Healthcare can take a lesson from airline fees
Here’s an idea so radically simple, it just might work.
All the new fees airlines have imposed in the last few years seem to be as popular as a trip to the doctor. But healthcare should follow at least one example to make trips to the doctor a bit more palatable–and safer, too. Plus, practices can benefit from greater efficiency if not also a little extra revenue.
When booking a ticket, airlines now charge somewhere in the range of $15-$25 to speak to a live person, either on the phone or at the airport. That’s because they want you to use their automated, online reservation systems. Customers generally don’t mind doing the work because they get to pick the flights, routings, times and prices most suited to their own needs and they enter all their personal data themselves. It’s more accurate and it saves time and money for the airlines. If customers want the added assistance of a real human being, they can pay for the service.
A medical practice should operate the same way. Let patients book appointments online. Let them fill out their medical histories online, too. Link the data they enter to practice systems so appointments go right to the practice management system and patient history goes to the EMR that most physicians will have (right?) by 2015 or so. You save staff time–even some physician time in the case of medical histories–and avoid errors that come from having to interpret patient handwriting and key their information into the system.
Give patients a financial incentive to use these automated options. Some practices already charge administrative fees to handle the paperwork our inefficient health system often requires. Waive those fees for anyone willing to enter data online rather than making an appointment over the phone or filling out the dreaded clipboard while sitting in the waiting room.
If you’re not comfortable charging an administrative fee, consider waiving co-payments for patients choosing the self-service option. Many of those charges go uncollected anyway.
Great point, Neil. I've advocated online appointment scheduling for years – the need case I always offer is for a pediatrician's office. Children get sick in the middle of the night, and when the parent decides to take the child to the doctor she calls into work. But what does she say? She can try to walk-in when the office opens, and possibly wait all morning – no hope of getting to work at all that day. Or begin calling when they open, and hope to get an appointment later in the day. Either way, hours are wasted for parent and child – and the pediatrician's office is busy handling all of these issues. When you realize that after a long night the parent and child could probably both use whatever rest at home they can manage, it becomes painfully clear that we have absolutely failed them from a customer service perspective – and they haven't even seen a nurse yet!An alternative scenario has a "blinded" copy of the day's appointment schedule available online to the parent. She sees only empty slots (empty seats on a plane in your illustration). Why shouldn't she have the option to choose the open appointment time that best suits her needs?Office managers may balk at this, thinking that they need to carefully preserve the "blocked" slots they use to allow clinicians to catch up, take breaks, and handle emergency cases. But there is no reason the system can't handle these exceptions. Airlines regularly show all the seats occupied, then still magically have room for off-duty flight staff, late-arriving travelers, and others to take an empty seat.Plus, can you imagine the benefit if we could deliver real-time "flight status" updates to our patients? Appointment reminders, updates that the office is behind/ahead of schedule, even special offers: for a routine visit we could offer the patient an alternate day/time slot if our schedule is filling up quickly. Financial incentives for the patient are very likely to succeed, but because we are more accustomed to the online registration/update systems many patients may choose to utilize them simply to have better control of their information, schedule, and health.Don't we want empowered patients?
Looks like your trip to Las Vegas paid off in this great blog post.Definitely is an interesting idea. I think there's going to take innovative pricing structures and ideas like this to change healthcare as we know it.
There is a difference in letting the customer book their own business (as the airline people do) and increasing the transparency in the booking process (which is what I perceive is the extension of what Brett seems to be advocating).If you let the customer book themselves, you'll loose any aspect of prioritising. This should not be left up to the patient, for any patient his condition is the most important, naturally. For the doctor, the patient that is most urgent is evaluated along less subjective parameters than "me and myself".However, I don't need the economic incentive to handle my own booking – I need the option to do it at all!
Transparency of fees on line would be good too.
The ability to manage appointments online is a wonderful idea for the patients who can do that. Eventually, as time passes, I feel all patients will be able. So many things are completed online to save time. A patient history typed in by the patient could greatly improve the care received. This is a great post.