72% of patients want online appointment scheduling. 18% would pay more. |

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04/21
2009

72% of patients want online appointment scheduling. 18% would pay more.

Last week the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, the industry council for Boston’s Rt. 128 tech corridor, hosted a terrific morning on The Shift to Patient-Centered Care. The keynote was delivered by Susan Edgman-Levitan of Massachusetts General Hospital. And she didn’t just talk about the medical aspect – she embraced (correctly, in my view) the entire question: “What do patients want?”

One of her first slides quoted a paper released last June by the California Health Care Foundation (CHCF), “Helping Patient Plug In: Lessons in the Adoption of Online Consumer Tools.” Quoting a 2008 Deloitte survey, it says:

72% of consumers surveyed would like to have online appointment scheduling.
Only 10% have it.
18% say they’d pay extra to have it!

Considering that automated appointment scheduling also saves money for the provider, what’s the question?

When almost every industry offers online appointments and reservations, from airlines to restaurants to photo studios, nine out of ten consumers can’t make a doctor’s appointment online?

Case studies of successful TimeTrade users in healthcare:

Family Health Care Clinic delivers better care, 25% more visits, $2.5 million more revenue

Centralized scheduling helps provide cardiac patients with top-notch care (Berkeley HeartLab)

Enterprise-wide appointment scheduling restores exceptional service (Bosley)

Posted by cterry

Filed under: appointment scheduling

Tagged: appointment scheduling, customer experience, customer satisfaction, customer service