When does the patient experience begin?
Is it when you walk into your provider’s office and sit down in the waiting room? Is it when you make your appointment online or over the phone? Or does it start even earlier than that—the moment you start looking around for a provider?
The last decade has seen the rise of healthcare’s “Digital Front Door”—the suite of technologies healthcare providers use to bring depth and convenience to the pre- and post-visit experience. Things like online scheduling platforms, text appointment reminders, provider messaging portals and more. Tasks that used to take hours playing phone tag or filling out pages of forms are streamlined by these technologies. And in most cases, the patient experience is faster and smoother for it.
But not always.
As anyone who’s experienced the frustration of trying to get an AI customer service agent to just let you talk to a human being knows, technology sometimes comes with trade-offs. In an industry primarily focused on the health and wellbeing of patients, deprioritizing the human connection in exchange for convenience can have the opposite of the intended effect, leading to decreased patient satisfaction before the patient even sets foot in the office.
But providers who thoughtfully design their pre-visit experiences are discovering powerful opportunities. By combining digital and analog solutions, innovative healthcare organizations are achieving higher patient satisfaction and improved clinical outcomes, all while increasing operational efficiency.
So how do you balance the two? How do you create a pre-visit patient experience that combines the best of digital and traditional systems? With the pace of technology, the answer is likely an ever-moving target. But here are three main areas in which digital (and analog) technologies can help smooth out the pre-visit experience.
Patient Scheduling and Communication
In the old days, scheduling an appointment with your provider would often mean lengthy phone calls, annoying hold music, and inconvenient availabilities. Now with online scheduling and communication platforms that allow patients to schedule appointments, fill out forms, and communicate with their providers, in some ways, much of that problem is solved. But this added convenience has introduced a whole new slew of problems.
How digital can help
Online scheduling platforms provide patients with a convenient, asynchronous way to schedule with their provider’s office. Allowing patients to schedule on their own terms from their smartphone or tablet removes the friction of having to call during office hours, wait on hold, and answer questions you may not be prepared for. While these all sound like minor inconveniences, they can be enough to lead some patients to avoid scheduling altogether. On top of that, automated digital reminders via text or email also drastically reduce appointment no-shows by providing patients with timely nudges and clear, personalized information.
How digital can hurt
Despite these improvements, digital solutions can’t fully replace analog scheduling. For starters, online scheduling and communication interfaces can be clunky and overly complicated. Even for tech-savvy patients, confusion on how to use the platform can increase cancellations and no-shows, and lower overall satisfaction. And for elderly patients or those with limited access to the internet, digital-only scheduling can mean restricted access to care.
The best of both worlds
A hybrid solution has to consider the wellbeing of patients at every level of digital comfort. Providing both a sleek online scheduling platform and one-on-one phone scheduling for elderly or less digitally-savvy patients ensures everyone can engage in the way that makes them most comfortable. Then, once patients are in the system, providers can use simple survey data to segment their patient population by age and preferred methods of engagement. This way every patient has a seamless experience moving forward.
Patient Preparation and Education
Not all patient visits are straightforward. Unclear instructions about how to prepare for medical procedures or appointments frequently leave patients feeling anxious and unprepared. Effective pre-visit education ensures patients arrive ready and informed. This leads to better clinical outcomes and smoother visits.
How digital can help
Using a digital pre-visit platform, providers can include customized interactive educational content like videos, FAQs, personalized instructions or guided questionnaires to help patients feel more confident and prepared for their appointment or procedure. That way, providers can spend less time directly educating patients and more time providing care. Patients arrive to their appointments knowing exactly what’s going to happen, having done any necessary pre-work to ensure a smooth visit.
How digital can hurt
These systems are only as helpful as the data that power them. If the personalization data is even slightly inaccurate, it can lead to patients receiving information or instructions that are inaccurate at best, misleading at worst. Providers can push information to patients manually based on their unique needs, but this takes time and reduces the savings that a digital strategy is meant to provide. And without a real person on the other end to ask questions to, patients can walk away without knowing how they need to prepare for their appointment. This can lead to wasted appointment time for patients and providers.
The best of both worlds
A combination of digital and analog education tools ensures everyone gets the information they need, when they need it. Educational materials on specific procedures and appointment preparations can be created in both video and physical form. Links to these materials online can be provided alongside well-designed, easy-to-read printed materials and clearly structured brochures. These can be delivered via mail or during prior visits to reinforce key information and offer resources patients can revisit.
In addition, personalized phone calls for patients whose appointments require additional information can help clarify any required preparation, build trust, and reduce no-shows. A simple, empathetic human interaction can make a significant difference in reducing patient anxiety and increasing engagement.
Streamlining Administrative Processes
The subject of payment in healthcare is a major point of contention between patients, providers, and insurance companies. Even when the process is perfectly streamlined, disagreements or misunderstandings around cost and payment can set the patient/provider relationship off on a bad foot before any clinical interactions even occur. Excessive paperwork, redundant forms, and opaque insurance processes frustrate patients and burden administrative staff. But luckily, many digital solutions exist to help take the pain out of these administrative processes.
How digital can help
Secure online pre-registration portals allow patients to fill out forms and submit insurance information at their convenience, drastically speeding up check-ins and reducing administrative errors. Suddenly, processes that used to require patients to fill out countless forms in the waiting room can be taken care of easily ahead of time. This kind of process improvement leads to a demonstrated rise in patient satisfaction scores and operational efficiency.
How digital can hurt
For certain patient populations, digital-only payment processing and document management can make things more complicated, not less. For elderly or other less tech-savvy patients, navigating a patient portal at home without guidance can be even more frustrating than doing it the old way.
The best of both worlds
Secure, online pre-registration and payment portals are a great way to reduce administrative burden for both patients and staff. But it can’t be the only option. For less digitally savvy patients, simplified paper forms, clearly worded and provided in multiple languages, help ensure inclusivity. Additionally, having trained administrative staff available in-office and over the phone to assist patients with forms remains essential for accessibility.
Co-design your perfect front door
As retail giants like Amazon start to move into the healthcare space, patient expectations for CX are changing. Healthcare organizations can no longer afford to ignore their digital—or analog—front door. These first interactions between patient and provider are essential in forming the lasting relationships that improve patient health and provider longevity.
But how can you know what unique combination of digital and analog will work for your situation?
Our co-design methodology helps you deeply understand your patients so you never have to guess what would serve them best. By working with your patients to design the ideal experience together, you can:
- Build connection and empathy between patients and providers while ensuring that the final experience is exactly what they’re looking for.
- Create beautiful, easy-to-understand materials that give your patients the information they need—and nothing they don’t.
- Simplify administrative and payment processes so patients and staff can start their relationship on the right foot.
Providers who take an iterative design approach to their pre-visit experience and continually refine their strategies—integrating digital convenience with analog empathy—will find themselves uniquely positioned to meet evolving patient expectations, boost patient loyalty, and improve overall care outcomes.
The challenge for healthcare organizations isn’t merely adopting new technologies. It’s designing a thoughtful integration between those technologies and traditional human touchpoints. In this blended approach lies the true potential for transforming the patient experience and redefining healthcare delivery for the better.