Creating a Powerful Patient Follow-Up Protocol: Components, Strategies, and Ready-to-Use Templates

Why Is Patient Follow-Up Crucial for Your Practice?

You should prioritize patient follow-ups for a wide range of reasons, from improving the quality of the healthcare services you provide, to reducing extra work for your staff.

Follow-ups help you offer vital patient education for managing acute or chronic conditions. For example, you can communicate the latest lab results and how they affect the patient’s treatment and recovery. You can also confirm that they are taking their prescribed medication according to schedule. Creating a follow-up protocol lets you systematize how you engage with the patients under your care.

By checking in periodically with patients, you can monitor their progress and then change treatment plans as needed to obtain better outcomes. Patients will feel more involved in their recovery process or the management of chronic ailments when you consistently follow-up with them. They’ll develop a sense of being more in control of their medical situation.

Ongoing follow-ups help you detect issues before they become more serious and difficult to treat. As a result, patients feel more satisfied with your practice, as their trust in your team grows. They will understand that they can reduce the costs of healthcare when follow-up encounters prevent or at least delay the exacerbation of symptoms. 

Since no-shows hurt your bottom line and increase the workload of your staff in terms of spending time rescheduling missed appointments, improving your protocol for patient follow-up can encourage more of them to show up on time.

Remember that successful follow-ups can increase positive outcomes for patients and minimize the number of visits. You’ll also experience improved operational efficiency.

A patient follow-up protocol can make a world of a difference.

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Components of Developing a Follow-up Protocol for Patients

 

Determine staff responsibilities

It’s important to develop a patient follow-up protocol so your staff will know who is responsible for connecting with patients. If the nature of the follow-up is administrative, there’s no need for a provider to make contact. For crucial clinical follow-ups, a nurse, doctor, or other type of provider should communicate with patients.

 

Preferred method of communication

For each patient, determine their preferred method of communication, such as emails, automated phone messages, texts, or physical mail. 

 

Frequency of contact between staff and patients

Create a schedule customized according to the patient’s specific situation and needs for upcoming follow-ups. For example, you can connect with them within 1-2 days after their appointment to check up and learn whether they are following their aftercare instructions. 

Before their next visit, you should be scheduling a follow-up. Or, if preferred, schedule the follow-up(s) at the end of their appointment. Multiple follow-ups may be needed for their treatment plan, so it could be easier to schedule them in advance all at once which can benefit both the patient and the practice.

With regular follow-ups, your staff will become much more familiar with patients’ specific issues and requirements. This leads to patients trusting you more and feeling seen.

 

Notes and tracking system

Your follow-up protocol should include details about how you keep track of patient communications, such as by making new notes in your EHR, or practice management software. Furthermore, you must designate which members of your staff are in charge of updating these records after follow-up encounters. 

 

Strategies for Boosting Efficiency to Help Your Staff Optimize Patient Follow-up Tasks

Use software and technology solutions to streamline operations and ensure your staff works more efficiently during follow-ups. You can strengthen the emotional connections between patients and your doctors and nurses thanks to each follow-up activity.

 

Use a patient portal

Establish a patient portal to enable easier communication between your team and patients. Individuals can access their health records, send messages, and receive responses from staff 24/7. 

 

Automate reminders

Automated reminders about upcoming appointments reduce strain on healthcare workers, freeing up their time and attention so they can focus on more pressing tasks.

 

Flexible appointment options

Include virtual video conferencing in your patient follow-up protocol to reduce no-shows. When following up on aftercare or medication adherence, remind patients of their upcoming appointments and offer the option of a virtual visit. This flexibility makes it easier for patients to stay on track with their care.

 

Provide easy-to-follow instructions

You can automate the delivery of patient instructions and/or informative documents over a secure communications platform to underscore the importance of following their plan of care. By periodically sending patients educational newsletters (in digital form, such as via email, or in printed form sent through surface mail), you can help them better manage their chronic conditions.

Since you can readily consult patient information through integrated electronic health record software, you’ll be able to offer better continuity of care, especially when multiple providers are involved in the care plan and may have varying directions for the patient.

 

Reach patients who don’t use technology

While many patients will be glad that your team offers an omnichannel approach for communication, do not assume that all patients are online, have ready access to the internet, or prefer to utilize online options. Consider that about 12 percent of people in the United States live in households lacking an internet connection, according to the latest statistics from the government’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration.

Some patients may prefer traditional follow-up methods. For example, older patients who are less familiar with technology might prefer a phone call over a text.

Patient follow-up letter template.

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Patient follow-up call template.

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Patient follow-up text template.

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Patient follow-up email template.

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Benchmark Solutions Will Empower Your Staff for More Effective Patient Follow-Ups

At Benchmark Solutions, we offer software tools that empower medical practices to improve how they manage patient follow-ups. These tools are instrumental in enhancing communication, building patient trust, and activating engagement. As you manage follow-ups, you can rest assured that your staff will maintain the integrity and confidentiality of sensitive patient data while following HIPAA regulations for communication.

Software enhancements that support patient-follow ups include:

  • Appointment reminders: Omnichannel communication to patients so they can receive customized reminders by email, voice calls, or text messages according to their preferences for appointments.
  • Telehealth: For patients who find it challenging to come back to your facility in person for a follow-up appointment, our telemedicine software gives them the opportunity to engage in virtual, real-time video consultations. Each encounter supports your goal to improve the amount and quality of patient follow-ups. 
  • My Health Record: Our patient portal facilitates proactive patient follow-ups with convenient online appointment requests supported by secure messaging. Patients can use the portal to access and review their records before coming in for a follow-up meeting.
  • eRx: Lets providers send prescriptions straight to the patient’s preferred pharmacy, which ensures patients receive their medications on time and to stay on track with their care plans. At the same time, eRx enables providers to monitor the patient’s prescription history and adherence during follow-ups.
  • BenchmarkPay: Gives patients easy payment options and access to their billing statements so they can focus on their follow-up care and address potential financial stress or confusion regarding bills.

Software enhancements information

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