Can AI Predict the Best Arrival Times for Your Patients?

Providers and patients benefit from AI as it optimizes the entire day, avoids delays, and allows providers to see more patients, generating more revenue.

Pinpointing the best arrival time for patients is tricky, but AI can help. Learn how to implement this technology and how providers and patients benefit.

Traditional appointment scheduling involves reminders that ask patients to arrive 10-15 minutes early. This standard can lead to issues when patients show up too early or the office is running behind.

Here, we’ll explore how artificial intelligence can pinpoint optimal arrival times, leading to more revenue and less stress for you and your patients.

Arrival time and check-in headaches

Research confirms that appointment reminders are helpful; one 2016 study found that text reminders reduced no-shows at a pediatric clinic by 14.6%. However, there’s still room for improvement when determining when to tell patients to arrive.

Many practices notify patients to arrive a set amount of time before their appointment. For example, they send a text or email that says to arrive 10-15 minutes before their scheduled appointment time.

Since these reminders don’t include an actual time (such as 3:30 pm), it’s easy for patients to miscalculate or forget when to arrive. They also usually are not sent the day of the appointment, further increasing the chance that patients will forget their appointments. People end up coming in extra early or late, causing inconsistencies and delays for themselves and the practice.

When patients do arrive 15 minutes early, they may end up waiting much longer than necessary.

Say Lisa arrives at 3:15 for her 3:30 appointment, but the office is running just 10 minutes behind. Lisa ends up sitting in the waiting room for almost 30 minutes.

Conversely, if Lisa shows up just five minutes late, she will impact the next two to four appointments—even if the day was running smoothly till that point!

Mandatory paperwork can compound the issue. If a patient has extra forms to complete, they might not be ready for their appointment in time. This leaves them scrambling to finish their paperwork or delays their visit, causing a bottleneck that affects the whole office.

How AI can help

With smart tracking and artificial intelligence, your practice can automatically track what’s happening each day. An AI scheduling system incorporates various details about your schedule, including the following:

• Delays caused by room availability, provider absences, and more

• Cancellations and no-shows

• The office running ahead of schedule

Remember that paperwork we just talked about? AI accounts for various check-in requirements and how they affect patients’ arrival and wait time. New patients often have several forms to fill out, while returning patients have minimal paperwork. AI understands different pre-appointment tasks for each patient and how long these tasks should take.

AI uses previous data, the day’s events, and the expected patient details to provide a specific estimated arrival time—such as 3:27 pm.

After determining the best arrival time, AI can send automated text reminders to patients. There’s no need for office staff to worry about sending these reminders manually.

Implementing AI

Working with smart tracking and AI is meant to be easy! Here are a few things you can do to get the most from this technology:

• Consider choosing a product that works with your practice management system (PMS). That way, you won’t have to run two separate programs. Instead, your scheduling system will integrate seamlessly with your PMS.

• Plan for your AI system to send text reminders on the day of the appointment. These reminders will include the suggested AI arrival time (not the standard 10-15 minutes).

• Be sure to check patients in promptly when they show up. This allows the AI system to provide the most accurate results when determining arrival times.

How providers and patients benefit

Let's go back to Lisa from our example above. Lisa is a returning patient and will only need five minutes to complete her paperwork. Her appointment was originally scheduled at 3:30 pm, but the clinic is about 15 minutes behind.

Based on the AI system, the practice sends a text to Lisa advising her to arrive at 3:40.

Lisa originally planned to come in at 3:15 because she’s used to arriving 15 minutes early for most appointments. Now, she has some extra time to finish up a work project, run an errand, or pick up her child from school.

If Lisa had arrived at 3:15, she would have been waiting for 30 minutes (from 3:15 until her provider was ready at 3:45). Instead, she arrives at 3:40, spends five minutes on check-in, and her provider sees her at 3:45.

A 30-minute wait becomes a 5-minute wait, and the practice shaves 25 minutes off their appointment cycle.

With this process, the entire day is optimized, and you can avoid delays in the first place. Providers can see more patients—and generate more revenue—and patients like Lisa leave happy.

A solution like DOCPACE can help you implement AI-optimized appointment scheduling. With our help, you’ll find the best arrival times for your patients and automatically let them know when to come in.

Learn more or book a demo today. Questions? Send us a DM, and let’s chat!