Electronic Medical Records - Patient Reminder

By Author: Jamie Hanson
Total Articles: 3495
Comment this article

Doctors and medical staff are all too aware of canceled appointments. Despite the fact that patients make their appointments, they often forget when they are and don't show up, or cancel at the last minute. Calling every patient to remind them a few days in advance of their appointment is time consuming and is a never ending job.. The best way to handle reminding patients of their appointments is to use a patient reminder system built into your EMR software. There are many features that are necessary for patient reminder software including multiple languages that can be customized based on patients' first language, multiple options for patient response, scheduler updater based on patient response, and generation of reports.

While there are many benefits experienced from using a patient reminder, below are some of the best ones.

"No Shows" Reduced
It is common for patients to be "No Shows" simply because they forget their appointment, run into traffic, or because they simply decide not to show up. When appointment reminders are delivered automatically the chance that a patient will forget their appointment ...
... is reduced significantly. There is the option to customize messages for the patient so that they receive the complete appointment details as well as several response options to ensure patients' responses are captured.

Appointment Coordination
The patient reminder can send messages based on the patients' preference including phone, fax or email. When patients respond by phone the scheduler can update their response in the system and amend their appointment if necessary.

Patients Like It
Nobody likes to have a computer or robot call them, but the patient reminder system used in many EMR software systems allows doctors or nurses to record the message and then the system can contact the patients. Patients accept this system and appreciate the appointment reminder especially since many "no show" appointments result in a charge.

Saves Time and Money
Patient Reminders will help pay for EMR software because they save labor expenses since staff are not calling patients all day to remind them of their appointments. Also, the software is able to print the call session to provide a handy printout of the calls that were made and the responses received.

Many EMR software systems are expected to be replaced over the next several years thanks to Federal stimulus money targeted for the implementation of electronic medical records systems in doctor's practices and hospitals.