Automate rescheduling and reduce missed appointments with CPaaS.

Every year missed appointments cost US health providers a staggering $150 billion. While automated appointment reminders delivered through convenient channels like SMS are proven to reduce the number of missed appointments by as much as 27%, they only solve one part of the problem.

Here’s a scenario that’s probably very familiar. You receive a reminder about an upcoming appointment through SMS while you’re going about your day. You immediately recognize a scheduling conflict that’s going to prevent you from attending. But because you’re busy doing something else, you don’t have the time to immediately call your provider and reschedule. You tell yourself that you’ll take care of it later, but in minutes the whole situation is forgotten before you can take the actions you need to.

When we experience that, it’s very easy to blame ourselves as the patient for dropping the ball and failing to let the provider know we can’t attend. But from a journey design and patient engagement perspective, the real point of friction is the channel gap. We receive our reminder by SMS, but then it’s up to us to shift the conversation onto the voice channel by making a call, or onto another digital channel by accessing a patient self-scheduling platform.

If healthcare providers want to reduce missed appointments at scale, they must close that gap and make it easy for patients to take rescheduling actions as soon as they receive a reminder, without switching channels.

When rescheduling is automated in-channel, everyone wins

To optimize appointment rescheduling, we first need to understand what providers and patients want from the experience.

Today, 80% of patients prefer to engage with healthcare providers digitally.

When they need to reschedule appointments, they want the experience to be fast, convenient, and hassle free. Automating the process delivers all that at once.

From a provider’s perspective, they want rescheduling to be quick and easy, so patients actually do it rather than ignoring their appointments and failing to turn up. Crucially, that also means making the process easy for their own scheduling teams, so that rescheduling doesn’t consume huge amounts of their time.

When rescheduling is automated, and facilitated in the same channel as automated reminders, both patients and providers get exactly what they want out of the experience. The video below shows just how simple the whole process can be.

Reduce rescheduling with timely information and intelligent alternatives

The demo video above also highlights how, with the right information and alternatives, many appointments may not need to be rescheduled at all. When the patient can’t physically make it to their agreed appointment, a virtual alternative is offered, enabling the patient to keep their original appointment time. 

Another common cause of rescheduled or missed appointments is inadequate patient preparation. For some more complex procedures, patients may be expected to make dietary changes over several days, for example, without which the procedure cannot go ahead. 

In the UK, Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust uses CPaaS to provide patients with digital pre-procedure support leading up to their colonoscopy appointments. By providing patients with frequent updates and information throughout the preparation process, all in one convenient channel, the trust saw a 28% reduction in cancelled colonoscopies, resulting in annual savings of around £336,000. 

Case study: Kings College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

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Automate rescheduling and cut missed appointments with CPaaS

When they’re delivered together through a single, convenient channel, automated appointment reminders and patient self-service can significantly reduce the number of no-shows while improving experiences for patients. But most importantly, they can also have a major positive impact on healthcare outcomes. 

Every missed appointment isn’t just a wasted resource—it’s also a lapse or delay in care delivery. When patients miss appointments, conditions can worsen, health can deteriorate further, and opportunities to resolve health issues at their earliest stages can be missed. 

CPaaS platforms like Webex Connect enable healthcare providers to close the gap between appointment reminders and rescheduling, and maximize the chances of patients attending appointments—and being fully prepared for them.  

With Webex Connect, healthcare providers can offer self-service options directly within the same channels used for reminders, deploy AI chatbots, seamlessly coordinate handovers to live agents, and integrate with EHR systems for automatic data updates. Webex Connect helps providers turn rescheduling from a complex, time-consuming task that some patients avoid, into a simple, intuitive process that everyone actively engages with at the right time. 

To learn more about CPaaS and discover how Webex Connect can help you improve patient engagement check our healthcare solutions.