Doctors and practice managers looking to strengthen patient loyalty and build a thriving practice are finding a shift in patient expectations and, as a result, patient retention. This article reviews some of the common problems with patient retention, and how telehealth nurse triage can overcome them to provide an exceptional patient experience. Not only will these solutions improve patient satisfaction, but it will also help with doctor burnout, which has been an issue since covid.
Common Demands from Patients
Development of new communication technologies and the new post-covid world has changed patient expectations. Let’s review them, and how a practice can easily satisfy the requirements to help with patient retention.
Improving Accessibility and Wait Times
One of the top reasons patients leave a practice is because they find it hard to book appointments or access care, or they have to spend a long time in a waiting room before they can be seen. With today’s level of mobile and desktop technology, patients are more likely to expect quick and easy access to their health information, whether through a patient portal or app, a practice phone line, or a nurse’s email. When these services aren’t available, patients will often shop around for those who do offer them.
Telehealth nurse triage can significantly enhance accessibility and reduce wait times for patients. This service provides immediate, free access to medical guidance that can address symptom severity, patient questions, and even telehealth scheduling. This available resource not only alleviates patient anxiety, but also ensures timely medical intervention. Offices with their own nurses can also opt to get a nurse triage software license so that their own nurses can evaluate caller symptoms and document these calls.
Personalized Care
The demand from patients for personalized care has been increasing: with new technology that gives them constant, personalized solutions from shopping lists to wellness recommendations, this expectation is now spilling into doctors’ offices. Consider the fact that, by some estimates, 76% of patients aren’t satisfied with the results of a typical doctor’s visit, either from disappointment with getting answers to their questions, confusion about their symptoms or conditions, or feeling the need to do their own research. Some of this stems from greater demands on doctors’ time, when the reality is that they cannot be expected to take extra time answering a list of questions.
Using a telehealth triage nurse can offer personalized assistance that is tailored to the specific needs of each patient. Telehealth nurses play a key role in patient education, providing clear explanations and taking the time to answer all questions thoroughly. Triage nurses use intuitive software to document all patient interactions for continuity of care, as well as updated protocols to address all patient symptoms, allowing them to create customized paths to care that are not available in traditional provider settings. This makes patients feel valued and understood, fostering stronger relationships with that practice. And, best of all, triage nurses are very affordable because doctors only pay based on their usage.
Access to After-Hours Care
Many patients need medical advice outside of regular office hours. If a practice doesn’t have some form of after-hours care or assistance line to advise them, there’s a greater chance that important care will be delayed, or that they will look for other alternatives. In some cases, it may even be a liability for the practice.
Follow-Up Processes
Patients often need follow-up care or monitoring beyond an initial in-person visit. If this process is inconvenient, like playing phone tag to get an answer to a medical question, then they’re less likely to follow their treatment plans. Having a dedicated nurse who will answer calls quickly helps keep patients engaged. In addition, new software solutions allow patients to chat directly with nurses in a HIPAA-compliant platform.
How Telehealth Nurse Triage Can Overcome These Concerns
Improving Accessibility and Reducing Wait Times
Telehealth nurse triage can significantly enhance accessibility and reduce wait times for patients. This service provides immediate, free access to medical guidance that can address symptom severity, patient questions, and even telehealth scheduling. This available resource not only alleviates patient anxiety, but also ensures timely medical intervention.
Enhancing Communication and Follow-Up
Telehealth nurse triage facilitates seamless communication between patients and healthcare providers. This continuous engagement helps build trust and loyalty, leading to better health outcomes.
Triagelogic’s Telehealth Solutions: Nurse Triage On Call and Remote Patient Monitoring
Triagelogic offers two exceptional telehealth solutions that can help practices with their patient retention: Nurse Triage On Call (NTOC) and Remote Patient Monitoring.
Nurse Triage On Call
Triagelogic’s Nurse Triage On Call provides patients with 24/7 access to experienced, registered nurses in our medical call center. These nurses use Schmitt-Thompson protocols to assess symptoms and guide patients to the appropriate levels of care in the appropriate windows of time. By offering this continuous support, NTOC ensures that patients can always obtain professional medical advice, day or night.
Not only does this help patients understand their symptoms better, it encourages those who may have considered delaying their care to actually go to their doctors.
Remote Patient Monitoring
Triagelogic’s Remote Patient Monitoring (RPM) program lets providers access their patient’s health in real time through the use of wearable sensors. These sensors work 24/7 to track key vitals, like glucose levels or blood pressure, and share that data with triage nurses for review.
This enables early detection of potential health issues and allows for timely intervention, especially for patients suffering from chronic illness. RPM offers a long-term, proactive approach to their care by preventing complications and reducing hospitalizations.
The Benefits of Integrating Telehealth Nurse Triage
In addition to the benefits discussed above, consider a few additional improvements on patient care. This in turn further helps improve doctor and patient satisfaction.
- Better Health Outcomes – Timely medical advice and proactive health monitoring can lead to healthier, loyal patients.
- Cost-Effective Care – Telehealth nurse triage services can help patients learn whether they should or shouldn’t go to the emergency room, which ultimately leads to cost savings for both them and the healthcare systems they use. In addition, the actual cost of nurses is significantly lower than on-call doctors.
- Competitive Advantage – Telephone triage enhances the patient experience: faster care, happier patients, and a thriving practice reputation.
TriageLogic Nurses Improve Patient and Physician Satisfaction
Want to discuss solutions to improve patient retention, decrease doctor burnout and improve health outcomes? Telehealth nurse triage services, such as Triagelogic’s Nurse Triage On Call and Remote Patient Monitoring, can improve accessibility, provide personalized care, enhance patient communication, and ensure continuous support.
Contact us today to discuss a program specifically for your practice and your patients.
About TriageLogic
TriageLogic is a URAC-accredited, physician-led provider of top-quality nurse telehealth technology, remote patient monitoring, and medical call center solutions. Founded in 2007, the TriageLogic Group now serves more than 22,000 physicians and covers over 42 million lives nationwide.
