North Kansas City Hospital and Meritas Health’s automated scheduling drives 2X increase in new patient appointments
Scheduled appointments for the same number of providers jumps from 5.7% to 14%.
North Kansas City Hospital (NKCH) and Meritas Health (MH) provides the largest network of provider practices in the Northland region of Kansas City, Missouri. The system employs more than 280 primary and specialty care physicians and advanced practice providers in 35 locations, and includes a medical staff of 550 physicians representing 49 medical specialties.
“By investing in intelligent automation, we are removing the burden on the patient to determine when they need to be seen for care. At the same time, we are enabling the provider to take a more proactive approach with each patient.”
digital completion rate
patient satisfaction rate
of online appointments booked without staff intervention
The challenge
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, NKCH and MH maximized their vaccine throughput by automating patient registration, check-in, and follow up for inbound appointment bookings as well as outbound follow ups and reminders. As a result, 85% of nearly 100,000 patients who scheduled vaccine appointments also completed their consent form and health questionnaire documentation digitally through Notable, prior to arriving for their vaccination.
Fast forward one year later, the system expanded their automated scheduling capabilities to all primary care providers and specialists.
Prior to Notable, NKCH and MH patients were increasingly frustrated with the online scheduling experience through another vendor. Staff were also challenged, as the limited scheduling platform merely put a hold on providers’ calendars. This created a large volume of duplicative work by requiring staff to manually confirm and rebook each appointment.
The solution
By expanding its use of Notable’s Intelligent Scheduling solution, NKCH and MH aimed to increase the number of appointments scheduled directly by patients, improve patient satisfaction, and reduce inbound calls related to inbound and outbound scheduling.
Intelligent Scheduling from Notable is the only digital solution that helps patients schedule appointments based on their desire for care or guidance from a provider, eliminating the need for phone calls. In addition to patient self-scheduling, Intelligent Scheduling automatically and proactively reaches out to patients throughout their care journey to ensure appropriate appointments are scheduled. For example, Notable knows to prompt a patient to schedule only when requirements like referrals or prior authorizations have been satisfied.
Within the first six weeks of going live, scheduled appointments for the same number of available providers jumped from 5.7% to 14%, with an average of more than 400 online appointments booked per week.
Today, Notable Intelligent Scheduling replaces the system’s previous vendor, a move that has garnered a 96% patient satisfaction rating. Since deploying self-scheduling through Notable, twice as many patients are scheduling appointments on their own – 18% are scheduled with new patients. Nearly 28% of these appointments are scheduled outside office hours (8 a.m. - 5 p.m.), indicating an improved patient experience. Notable’s intuitive user interface makes scheduling care convenient, whenever and wherever it works for the patient.
