communication with patients, allowing you to actively monitor patient engagement. The ideal scenario for this application is a closed feedback loop, providing a daily check in, and ensuring that patients have been scheduled. This type of solution can reduce redundancy, preventing you from sending additional emails to patients already scheduled and eliminating unnecessary frustration and confusion. A closed loop solution also gives your Marketing team the ability to track ROI - identifying which patient clicked on a link from an email or social media post and was then scheduled can allow your team to demonstrate the results from every dollar spent on each marketing campaign.
• Patient Connectivity – Implement a connectivity hub and engage your patients. Patients, like all customers, want multiple engagement options. A singular hub for patient communications provides the options your patients want, allowing them access to channels other than email - including phone calls, chat and SMS messaging. Advanced platforms like Genesys can do this without requiring intervention or participation from a live agent, thus reducing the need to add extra staff while still expanding your capacity to service your consumers. This is especially important for organizations that have furloughed or reduced staff. Campaigns orchestrated on Genesys can place calls and text messages on behalf of your organization, all without a manual agent activation. Studies consistently show that text messages have a higher open rate than emails, with a Gartner study demonstrating that SMS open rates are as high as 98% compared to just 20% of all emails.
• Reporting/Dashboards - Integrated visible reporting. A central dashboard with key KPIs, visible to the entire leadership team, can allow you to track daily progress on your patient engagement strategies and drive revenue maximization. Some metrics to consider for your reporting include total number of patients in a segment, number of patients that have been scheduled and estimated revenue recovery/impact. Having this dashboard present allows your team to communicate, align on strategy and remain focused on the goals you have set.

Just a few years ago, the technology did not exist to consolidate patient data, enrich it and reason over it. Now with Customer Insights technology from Microsoft, providers can enrich the data with Determinants of Health (DOH) information and use artificial intelligence and machine learning to spot trends in hours that would have previously taken humans months or years to find. At Avtex we are proud to be the first partner to successfully deploy a Customer Insights solution in healthcare and other industries.

If you are a health system and follow these recommendations you can accelerate revenue growth, increase resource utilization, and deliver exceptional experience your patients. These concepts enable your organization to create and implement a strategy that allows you to simultaneously transform your technology and re-engage your patients.