Radiology clinics need to avoid no-shows to maximize profitability. Learn more about how strategies for patient engagement can help.

Strategies for patient engagement have become a major point of discussion in the healthcare field as of late. While patients’ healthcare decisions have always been motivated, in part, by accessibility, convenience is now becoming the driving force of where they seek care. In fact, 51% of patients recently surveyed consider convenience most important for health-related decisions with only 35% prioritizing quality.

Making it easier for patients to visit your radiology practice isn’t just good business sense–it’s essential for the survival of your practice. Beyond making your practice more attractive, patient engagement helps curtail patient no shows and canceled appointments, which can make a severe dent in your bottom line. Doing everything you can to avoid situations where a patient did not show up is a wise practical and financial decision.

Here, you’ll find a complete guide to maximizing patient engagement strategies at your imaging center.

Typical Uses of Patient Engagement in Healthcare

Does patient engagement improve outcomes for radiology clinics? The answer, of course, is “yes.” Sound strategies created with the goal of empowering your patients to take part in their healthcare outcomes can help your diagnostic imaging center thrive. On the other hand, ignoring this aspect of managing an imaging center can make you highly vulnerable to competition while turning off your existing patients.

 If you already use digital patient engagement solutions to schedule and confirm appointments, you may assume your radiology clinic is ahead of the curve or at least competitive in it–but that’s not necessarily the case. At this point, automated appointment reminders, confirmation messages, and digital surveys are all considered “traditional” forms of patient engagement.

These techniques may rely on modern technology, but they are pretty basic.. Instead, leveraging more advanced strategies for patient engagement will help propel your practice forward and:

  • Streamline your imaging center’s operations
  • Reduce costly patient no-shows
  • Reduce manual labor and overhead
  • Increase patient volume and patient satisfaction

Are you wondering what types of advanced patient engagement strategies we’re talking about? Keep reading to learn more about our recommendations below.

How Imaging Centers are Enhancing Their Strategies for Patient Engagement

Going beyond your radiology practice’s existing patient reminders may sound intimidating, but it can have measurable benefits–and you won’t have to wait long before these changes pay off.

Are you wondering where to start? According to professional patient engagement advisors, some of today’s patient engagement best practices include:

Appointment Scheduling and Confirmations

Maximizing your appointment volumes starts with a solid approach to appointment scheduling. Instead of forcing people to make appointments over the phone, many imaging centers now offer web-based portals where patients can self-schedule appointments online at their convenience.

And once an appointment is scheduled, modern solutions can help you send text, email, and phone confirmations and reminders that go beyond canned messages. Patients can actually respond with questions or complex answers instead of just a “Y” or “N”. This is a great way to further engage patients while providing the utmost convenience.

Registration

Nobody enjoys filling out paperwork in the waiting room before a medical appointment. It’s a bottleneck for wait times and front office processes. The good news is that it’s now possible for your patients to take care of registration online or via their mobile device before ever stepping foot inside for an appointment..

Directions to Service Locations

You might frequently deal with situations where a patient did not show up on time (or at all!) because they had trouble finding your center. You can reduce this risk by using patient engagement tools to provide them with directions to your location.

This simple step can increase your number of on-time appointments, keep patients satisfied, lower your overheads, and reduce bottlenecks in the waiting room.

Exam Prep Instructions and Procedure Information

Patient no-shows are the cause of many missed appointments, but that isn’t always the case. Sometimes, a patient shows up to their radiology appointment on time, but has taken medication that would cause problems for the procedure they needed. Fortunately, today’s advanced patient engagement solutions can give you a chance to inform people of what they’ll need to do to prepare for MRIs, PET scans, and other procedures beforehand, and reschedule to a later time if necessary.

Enhanced Patient Communication Through Automated Chat Bots or Bi-Directional Messaging with a Live Agent

Most people look for information online before ever reaching out to a business. That’s why it’s important that you meet them there. Chatbots and live agents can provide your patients with the information they need about visit forms, prep notes, cost estimates, and online payments.

These tools can even assist your patients after appointments by notifying them when their results are ready and sending links to relevant information.

Patient Satisfaction Surveys

Finally, ensuring your efforts to maximize patient engagement are paying off is crucial. Surveys are a fantastic way to gauge patients’ satisfaction (or lack thereof) with your imaging center.

Even if you get lackluster results, you can use this as an opportunity to talk to patients about their radiology experiences before they leave negative reviews of your clinic online. That can help your clinic more than you might think–in fact, if you can resolve a complaint in a patient’s favor, they’ll be willing to go to you again 70% of the time.

Take the Next Step for Patient Engagement in Healthcare

As you can see, updating your strategies for patient engagement can have concrete benefits–and it could even make or break your imaging center in the long run. But to pull this off, you’ll need a specialized, flexible platform created specifically for radiology clinics. AbbaDox is the partner you need.

AbbaDox can provide the high-quality patient engagement tools your clinic is looking for. The AbbaDox Cloud platform offers online appointment scheduling, reminders and pre-appointment information, satisfaction surveys, and many more ways to engage patients. Moreover, it can integrate into your legacy radiology information systems making implementation a breeze.

If you’re ready to start using tools crafted by the radiology industry’s top patient engagement advisors, request your AbbaDox demo today!