3 out of 10 medical appointments are missed, according to various studies. The main causes are forgetfulness and confusion about the scheduled date and time. This has a great economic impact on clinics and medical centres and also on customer satisfaction. By sending a reminder by SMS you can easily and cheaply reverse this situation.
Consequences of absenteeism in medical clinics
The main consequence of patients not showing up for their scheduled appointments is the negative economic impact : an hour of medical staff time is wasted that could have been spent caring for another individual.
But it is not only a financial loss, it also has an unintended impact on administrative staff and other patients. On the one hand, patient care teams have to spend more time manually rescheduling these no-show appointments, and on the other, waiting lists cannot be significantly reduced, which means that patients turn to other centres where they can be seen more quickly.
How to avoid absenteeism at scheduled appointments
The simplest way to prevent patients from not showing up list of real cell phone number for their scheduled appointments is to make a reminder with a recommended notice of no more than 24 hours in advance. Many clinics assign a person to make these contacts and remind patients of appointments through telephone calls. This would be a possible solution, but we must take into account the high cost of doing so and the difficulties it presents, since 90% of consumers do not answer calls from unknown numbers.
So what would be a viable alternative
Use SMS to make appointment reminders
Taking these premises into account, SMS is the appropriate the allowed us to separate the work zones channel to send appointment reminders and it numbers thus avoid absenteeism. Access your free trial and discover the simplicity of sending SMS.
