Generally speaking, the biggest problem in any clinic is the number of patients who do not show up. This results in immediate losses and dissatisfied medical staff, as well as increased operating costs. We see high value instrumentation and diagnostic areas as a particular problem area, where, in addition to the above, unjustified material costs are incurred.
Based on our survey only 15% of our partners did not have a problematic level of patient no-shows, however, the rate of no-shows is almost 10% on average. This represents a very serious loss at industry level.
From the early days of Medio we have been focusing on developing effective functions and tools in order to eliminate no-shows. The result is the following set of features.
- Cancellation policy
The introduction of the cancellation policy has produced results for many of our partners. The information itself helps the patient's appearance, especially if it includes some kind of retaliation for the next examination (e.g. increased price), so that they have to pay a surcharge for the next examination.
- Booking fee
The effectiveness of the introduction of the cancellation policy was further increased when it was supplemented by the introduction of a booking fee.
The booking fee is a certain percentage of the examination (5-20%, depending on the test) that is blocked in the patient's acocunt when the booking is made. This amount is automatically returned when the patient shows up, but is debited if the patient does not show up.
A major advantage of this feature is that it does not involve additional administration, because it is only necessary to bill it - if there is no automatic billing - if the patient does not show up.
For clinical partners using the feature, there was a consistent 30-40% reduction in the number of patients who did not present, while the number of bookings was not affected (based on 3-months statistics).
- Online payment
In addition to the booking fee, several of our partners have introduced the option to have patients pay the full service fee for certain services online in advance. These are typically services where there is a saturation of bookings and a particular problem is the non-appearance of a patient.
While in the capital, due to the stronger competition, more clinic managers fear the introduction of prepayment, while in the countryside, due to lower competition, more Medio-partners have introduced this feature.
In order to extend online payment to a specific service or even to the whole institution, Medio offers the possibility to introduce discounted online payment. This allows the clinic to test the willingness to pay by offering the patient a discount for paying online, but leaves open the possibility for the patient to choose to pay on the spot. In this way, the institution can get an accurate picture of online willingness to pay without fear of losing patients.
Full pre-payment and discounted online payment is also a good solution for patient conversion, as measurements show that on average 40% of patients take advantage of this option and pay for their treatment in advance.
For those services where online payment was introduced, the no-show rate was only 0.9% and there was no loss (based on 6-months statistics).
