Online scheduling and access to digital self-service continue to be top priorities for consumers. In fact, 40% of consumers prefer online scheduling compared to traditional channels. That’s why healthcare organizations have rapidly launched and expanded their online offerings. So, what makes an online scheduling strategy successful? Here’s are three tips to consider and how they can impact digital self-service strategies:
TIP: Establish a Single Source of Truth for Provider, Service, and Location Data
Before launching consumer-facing self-service scheduling, organizations must first establish the right foundation to do so. Rich, accurate provider, location, and service data are key for a robust search, match, and book experience. Reconciling all of your data allows you to serve up robust provider, location, and service profiles with elements proven to increase online conversion, such as clinical keywords (4x), insurance accepted (4x), and appointment availability (5x).
IMPACT: Kyruus partners with nearly 100 leading healthcare organizations representing over 300,000 providers under management who have centralized and enriched their data to build a foundation for digital self-service.
TIP: Prioritize a Specific Appointment Type Across Specialities to Bring as Many Providers Live as Possible
Identifying a single appointment type as a starting point will allow you to bring as many providers, services, and locations live at once by keeping things simple. For example, many organizations enable new patient appointments early on across all of their live entities. Enabling more online availability early on yields a better understanding of consumer needs and interests to strategically drive new patient acquisition.
IMPACT: On average, Kyruus customers see over 40% new patients scheduled online through ProviderMatch.
TIP: Leverage Analytics for Optimization and Expansion of Online Self-Service
Access to robust analytics and insights is critical for optimization and expansion of digital self-service. Ensure you are leveraging an analytics platform to proactively review and share out key metrics (e.g., number of appointments per provider booked online each week, search trends, and conversion rates from the website) to help you continue to optimize your strategy. Continual review will allow you to identify areas for expansion and help you understand what consumers are looking for online.
IMPACT: Kyruus customers have expanded their self-service strategies to include service-based scheduling options such as urgent care, vaccines, imaging, and lab services to meet growing consumer demand, booking over 650K urgent care appointments, 400K vaccine appointments, and 30K imaging appointments on ProviderMatch.
