Automated Appointment Reminders
Use CGM Connection to Send Reminders to Your Patients
Manage your patient communications automatically. CGM CONNECTION is a cost-effective and state-of-the-art text, email, and phone communication option for your favorite software – MEDISOFT, APRIMA, or LYTEC.
Automated appointment reminders are important for engaging patients and improving practice performance. With CGM CONNECTION, you can send cost-effective text, email, and phone reminders seamlessly integrated with your MEDISOFT, APRIMA, or LYTEC software. Practices can customize and carefully craft and word their reminders and messages to uphold patient service standards, retain patients, improve quality, and increase revenue.
By assisting your patients in keeping their appointments, you can save money while also adding a powerful marketing tool to your practice.
Enjoy These Featured with CGM Appointment Reminders
- HIPAA compliance through 128-bit encryption over the Internet to ensure data privacy
- Voice, text, and email communications
- Real-time updates of appointment confirmation status
- Blast (mass) messaging for marketing, birthdays, announcements, and more
- Seamlessly integrated with Medisoft, Lytec and Aprima appointment schedules for automated calling, texting, and emailing
- Tight integration with bi-directional updates based on changes to appointments and patient demographics; patient responses are recorded within your choice of software: Medisoft, Lytec or Aprima
- Message customization by resource, location, visit types, and day of week
- Reporting assistance to identify numbers no longer in service
- Multi-language support (e.g. Spanish, French)
- Configure number of retry attempts
Appointment Reminders Integrations
Medisoft Network Professional V26+
Lytec 2022+
Aprima
Why Should I Implement Automated Appointment Reminders?
◦ Significantly decrease no-shows
◦ Increase revenue from fulfilled patient appointments
◦ Increased productivity and efficiency of your practice
◦ Frees up valuable office staff time for more productive tasks
◦ Easy implementation process with the ability to send test messages before going live
◦ Improved patient satisfaction through enhanced communication
◦ Easily set preferred contact methods on patient demographics screen when appointment is being made
The Customer Portal Allows You To:
◦ Send messages to patients who have missed their appointments or cancelled so they may be rescheduled. This is important both from a patient revenue standpoint as well as showing due care that reduces potential legal issues related to non-follow up.
◦ Initiate mass communications such as a vaccination campaign or addition of new providers or services via voice, text, or email. This is a great way to grow revenue.
◦ Birthday or special occasion greetings can be scheduled as a single one-time message, or on a recurring basis.
CGM Connection Pricing
*There is an additional $3/month fee for a phone number line (voice or text reminders)
**SMS segments are up to 160 characters depending on encoding system. Sending special characters can increase segments
FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
How long does it take to implement?
I dunno!
Do you offer other integrated appointment reminder systems?
Yes! We also offer another integrated solution called AutoRemind, call us to learn more about AutoRemind.
Are appointment reminders HIPAA compliant?
Yes, sending appointment reminders to patients via SMS, email, or phone-call is HIPAA compliant.
Can I get more information on customization capabilities?
Your practice can control the timing of reminder messages, for example, sending an email one week before the appointment, followed by a voice call three days before, and a text message the day before.
Plus, you can customize the content of the voice, text, and email scripts to better fit your specific needs. And to make text messages concise, you can use abbreviations like ‘appt’ instead of ‘appointment’.
Is there a user guide/training on how to use CGM CONNECTION?
Yes, Microwize provides you with complete training so you can use CGM connection with ease.
Do all providers in the practice have to use it?
No, there are different pricing models to suit a practice’s expected volumes and budget:
• A per provider per month bundle (within a practice) which includes 3,000 transaction per provider that can be “pooled” across all providers in the practice. Any overage is charged at a per-transaction rate.
• A pure per transaction model by message type; pay for usage.
The following is a sample provider “pooling” scenario:
• Practice has 2 providers using the per provider per month bundle = 6000 credits available per month
• Provider A uses 2500 credits and Provider B uses 3500 credits = 6000 total credits used
• No overage charge is generated, even though Provider B used more than 3000, because the total used did not exceed 6000.
Are there any benefits when compared to other appointment reminder software?
Absolutely! Our integration between MEDISOFT/LYTEC and CGM CONNECTION means that using our software is quick and easy, as the data transfers automatically behind the scenes.
Plus, since our solutions are owned by the same company, we can develop additional integration points more readily.
Can patients opt out of the reminder system or certain types of reminders?
Yes, all patients start as Opt-Out. The practice can opt the patient into, or out of, each of the three contact methods independently.
Can patients confirm or cancel appointments from a reminder message?
Yes, they can! Patients can simply say or press a number/letter on their keyboard or keypad in response to the reminder message to confirm or cancel the appointment. The system then sends a confirmation message back to the patient to verify their response. It’s a simple and convenient way for patients to manage their appointments.
Can the practice exclude some appointment types from reminders?
Yes, appointments can exclude reminders via the reminder rules setup in CGM CONNECTION.
Will the practice be able to view a history or their messages sent?
Yes, with CGM CONNECTION, practices can access a detailed historical record of past communications and their status via the CGM CONNECTION Customer Portal. The history is retained for at least 30 days and includes recordings of any voice messages that were left.
Additionally, LYTEC and MEDISOFT show patient response history, with LYTEC displaying confirmed and cancelled responses received through CONNECTION right on the schedule.
MEDISOFT displays appointment confirmation dates and times on the left information panel, which show confirmations received via CONNECTION. To view full response information, the appointment list can be customized to show BOTH confirmations and cancellations that arrive via CGM CONNECTION.
Can CGM CONNECTION accommodate varying affirmative and declining responses by the patient?
Absolutely. Our system is customizable to allow for multiple acceptable confirmation responses, such as ‘Y’, ‘Yes’, ‘Yeah’, ‘Yep’, ‘Sure’, ‘Confirm’, and ‘OK’.
Can I get more detail on customer setup, configuration, and support?
Of course! Once you’ve selected and paid for a plan, we’ll provide you with a CGM CONNECTION product code. Our team will create your account in CGM CONNECTION and send you a Customer ID and key, which Microwize will enter into your MEDISOFT or LYTEC system to establish the interface connection. We’re here to support you every step of the way, so don’t hesitate to reach out if you need help with setup or configuration.
How are transactions counted for billing?
Practices want to be strategic in how they create their message scripts to get the most out of every reminder, while being cost effective. Knowing how the transactions, or communication credits, are counted may help shape the way messages are formatted.
The monthly transaction usage count formula looks at totals from the following:
Initiated Voice x 2 + Initiated SMS & Email + Confirmed Voice & SMS + Cancelled Voice & SMS
• Initiated Voice reminder – This is the outgoing reminder to the patient. **Voice reminders are counted as 2 ‘communication credits’ each.
• Initiated SMS/Email reminder – This is the outgoing text or email reminder to the patient – email and **text reminders are counted as 1 communication credit each.
• Confirmed Voice or SMS – This is an incoming response to CGM CONNECTION from the patient confirming their appt – this is when the patient is responding to a voice or text reminder – more info below
• Cancelled Voice or SMS – This is an incoming response to CGM CONNECTION from the patient cancelling their appt – this is when the patient is responding to a voice or text reminder – more info below
**Length of messages also factors into the counting: • Standard length texts are measured as ‘up to 160 characters’ in length. While voice reminders are counted ‘per minute’. • Text message scripts that go over the 160 characters would be counted as multiple text messages. Same for voice reminders greater than 1 minute in length.
Incoming responses: When a voice call to the patient is answered (live), if the script is written to ask for a response (example: press 1 to confirm, or press 2 to cancel), when the patients responds, that will generate a transaction. That transaction is considered an incoming response message and is counted as a communication credit. Same for text messages to a patient that are written to request a response.
If you are using email reminders and have your email setup where the patient can click a hyperlink to confirm or cancel, currently those response messages do not generate a transaction which is billable.
Real world examples
• Voice call to patient (<1 min). Patient responds to confirm = 3 credits
• Voice call to patient (>1 min but <2 min). Patient responds to confirm = 5 credits
• Text msg (<=160 characters) to patient. Patient responds to confirm = 2 credits
• Text msg (<=160 characters) to patient. Patient responds to confirm. Practice responds back with some additional info (<=160 characters) = 3 credits
• Text msg (>160 but <320 characters) to patient. Patient responds to confirm. Practice responds back with some additional info (<=160 characters) = 4 credits
• Email reminder to patient. Patient responds to confirm or cancel = 1 credit
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