Healthcare organizations rely on lower expenses and increasing revenue to thrive. This year has already seen major healthcare leaders suffer significant losses as a result of rising operating costs. According to Brandon Daniell, president and co-founder of Dialog Health, the coming months and years will bring physicians major financial challenges due to growing labor and supply costs, high inflation, and the termination of Medicare payment increase for hospitals treating COVID-19 patients.

Daniell suggests that a simple, low-hanging revenue growth strategy for offsetting losses and raising revenue would be to improve patient recalls, like those for routine procedures such as mammograms and colonoscopies, via text messaging, or “texting.” Given that these patients are accustomed to visiting a particular location for routine procedures, Daniell notes that they will appreciate the convenience of text messaging, as they will likely require minimal communication for the healthcare organization to make a return visit happen. Healthcare organizations can simply pre-schedule text messages to patients reminding them to schedule soon-due preventive services. In the end, every time a healthcare organization obtains a patient recall, it helps their bottom line, while simultaneously providing patients with necessary preventive care.

Whereas traditional recall efforts depended on manual labor like phone calls and mailed letters, an automated strategy like text messaging eliminates the need for staff to devote countless hours to the task. A recent Pew Research Center study noted the inefficiency of phone calls as a mode of outreach, finding that eight out of every ten Americans generally will not answer incoming calls from unknown numbers. Adding that to the monetary and time costs involved in mailings, Daniell finds that text messaging for patient recall is a definite plus for boosting revenue. HIPAA-compliant, conversational two-way text messaging allows patients and healthcare providers to have a back-and-forth in a manner that is timely, convenient, and cost-effective. Other than the requirement of an Internet-enabled communication device, Daniell points out that text messaging does not require any special hardware.

According to the Pew Research Center, almost all patients who rely on healthcare organizations for preventive screenings and services own a cell phone, and the majority own a smartphone. Additionally, an American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) study found that over 90% of adults over 50 employ text messaging as a way of maintaining social connections, and about 67% of them use text messaging on a daily basis.

Daniell suggests another key benefit of text messaging—verified delivery. Whereas physicians can never be certain that patients have received postal letters without getting a specific patient response, undelivered status for text messages appears almost immediately after attempted delivery. As such, texting offers real-time results as to whether a patient received correspondence.