Text Messaging Between Patients and Physician Offices
Early this week, we activated an innovative way to reach patients who visit our outpatient clinics. The solution includes appointment reminders by phone, email or text depending on the patients’ preferences in MyChart.
If the patient has a preferred text option, the care team has the ability for a two-way text conversation. A simple text to confirm an appointment is leading some patients to a deeper conversation including:
- “What is my copay?”
- “Where is your office?”
- “Why am I seeing a different provider than I usually do?”
Our clinics are able to answer these questions in real time and provide a more personal patient experience. This makes it easier to keep our patients informed about their appointments, get any questions answered, reschedule appointments and communicate with their clinics in a simple and intuitive way.
The goals for this approach include:
- Improving patient satisfaction with timely reminders.
- Engaging patients with text, something that’s part of their everyday lives.
- Reducing dependency on phone calls and call centers.
- Improving rates for appointment confirmation, reduce no-show and rescheduling.
- Encouraging MyChart activation.
- Supporting MyMethodist app download.
