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Top Story: Streamlining The Patient Registration Process: Implementing a Digital Kiosk Solution
Few things frustrate patients more than lengthy wait times and heavy administrative processes to see their healthcare provider, both when scheduling appointments and upon arrival at the office.
Additionally, an April 2023 MGMA Stat poll reported that clinical staff experience significant burnout attributed to administrative tasks (23%), patient scheduling (13%), and other responsibilities (8%). Collectively, these tasks consume approximately one-third of valuable staff time.
So, the bottom line is that inefficient administrative processes are more than just an inconvenience for patients; they can harm your organization’s reputation, reduce patient loyalty, raise healthcare costs, increase staff burden, and worsen overall care outcomes.
Implementing measures such as digital check-in systems can alleviate strain on staff and enhance efficiency, effectively shortening patient registration and wait times. These solutions empower patients to check in for their appointments, update their medical information, and receive room directions independently, without requiring assistance from your staff.
Let’s delve further into the role of digital check-in solutions and kiosks in ensuring the financial stability, staff well-being, and reputation of your healthcare organization.
What Are the Benefits of a Digital Health Kiosk?
Digital health aims to improve patient care through technology, such as telemedicine, mobile health, electronic health records (EHR), and artificial intelligence (AI). But even prior to care appointments, you can integrate these solutions into your existing workflows to enhance patient care and decrease staff burden.
In fact, a 2021 NextGen Healthcare poll found that 49% of patients prefer an option to check in or complete health forms digitally before their appointment.
So, how do these digital kiosks work? Upon arrival, patients can utilize self-service kiosks to book or reschedule appointments, explore available services, and even check in for their appointment or hospital admission.
Integrating kiosks with a point-of-sale system allows patients to conveniently handle payments for services like deductibles or checking outstanding balances. This enhanced access to health-related information and addressing medical billing inquiries improves the patient experience while streamlining administrative processes for healthcare facilities.
Additionally, self-service kiosks, when integrated with digital signages and queue management software, are crucial for customer flow management in hospitals. Patients receive real-time updates on queue status, wait times, appointments, and available services. This minimizes wait times at the healthcare facility and helps prevent overcrowding.
A self-service patient kiosk fosters stronger connections and loyalty between patients and the practice. Reducing wait times through efficient check-in processes not only improves patient satisfaction but also increases the likelihood of positive reviews.
What Steps Are Involved in the Integration Process?
When implementing a kiosk into your health system, there’s a few vital steps to follow. Medical Group Management Association (MGMA) has outlined crucial measures, starting with gaining a comprehensive understanding of available offerings by asking your vendor questions such as:
- How quickly can a patient register?
- What other tasks can the kiosk solution perform?
- What check-in options exist (mobile phone, website registration)?
When starting to collaborate with a kiosk vendor, ensure you equip the vendor trainer with details including the data your practice collects for demographics, HIPAA, and guarantors through patient information examples.
The vendor trainer, on the other hand, should guarantee that the kiosk verbiage is clear and concise, determine image placement for optimal visibility in the waiting room, and generate secure login credentials for team members and employees.
Now, when it comes to integrating the kiosk into workflows, studies have shown that individuals who utilized check-in kiosks at other facilities were confused about proper usage. Therefore, it’s imperative that your health system prepares patients via educational and personalized messaging before their arrival.
For instance, after implementation, you should announce the upcoming arrival of the kiosk software with an instructional video on your website as well as via personalized messaging. In a next step, send emails to patients with instructions for using the kiosk software on their phones and display visible signage upon entry to the lobby. Lastly, you should ensure security or entrance staff are equipped to direct patients to the kiosks or help patients to open the software via their phones, for example by scanning QR codes.
The integration of digital kiosks can be significantly beneficial if key steps are followed, including evaluating and selecting a reputable vendor, fostering an engaged implementation team, and educating patients to embrace the technology.
Steer Health’s Digital Kiosk
Steer Health recently announced the general availability of our AI-driven digital kiosk solution. With the solution, patients can use their smartphones or personal devices for registration, check in, updating medical information, and e-payments prior to appointments.
By streamlining administrative processes and reducing costs, our solution simplifies and accelerates the patient experience. Our check-in system can help your practice improve data entry, claims processing, and financial outcomes.
Take a look at how Steer Health’s kiosk unlocks revenue growth and a smoother PX:
● Boost Revenue, Cash Flow, and ROI
Real-time insurance eligibility and identity verification ensure accurate upfront collections, improving cash flow by nearly 50%. In addition, eliminating manual entry errors completely (previously at 2.7%) minimizes claim denials and delays and significantly boosts your return on investment (ROI).
● Increase Efficiency to Reduce Staff Burden
Our touchless autofill reduces patient check-in time by 80%, freeing valuable staff time and decreasing administrative burden by 36%. Notably, over 572,000 check-in transactions completed in Q1’2024 translate to dramatic improvements in patient throughput.
A 96% user satisfaction and 95% adoption rate speaks volumes about the convenience and patient acceptance of Steer’s kiosk.
Learn more about the Steer Health Kiosk here.
