As you work hard on making up lost time from COVID-19 closures, it’s not uncommon to deal with an increased number of no-shows. Whether patients are wary about visiting your office due to the coronavirus, or simply have not gotten around to scheduling an appointment, it’s important that you take proactive steps to help reduce no-shows and bring back more patients to your practice.
You can prevent no-shows and bring back more of your patients with a customized but automated reminder strategy. One of the great benefits of marketing automation is the ability to schedule multiple reminders at once.
Here are the four reminder types and how you can implement them into your communication strategy.
1 – Save the Date
Sent immediately after an appointment is scheduled in your practice management system. This lets patients easily add appointments to their calendar which will decrease the chance of no-shows.
2 – Pre Appointment
Can be sent days or hours before an appointment via email, voice, and/or text. Each email or text reminder has the option to include a confirmation call to action and can include special COVID-19 related instructions or protocols that your patients should be aware of.
3 – Day Of
Sent via text a few hours before the appointment as a last-minute reminder and ensures that your patient show up on time and are reminded of any special instructions before they head into your office.
4 – Follow Up
This reminder is usually sent a few days after the appointment. It gives you an opportunity to thank the patient for coming in and ask for feedback through email or text. Patients can also be prompted to leave a review about your business on popular review sites like Google, Yelp, and Demandforce Local. This will increase your practices’ online presence and help you stand out from your competitors.
On all communication, don’t forget that along with fully customizable text you can create custom tags that allow you to add image buttons, referral links and even an email navigation bar!
Henry Schein One offers Demandforce to help reduce no shows, which creates more revenue with better patient communication. Request a Demo today or call 833.429.1132 to speak with a representative.
