Setting the Bar in Healthcare IT Systems

$3.2 Billion in Potential Savings for U.S. Health Systems are expected to be generated by Self-Scheduling Tools.

 

Roughly two-in-three patients (64 percent) are expected to book medical appointments online by the end of 2019 which would generate $3.2 billion in potential savings or added value for U.S. health systems.

“Just as consumers use online tools to book restaurant reservations or request a cab, patients want the same experience in self-booking a doctor’s appointment,” said Dipak Patel, managing director of Accenture’s patient access solutions. “Evidence also shows health systems can use self-scheduling tools to boost appointment capacity, reduce costs and/or increase productivity.”

Estimates show that by the end of 2019, two-thirds (66 percent) of U.S. health systems will offer self-scheduling tools for patients to book, change or cancel their appointments online.  Health systems that offer patients the ability to book their medical appointments online will be able to divert 80 percent of their appointment volume, on average, through patient self-scheduling. 986 million – or 38 percent of total appointments – will be booked in 2019 using self-scheduling tools. Self-scheduling tools have the potential to enable health systems to reallocate as much as $3.2 billion in scheduler capacity in 2019 alone, based on average salaries and productivity.

Research shows us that it takes just under a minute to schedule medical appointments online when compared to scheduling an appointment by phone, which takes an average of 8.1 minutes – with staff transferring patient calls 63 percent of the time. The research also showed that 40 of the top 100 health systems offered patients the ability to self-schedule about half of appointments in 2014, as do 10 percent of smaller U.S. health systems. Across all health systems, self-scheduling was offered for only 11 percent of appointments, and patients exercised this ability only 2.4 percent of the time, indicating a tremendous opportunity for the adoption of self-scheduling tools.

“Adopting self-scheduling delivers value by enabling call center capacity and workforce to be reassigned to more complex activities,” added Patel. “By making general appointment scheduling available online, health systems can reduce excess capacity, offer 24/7 scheduling and better manage schedules to maximize availability and capacity.”

About Odoro?
Odoro is the leading online appointment scheduling tool in the healthcare industry. It’s live in multiple countries for over 9 years. Though those years it has booked over 10 Million appointments annually which has found that its clients have seen 70% of their appointments being booked via Odoro. 50 hours per physician has been saved in employee cost as well as an 85% in reduction of No Shows. To top it off appointment booking has increased to 12% with an 85% increase in appointment satisfaction & engagements. To find out more please contact MD EMR Systems.