Five Ways Breast Imaging Centers Can Increase Their Patient Return Rate

A common challenge for breast imaging centers is finding an effective strategy to get patients to return for their annual mammograms and follow-up appointments. Of course, the primary concern is about optimizing patient health—especially for those with high BI-RADS scores who may require biopsy and/or need short-term follow up. But another priority is to ensure that the next appointment scheduled is with your facility instead of a competitor down the street. Not only is this better for continuity of care and image comparisons, but an essential component of maintaining your organization’s bottom line.

The good news is that a state-of-the-art mammography reporting system like MagView can help you achieve both—making the most of technology to increase patient compliance, improve efficiencies, and lead to better outcomes on both clinical and financial fronts. Here are five MagView features that can help you do it.

1. Send Text Message Reminders

It seems everyone is texting these days to stay in touch—and your patients are likely no different. Dentists pioneered this approach to ensure patients consistently returned for routine care, and the breast imaging world is increasingly following suit. In fact, the use of text reminders has become so prevalent in service-based industries that a growing number of patients are actually expecting them.

That’s why the MagView Text Message Module is a critical tool within our array of offerings, giving mammography centers the ability to send customized text message reminders according to the schedules they choose. This approach helps to improve the patient experience and supports a better patient return rate.

2. Send Recall and Reminder Letters

Communication failures and missed appointments can have major implications in the breast imaging world—which is why it’s important to ensure consistent contact with patients when it comes to scheduling further imaging or keeping an upcoming appointment. However, high patient volumes mean that many centers lack the capacity to manually send recall and reminder letters.

Fortunately, MagView tracks each recommendation for every patient so breast centers can automatically generate patient letters regarding follow-up needs. These letters can either be sent via email and accessed via a secure online portal and/or printed and then mailed. Many breast centers choose to invest in MagView’s Patient Portal, which can be integrated into an existing provider portal to provide even greater automation, faster communication, and significant savings.

3. View Noncompliant Patients

When it comes to communicating with patients who are out of compliance with their imaging schedules, the first step is to understand who those patients are. MagView’s tracking system provides easy access to key information that can help you better understand patient outliers and how many need follow-up contact.

To make things more convenient, you can even subscribe to automated reports to help you remain current. For example, you could request that MagView send a weekly summary on a specific day that indicates which patients haven’t returned within the recommended timeframe—as well what types of reminder communications have been completed.

4. Prioritize Outreach to Patients at the Highest Risk of Failing to Return

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a crystal ball that tells you which patients are least likely to return as scheduled? We thought so, too. That’s why the MagView AI follow-up engine uses a machine learning algorithm that identifies patients who are most at risk of not returning for their recommended follow-up appointments.

The algorithm takes a variety of key factors into account—such as a patient’s zip code, age, race, clinical history, recommendation, lifetime risk, and more. The analyzed data results in a list of specific patients for follow-up outreach, providing a laser focus for your limited resources to increase the return rate of those who may otherwise fail to come back.

5. Involve the Patient’s Referring Physician

Since referring physicians have established relationships with their patients, close collaboration with the patient’s doctor is essential for optimizing patient outcomes in a variety of ways. One of those is to make sure the referring physician is notified if one or more of their patients fails to adhere to imaging schedules.

When that’s the case, MagView automatically creates a letter that is sent to each referring physician, listing patients to whom this applies. In this way, referring physicians can join your efforts to better ensure that patients return for follow-up imaging as recommended. This type of collaborative communication may improve the patient return rate and increase referring provider satisfaction and referral rates to your breast imaging center.

Today’s challenging healthcare landscape requires the use of cutting-edge technologies to optimize patient care and help breast imaging centers thrive within a competitive environment. MagView offers a state-of-the art mammography reporting system that can help improve patient compliance, enhance efficiencies, support clinical outcomes, and boost the bottom line.

If you’d like to learn more about how MagView can benefit your organization, contact us today.