Patients don’t have printers: Implementing electronic forms

Are you feeling overwhelmed, burnt out, and frustrated with your current patient communication workflow? If your answer is yes, we’d hazard a guess that you’re still calling your patients.

Maybe you’re calling patients for appointment reminders, prescription refills, or general inquiries. You’re probably also expecting patients to complete printable forms prior to their appointment. Both of these are time consuming and somewhat ineffective (think about it: how many patients actually return your phone calls, or better yet, your forms).

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The typical patient information intake workflow

Administrative tasks can be so frustrating because they are time consuming and often feel endless. And for patients, the experience isn’t much better. Let’s consider a fictional scenario and how HIPAA compliant texting could improve everyone’s experience.

You, a healthcare provider, have received a call from a new prospective patient. Unfortunately you missed the call while you were triaging another patient. An hour later you finally have a moment to catch up on your voicemails, at which point you return the missed call. You get sent to voicemail and leave a message. A week later the patient calls back and a nurse answers the phone. They get scheduled for the following week.

As part of the new patient intake process, you request that the patient go to your website to complete a paper form. This requires that the patient print, complete, and then scan the forms in order to send them back to you. Unfortunately, the patient doesn’t have a printer or a scanner. Now, when they come in for their first visit they’ll need to fill out paperwork in the waiting room. This puts you, your staff, and your patient behind schedule.

This is a frustrating experience for you as a provider, but it is also unpleasant for the patient. It requires them to take time out of their busy day to prepare for their appointment. Even more, despite 70 percent of Americans owning a printer, 60 percent say they barely use it. And over the past several years, usage rates have continued to decrease steadily.

Leveraging HIPAA compliant texting to contact patients allows them to respond to you when it is convenient for them. Even better, sending electronic forms allows the patient to complete and submit paperwork right from their mobile device.

The OhMD workflow and electronic forms

Texting has been around for nearly 30 years. We all text- most of us on a daily basis.

OhMD operates on the understanding that the ease of communication texting offers shouldn’t be any different in healthcare. For obvious reasons, healthcare texting needs to be more secure than regular texting. But as long as there is increased message security, HIPAA compliant texting just makes sense.

Using OhMD two-way texting, you are also able to send electronic form links to patients for them to complete ahead of their visit. They can complete these forms right from their mobile device, just by clicking on a link from a text message. Fillable electronic forms also make it far more likely that you receive completed forms ahead of appointments.

Electronic forms are also easily transferable to a patient’s electronic medical record (EMR). This means that a completed form can be sent directly to a patient’s electronic record without offices having to print, scan, or manually file.

Tools like HIPAA compliant texting and electronic forms improve the provider and the patient experience. If you’re needing to make your life easier, and patient communication more convenient, look no further. We’ve got you covered!