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Computer Automated Reminder Calls

Many Practices state that making manual reminder calls is one of the most tedious chores of their day. A reminder call itself is a courtesy. A private study conducted by the University of Rodchester, New York, shows reminder calls increase patient compliance and helps maintain a positive cash flow by reducing no-shows by 7%. So if you haven't started making reminder calls yet, consider it seriously. The problem with traditional reminder calls is two-fold. First, it's very time consuming. Each phone call requires a staff member to find a patient's number, dial the number, wait for an answer and either leave a message or engage in a conversation with the patient. The whole process can take between 1 1/2 to 3 minutes. If the line is busy or you are put on hold, expect to spend even more time.

With MORE software's Automated Reminder call application you can eliminate one of the most tedious and time-consuming aspects of making manual appointment reminder calls.

Save Time. You're already taking the time to schedule the patient and record their home and work phone numbers. This is all the information required in order to process reminder calls for the entire week with just a click of a button. As a minimum, you can save at least 50 minutes per day based on 20 patients or MORE. That adds up to over 16 hours every month better spent on more important tasks. Please referto our cost analysis in this section.

Save Money. Review our cost analysis below to see a conservative estimate of how much you can save. At only 25 cents per completed call, with no long distance charges and a message length limit of 4000 characters, you'll save money on the very first call you make.

Increase Patient Compliance. If you're already making reminder calls then this is not news to you. Depending on the type of practice, reminder calls can be critical to office productivity. Reminder calls can make the difference between a profitable business and unpaid no-shows that cut into your staff's time and efficiency. Furthermore, reminder calls are perceived as a courtesy by your patients and is an appreciated service. In short everyone benefits; the patient, your office staff and your bottom line.

How it Works.
Autoreminder Screenshot 1

The Automated Reminder software draws the patient's name and phone number from the MORE� scheduler where the appointments are created. The user chooses the day, or week on the mini-calendar and a list of names and numbers appears in a spreadsheet style table. The user can specify if home and/or work phone numbers are to be called and what time to make those calls. For example, home phone calls are set to be delivered at 6:30 PM and work phone number are delivered immediately. This way your staff doesn't need to make calls in the evening to reach your patients at home. Names can be reviewed, added or removed from the call ist as well as the ability to add a personalized message to an individual simply by typing into the spreadsheet. With a click of the Send button you will send scheduled Autoreminder Screenshot 1

appointment reminders for the entire list. Calls can be sent for a single day or an entire week with a single click. The messages are delivered a specified number of days before the appointment date. The default is 1 day.

In the reminder call application, a variety of different messages can be defined. While only the Default message is required, different messagevs can be delivered to New Patients, or patients within a specific column. Another identifier that can be used are custom-defined icons. If you have an icon that specifies some unique characteristic, such as private insurance patients you, may wish to have yet a different message to give instructions on what to bring to their first appointment. Once the calls are made, a status of the delivery is available indicating if the recipient received the call.

Once the calls are made, a status of the delivery is available indicating if the recipient received the call.

Requirements: IBM compatible computer running a Windows 98, ME, 2000 or XP operating system. A dialup connection is sufficient although a broadband connection is preferred. Broadband is DSL or Cable.

Cost Analysis. Compare the major phone companies' business rates and the amount of time it takes to make each call with the basic 25 cents per call charged by MORE Software.
In order to make a conservative comparison we need to make a few assumptions. To begin with, we'll assume that you have a common carrier for your local service. A comparison of several major phone companies and their business rates are found in the table below. We'll assume your call connection charges for each call is 1 minute or less and that you are not incurring any long distance charges. This amount of time should cover a scripted greeting you might have reminding the patient of the appointment and any special items they may need to bring or preparation the night before.

Carrier	First Minute Charge	Local Area Rate Quote Source*
Verizon	10 cents	Verizon website. State:California, Los Angeles area. www.verizon.com
Pac Bell	7.12 cents	Pac Bell Rate card
SBC	6.4 cents	Advantage 5 Discount Plan posted on SBC website www.sbc.com

Now consider the time it takes to place these calls. You need to add a little extra time to the above estimate to cover the time it takes to look up phone numbers, dial the number and even deal with interruptions in the middle of calls. Manual dialing and waiting for the person on the other end of the line to pick up the phone can easily cover 15 seconds. In a recent study it was estimated that the average time it took to make a reminder call is 2.5 minutes. A small practice with only one practitioner may see only 20 patients per day. Therefore each day your office staff will spend 2.5 minutes x 20 calls taking up 50 minutes of their time. Even at staff salaries as low as $10 per hour that's $8.33 without considering the phone charges. This in itself is $.41 per call. Add to that the average toll charges from the phone company and you've already doubled the cost of using MORE Softeare's reminder call service.

*ZUM 3 (Zone Usage Monitoring) calls are typically divided into several zones. ZUM 3 is the "middle" local-area calling zone. The middle zone is used in our comparison to give a fair average for local pricing. These examples are for California daytime calling rates; other states may have different rates.

If you still have questions feel free to contact us
toll-free at 1-888-858-MORE (6673)