Be The Patient
Begin Email Correspondence:
From: DoNotUse@donotuse.donotuse
Subject: Your Appointment Reminder
Robin has an upcoming healthcare appointment on 1/14/2025 at 11:30 AM. Please confirm your appointment by navigating to the patient portal using the following link…”
No, this was not another phishing email, but rather a real-life appointment reminder I received for an upcoming MRI at a hospital-based outpatient center.
As access leaders, we work hard to optimize our dashboards and ensure they’re providing us with the best perspective on the patient’s experience. We are keen to focus on marginal improvements, like fitting in one more appointment, opening one more room, or answering one more call. However, we have become weeded in these data, dashboards, and surveys – dependent on their insights to gauge patient access and analyze the patient experience. The power of these scientific tools inevitably leads to overcomplication.
To understand the patient experience, sometimes all we need to do is be the patient.
For my MRI appointment, I received three email reminders - but not one phone call or text message. I personally prefer the simplicity of a text message confirmation, and I would estimate most patients feel the same way. Instead of clicking through links and signing into a portal, a text requires only a quick “Y” or “C” response to confirm.
Nonetheless, I eventually signed into the patient portal to make sure I hadn’t missed anything important. Navigating through the email reminders, I first had to create an account to enter the system. Then, I had to fumble around their website and familiarize myself with the software for the first time. Digging through banners and notifications, I eventually identified my communication settings. Much to my surprise, I already had a ‘preference’ - a stark warning sign indicated I had opted out altogether. It read: “You will not receive text messages. You must subscribe to receive important text messages …”
It makes me wonder – of all the emails we send out, how many even reach their audience?
I consider myself an expert in the field of patient access. If my appointment reminders are slipping through the cracks, I can guarantee our patients are too.
Is this how much effort it takes to request a service as simple as SMS reminders? How many patients feel the same way as I do, letting emails go unnoticed, go to spam, or get ‘saved for later’ and never opened?
The next time you find yourself in a meeting, debating what’s going on in the call center, or how long it takes to get an appointment in dermatology - I implore you to be the patient.
Call and schedule an appointment at your own health system.* After making that call to schedule an appointment -- and before you debrief your experience with the other team members in the room -- try to literally embody the patient. Take the time to also call your competitor. How does your experience compare? Is there anything they’re doing better than your health system? Anything they’re doing worse?
I have used this tactic in some of my most important meetings, with the attendees ranging from managers to CEOs. No matter the audience, there’s a distinct shift in the conversation when this strategy is introduced – transitioning from swirling, surmising conjecture to an empirical process, dictated by facts and action.
Keep that appointment at your own organization and follow it through the critical touch points. I will caution you, though: you may be surprised at the results. Often, even the best-laid boardroom plans aren’t reflected in the caller’s experience.
In this day and age, data-driven solutions are vital to our access strategy. We cannot, however, let that get in the way of the fact that the patient’s experience is the simplest and most powerful tool of all. Hyper-focusing on data, dashboards, and surveys will always be a part of the solution, but sometimes all it takes is one simple mantra: be the patient.
*Just remember to use a cell phone, not a hospital-based phone, because the responses may vary significantly.