Handling patients is one of the biggest issues for any medical practitioner. One area in particular that patients are commonly known to be difficult is the keeping of appointment times. Doctors or hospital administrators always end up making phone calls on the D-day to remind your patients of their appointments. Well, gone are the days of poor communication and missed appointments. With the purchase of an appointment reminder service, you can get an automated service or software that can take this burden off your shoulders.

Pricing and other considerations for your Appointment Reminder Systems

From our research and also experience in the medical industry, most appointment reminder services cost about $50 to $500 per month. The difference in price means there are different packages offered to the medical clinic. In most cases, the less costly packages allow for fewer appointments to be made per month by either the administrator or the client. This is more suitable for smaller sized clinics or ones that are just starting up. You should also agree with the appointment reminder service provider in case you get more appointments that month than what you had a charge for.

It is also possible to get a customized appointment reminder service. This will have a tailormade reminder service and also a specified number of possible appointments per month.

Medical appointments may have a peak or off-peak season. This might mean that you have to downgrade your monthly service. That should not be a problem with most appointment reminder service. You can change your reminder service plan monthly to suit your particular needs. When going for the long Christmas season or a scheduled leave of absence, you can communicate with your service provider on the downgrade.

An appointment reminder service should also be well integrated with the office’s features and network to allow easy communication with clients and also between departments. This might mean the installation of an additional item or two, or also the need to call upon a network expert, incurring an extra cost. Regarding the reminder service itself, the service provider should offer 24 hours/7 days customer support service.

Read through every section of the agreement to ensure there are no grey areas between you and the service provider.

With all the effectiveness of the automated appointment system, it should still be noted that patients are still bound to be late to your appointments. There are always several variables that cannot be predicted. Traffic jams could be thicker than normal, or there could be an emergency that the patient needs to attend to immediately. Therefore, you should always keep a waiting list in handy that can allow you to schedule a patient within a brief notice and save up on any money that could be lost.