Confirmation Changes As you are all aware; today’s economy is a difficult one with no promise when this will change. This has forced many cutbacks, fee increases, and a variety of fiscal challenges at the same time as we face new mandated regulatory requirements. Just as you have experienced at home; our costs continue to rise as the amount we pay to our suppliers and to the government are going up, up, and up. We are doing our best to avoid letting this have any effect on our patients. We have not had a fee increase in several years and have taken significant (20%+) fee decreases on our Delta plan fees. We are trying to be as efficient as possible in order to avoid the need for significant fee increases or possible change in PPO status in the near future. A major expense we have located involves confirmation of existing appointments, including the ever increasing costs of postcard stamps and the amount of staff time spent. We have made some changes to reduce these expenses; you will notice differences in our confirmation process including an automated text/email reminder system thru our dental software system. These changes are detailed below: • We will continue to give the appointment sticker reminders at the end of each hygiene appointment for your next scheduled visit(s). • We will continue to give reminders 2 business days prior to your appointment via phone or two calendar days prior to your appointment via text/email. We are looking at possible automated phone reminders in the future. • We will no longer be able to send outlook meeting reminders, but this is replaced by an “add to calendar” option on the email reminder. • The most important change is that we will no longer be mailing reminder postcards out 2-4 weeks ahead of your appointment. If you wish to have a reminder prior to the 2 day reminder, we MUST have a current email address or current mobile number capable of receiving texts. Reminders will be sent 2 weeks prior to appointments to valid text and/or email addresses. • Those patients who prefer NOT to have text reminders may ‘opt-out’ by texting STOP to 24742. If you change your mind, you can simply text RESUME to 24742 to begin receiving text messages once more.* • You may, if you prefer, inform us verbally or by mail/email and we will ‘opt out’ of phone calls, texts*, emails and/or postcards for you. • For those of patients who choose NOT to pre-schedule recare (cleaning) appointments – we will mail a single reminder telling you that it is time to schedule - the month before you are due to come in. Additional reminders can be sent beyond this physical post card, if we have an email or current mobile number on file. In order to reduce costs on these reminders, we ask that you let us know if an email or text reminder would be sufficient for this purpose as well and we can ‘opt-you-out’ of the postcard. • If you are receiving automated reminders, and DO NOT require a phone call, you may respond by ‘confirming’ the appointment via text or email. If you prefer to continue receiving the phone call in addition to the automated reminders – simply DO NOT reply Please update your contact information and indicate your reminder preferences; via phone at (509)467-5202, email (office@slsdds), or in person with Tracy or Melody. The information that we request you provide to us is: Patient(s) Name Reminder email Mobile# capable of receiving texts Primary phone# to call for reminders Mailing address for postcard - needed only if different from billing address. Please advise us of any of the following reminders that you DO NOT want or need: DO NOT send TEXTS DO NOT send EMAIL DO NOT make PHONE REMINDERS DO NOT send postcards
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 19:00:02 +0000
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