Atlanta-based WellCentive announced the launch of its new WellCentive Outreach appointment and care reminder system, which utilizes voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) technology. The WellCentive Outreach system will help patients about upcoming appointments or overdue care, such as mammograms and diabetic eye exams, automatically and cost effectively.
Using industry standard and/or user-specified criteria and calls them using WellCentive's own VoIP-based network, the WellCentive Outreach system identifies patients due for care. The outreach system functions with a variety of language and will contact each patient using the primary language noted in the patient's WellCentive chart. Reminder letters can also be generated - either manually or automatically on a scheduled basis and mailed to patients.
When contacting a patient, the WellCentive Outreach system will follow with a prompt which forwards the patient directly to the doctor's office to change, confirm or schedule appointments. The WellCentive Outreach system automatically documents attempted and successful reminder calls and tracks patient compliance and follow-up. The system can also generate reports for quality reporting purposes for insurance companies.
"The WellCentive Outreach system closes the patient outreach gap that is such a challenging part of the Chronic Care Model," said Dr. Paul Taylor, CEO and medical director of WellCentive. "Due to a lack of resources or staffing, health care organizations are often unable to identify which patients are due for care - let alone make and track these important reminder calls. WellCentive's Outreach system allows an organization to maintain its efficiency, while proactively and cost effectively improving the quality of care it provides."
The capabilities and features of WellCentive Outreach system include the following:
- Automatically gather scheduling and patient data using interfaces and other electronic means of capturing data.
- Helps customize the script for outreach telephone calls and the text included in reminder letters.
- Patient identification
- Voice recognition allowing a patient to verbally provide selections, such as a request to be forwarded directly to the physician's office or to repeat the reminder call message.
- Call system scheduling allows health care organization to determine number of times a series of reminder calls is made and how many calls will be placed every day.
- Voicemail configuration for patients who don't answer the phone.
Reminder calls cost 10 cents per minute, and WellCentive offers a 300 percent return on investment guarantee for the use of the WellCentive Outreach system. An organization does not need its own VoIP telephone system and as calls are made via WellCentive's own VoIP servers, it will not affect on an organization's telephone bill.
"WellCentive offers a complete patient outreach and engagement system as an integral part of its patient registry system, which also includes the WellCentive Patient Portal and Secure Messaging systems," said Dr. Taylor. "Our comprehensive registry includes a variety of reporting tools as well as the ability to easily interface with outside systems and report outcomes directly to payers. This unique combination of specialized features is what sets WellCentive apart in the marketplace."
Arun Satapathy is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of Arun's articles, please visit his columnist page.
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