Doctors love to see their patients regularly. Many medical practitioners enjoy taking care of people, and so it brings them joy to see patients taking steps to take care of themselves. This includes patients getting in for regular checkups and follow-up appointments post-treatment. When following a specific treatment plan, patient adherence to that plan is especially important for the treatment to be successful. How can you ensure patient compliance? By helping them to remember their appointments, establishing trust and communication, and following up after every visit.
Help Them Get to Remember Appointments
Unless the appointments are back to back or follow a specific pattern, many patients easily just forget about them. Helping them to remember appointments is easy, especially if you use an automated service to handle it for you. Patients can be reminded of appointments through phone, email, and text messages. The more reminders you can give them, the more likely they will be to remember their appointments. When patients attend their appointments, the doctors can better ensure their adherence to a treatment plan.
Establish Trust and Communication
Patients need to be able to trust their medical service provider. Part of establishing trust is good communication. Everything from appointment scheduling to lab results should be accessible to the patient. Good communication also helps patients to understand why they need to comply with their treatment plan. A quick text message or email explaining the benefits of adhering to their treatment can be a simple and effective way to help patients stay on the right track and feel like you really care.
Follow Up After Every Visit
Some doctors give their patients a treatment plan and end it with the patient walking out the door. A follow-up after every visit is an effective way to make sure your patient is actually following the designated treatment plan. Not only is your patient more likely to follow the plan, but he or she will probably appreciate that you cared enough to follow up.
Helping your patients to do what the doctor ordered can be as simple as sending out appointment reminders, establishing trust and communication, and following up after every visit. Most of this can even be handled by an automated service, saving your practice time and money. Help your patients stay on their treatment plans through these methods.