- VISTOSMS
Texting is Helping Hospitals Reduce Readmissions and Avoid Penalties
Medicare is punishing nearly 2,500 hospitals for high readmissions, reports KHN. That’s nearly half of all U.S. hospitals.
The penalties are required under the Hospital Readmissions Reduction Program. KHN analyzed federal data for this latest annual round of penalties and found that the average penalty is a 0.64% reduction in payment for each Medicare patient stay from the start of October 2021 through September 2022.
Of the more than 3,000 hospitals for which Medicare evaluated readmission rates (the remaining hospitals are exempt from the program), more than 80% received a penalty. The fines, KHN notes, can be heavy, averaging more than $200,000 for a hospital in 2018, according to federal data. Thirty-nine hospitals received the maximum 3% reduction. Only about 550 hospitals had readmission rates low enough to escape any penalty.
Among those hospitals that avoided penalty are Dialog Health clients. We tell you this for two reasons. One, we love to see our clients doing good for patients, and reducing readmissions is one of the best ways to improve patient outcomes and reduce unnecessary costs, including those associated with penalties. And two, we know our two-way texting platform is helping these clients keep their readmission rates low.
How much of a difference can text messaging make? More than you may expect. As we highlight on our webpage sharing results of clients using Dialog Health, one hospital was able to achieve a more than 80% reduction in readmissions in just 90 days. Furthermore, two-way text messaging also saved many staff hours saved by decreasing phone calls to patients, improved patient satisfaction, and strengthened staff workflow and efficiency.
Whether you use our easy-to-use, cloud-based, and HIPAA-compliant texting platform or not, it’s become best practice to include text messaging in a communications plan to reduce penalties, overall healthcare costs, and harm to patient perspectives of their hospital care experience (i.e., satisfaction scores). We’d love to show you how we’re helping hospitals like yours leverage texting to achieve transformational results around readmissions and many other areas.
Automate Your Bulk SMS Campaigns
When you set up text automatic, VistoSMS works for you, even when you’re not working.
Integrate with Your Company's ERP or CRM Software
SMS Benefits in Healthcare
Achieve Full HIPAA Compliance
Use medical texting to send administrative content. VistoSMS is HIPAA and SOC 2 Type 2 compliant, ensuring a high level of information security. The platform’s technology protects patient contact data while in storage and transit, and can automate the patient opt-out process.
Let Patients Expedite Communications with Healthcare Staff via SMS
Allow patients to quickly complete small, time-sensitive administrative tasks via medical texting. Let them set up appointments, access forms, or complete surveys. Making these tasks easy to complete prevents patients from putting them off—or forgetting them.
Schedule Patients’ SMS Appointment Reminders
Send personalized mass appointment reminders in minutes. Just select a template, ensure it includes custom fields (like names and visit times), and choose a list of patients. When you press “send,” your healthcare SMS platform will add correct information into each outgoing text.
Use Payment Reminder SMS for Patients
Help patients stay on track with SMS payment reminders. Your texting solution can even automate these alerts with an SMS integration with your systems. When your patient management software updates with invoices, VistoSMS can immediately send patients notifications and reminders.
Send Doctor-Patient SMS Messages for Follow-Ups
Send visit follow-ups through SMS for high reply rates. Use drip campaigns for multiple reminders. Patients who receive follow-ups through text messages rather than calls are more likely to reply or provide feedback that helps practices thrive.
Improve Doctor-Patient and Office-Patient Relationships
Ultimately, text messaging for medical offices improves the patient-practice relationship, helping your team empower more patients to achieve their personal health goals.
