Discover our guide on actionable patient engagement strategies to help your practice increase its revenue and improve patient relationships.
Most people view going to the doctor in one of two ways. Many are raised with heartiness as a priority and avoid going to the doctor as much as they can. However, people who feel connected with their physician and medical team build trust and want to consult with their doctor on any medical concerns. Patient engagement strategies can become an essential element of revenue generation for your medical practice. The more your patients feel connected with their care team, the more often they will visit and entrust you with their treatments – and their insurance payments.
Many small to mid-sized practices struggle with patient engagement, juggling busy schedules and limited personnel resources when it comes to matters like enriching in-office experiences, follow-up emails, and engagement campaigns. We're here to offer actionable strategies to help your practice enhance patient engagement and increase revenue.
Understanding Patient Engagement
Patient engagement plays an important role in healthcare. It determines how much patients want to seek treatment, whether they remain loyal to a primary medical provider or specialist, and the patient's overall continuity of care. At the same time, a patient's willingness to come in for checkups, treatments, and procedures can significantly influence your potential for revenue generation. Patients who seek care contribute their insurance resources to your medical practice in treating minor and major conditions.
Common barriers to effective patient engagement for small to mid-sized practices include:
- Limited communication
- Poor waiting room experiences
- Rushed and inattentive staff
- Lack of care continuity
- Limited time with the doctor
- Lack of trust-building
Small practices are often busy and may lack the financial resources to invest in things like luxury waiting rooms or more staff to attend to patients while they wait. This creates the typical barriers to patient engagement such as limited communication, waiting room experiences, and the feeling that everyone is too busy to care about individual patient relationships.
Patients often wind up feeling like they are a bother instead of the focus of their medical visit.
Implementing Effective Patient Engagement Strategies
The good news is that technology is making achieving patient engagement strategies easier. Small practices, busy schedules, and limited resources have stood in the way of patient engagement efforts in the past. However, digital connection minimizes the resources and time it takes to build a connection.
Leverage Technology for Patient Communication
You can make use of mobile apps and patient portals to achieve seamless communication, information sharing, and schedule-building. Keep in touch with chat features that allow patients to ask questions and get answers without taking up much time. Give patients access to their own patient portal and health dashboard, which can answer certain questions without help from staff.
Provide smooth appointment scheduling, rescheduling, and reminders to keep everyone on the same (calendar) page with app features.
You can even minimize commute and waiting room time by providing telehealth services for local patients who don't have time to book an in-person appointment. You can follow up on health issues, answer questions, and renew subscriptions without time in the office.
Enhance the Patient Experience With Personalized Care
Trust-building is essential for your patient engagement strategies. Communication and personalized care can help establish stronger patient-provider relationships, building a history and a bond of trust that will help patients bring their future health problems to you.
Technology also makes it easier to provide patients with educational materials and resources that are uniquely tailored to their needs.
Empower Patients Through Education and Communication
Conduct regular outreach campaigns through email, text messages, and printed inserts within your mailed statements. Encourage patients to engage in preventative care and to book follow-up appointments to enhance their care continuum. You can also invite patients to participate in education seminars and workshops. This can be extremely helpful and supportive for patients with conditions that may need long-term understanding.
Streamline the Administrative Process for a Smoother Patient Journey
Use technology to simplify the appointment scheduling and registration process. Offer online scheduling and the ability to pre-fill digital paperwork before an appointment. Then offer tablets with digital easy-fill details instead of paper and clipboards in the office.
Seamless Patient Billing
In today's healthcare landscape, transparent billing and convenient payment options are critical components of patient engagement strategies that directly contribute to boosting revenue for medical practices. Transparency in billing helps demystify costs for patients, making them more likely to trust and continue utilizing your services. Clear, upfront information about treatment costs and a breakdown of what insurance covers can significantly reduce confusion and dissatisfaction.
Providing different payment options—including online payments, payment plans, and mobile payment platforms—addresses diverse patient needs and enhances convenience. This flexibility improves the patient experience and speeds up the collection process, ultimately increasing cash flow and patient retention rates. Implementing these strategies effectively can also transform the billing process from a potential point of friction to a positive interaction, fostering loyalty and encouraging ongoing patient relationships.
Measuring Success and Adjusting Patient Engagement Strategies
How do you know when you have achieved your target level of patient engagement? Other than a perceptible increase in trust and a higher rate of booked appointments, you can use specific points of data to measure success.
Start with key performance indicators (KPIs) that relate to your level of patient engagement. This might be points of contact, app usage rates, telehealth engagement, or follow-up visits, to name a few possible examples.
Collecting feedback from patients is equally useful. Ask patients how they feel about recent changes or seek engagement feedback. These can tell you what you are doing right and where there is room for improvement.
Revenue is another important indicator because a major part of your goal is to translate patient engagement into greater revenue for your practice. Analyze revenue trends to identify what is working and where to make changes to your strategy.
Lastly, always continue to iterate and refine your patient engagement strategies based on data and feedback.
Engaging With Your Patients for Care and Revenue Improvements
Patient engagement is a valuable element of any practice. By making use of technological tools, personalized care, and follow-up policies, you can not only increase patients' trust in your medical team, but you can also increase their quality of care and boost your medical practice revenue at the same time.
Of course, no patient engagement strategy is perfect from the outset. It is important to maintain initial momentum with a policy of continuous improvement and adaptation in a challenging healthcare landscape. Small to mid-sized practices can and should prioritize patient engagement to improve the bond of trust with patients and plan for long-term revenue growth. Ready to transform your medical practice's patient engagement and boost revenue? Schedule a demo with BillFlash today and discover how our streamlined billing, payment, and collection solutions can simplify your processes and enhance patient satisfaction.