By using this site, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use.
Accept
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
  • Health
    • Mental Health
    Health
    Healthcare organizations are operating on slimmer profit margins than ever. One report in August showed that they are even lower than the beginning of the…
    Show More
    Top News
    bowl of vegetable salad
    Raw Foods: benefits and harms
    November 9, 2021
    pros and cons of the keto diet
    Read This Before You Follow the Keto Diet
    May 18, 2022
    spinal cord injuries
    4 Potential Causes of Spinal Cord Injuries (and How to Seek Compensation)
    May 25, 2022
    Latest News
    7 Most Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs: Which Should You Use?
    August 20, 2025
    Hospital Pest Control and the Fight Against Superbugs
    August 20, 2025
    Hygiene Beyond The Clinic: Attention To Overlooked Non-Clinical Spaces
    August 13, 2025
    5 Steps to a Promising Career as a Healthcare Administrator
    August 3, 2025
  • Policy and Law
    • Global Healthcare
    • Medical Ethics
    Policy and Law
    Get the latest updates about Insurance policies and Laws in the Healthcare industry for different geographical locations.
    Show More
    Top News
    TBI: Some Surprising Statistics
    February 9, 2016
    Your Keys to Safer, Even More Secure Healthcare Cloud Services
    January 13, 2015
    4 Career Options in Healthcare Industry that Combine Big Data & Healthcare
    February 5, 2021
    Latest News
    How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
    August 22, 2025
    How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
    August 22, 2025
    How One Fall Can Lead to a Long Road of Medical Complications
    August 22, 2025
    How IT and Marketing Teams Can Collaborate to Protect Patient Trust
    July 17, 2025
  • Medical Innovations
  • News
  • Wellness
  • Tech
Search
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Reading: How To Improve Patient Access Metrics
Share
Notification Show More
Font ResizerAa
Health Works CollectiveHealth Works Collective
Font ResizerAa
Search
Follow US
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
© 2023 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
Health Works Collective > eHealth > How To Improve Patient Access Metrics
eHealth

How To Improve Patient Access Metrics

Rehan
Rehan
Share
8 Min Read
tips to design a health app
Shutterstock Photo License - Stanisic Vladimir
SHARE

Contents
  • How To Improve Patient Access Metrics
      • ●      What composes the provider network?
      • ●      Capacity utilization for the provider
      • ●      Demand Conversion
      • ●      Growth
      • ●      Hurry up and wait
      • ●      Retention of referral
  • Final Thought

Medical care clients have a treatment expectation for their wellness in the same vein as they anticipate adequate care and service from providers in other industries.

The difference, while there’s competition in all industries, it is exceptionally fierce among medical providers. Because of this, more patient access metrics are being incorporated into the medical care systems, with initiatives to focus on improvements in this area.

Medical care leaders have six key access metrics that need assessing for their efficiency and effectiveness and then drive initiatives to improve these areas.

More Read

Driving Down the Real Cost of Healthcare: Pediatric and Teen Medical Homes
Making Health Mobile
The Online Hospital Appointment Process: Insights and Numbers
Social Media, mHealth and Medicine: 2012 in Review and Hopes for the Future
Glass Half-Empty? Not for MS Blogger Matt Cavallo [Podcast]

When organizations get a better handle on patient access, it will be evident to their client that the focus and interest of the business are, first and foremost, the patient. That will drive an initiative into positivity for both the patient and the practice.

How To Improve Patient Access Metrics

One of the primary goals in the medical care industry is to be competitive. To stand out as relevant, practices need to focus their time and attention on the patient and the metrics that go into patient access.

Patient access is the client’s interaction with the practice and, eventually, the provider. The metrics are a universal guideline for all facilities to gauge their effectiveness in satisfying the patient and coming out with a competitive edge.

There note to be primarily six metrics that a practice needs to look at when trying to determine its success with implementation. A few deemed most important for the benefit of the patient and to remain competitive in the industry include:

●      What composes the provider network?

Clients need to know in simple terms what or who composes the provider network, what is available to them. There is vast and rapid merger activity in medical care, creating “data silos” and making it a challenge for even the providers to understand their own network composition.

For a patient to be able to work within your system efficiently and effectively, they need to know who your providers are and what they do.

That will mean working on a “comprehensive” inventory that will serve as the basis for a successful initiative strategy. The practitioner characteristics that clients look for include

  1. Specialty/subspecialty – what do they treat/procedure they perform
  2. Where are they located, and do they accept insurance, if so which
  3. Availability of appointments

These critical pieces of information allow the patient success when reaching out for medical care. The client doesn’t need to make a million calls to find out what they need to know: it is at their fingertips. Find out the right focused metrics that drive patient registration at https://www.reliasmedia.com/.

●      Capacity utilization for the provider

The suggestion is a patient has a 24 day wait on average for an appointment time but that increases for those new to the practice.

That is counterintuitive to achieving improvements in the metric initiatives. The excuse for many offices is that different networks function with a plethora of “electronic medical record systems,” leaving an impossible situation to find provider availability.

Patients can find their provider incessantly overbooked in this landscape, while other clients never have a problem with a provider who always has openings.

Systems can optimize network access when they join a substantial inventory with aggregated scheduling details throughout the entity. Capacity utilization is defined as the booked schedule compared to the overall scheduling time available for patients.

Understanding the density of the practitioner’s schedule and how patients are distributed according to sorts of appointments or locations, plus other variables, is a primary element when understanding access difficulties or potential opportunities.

●      Demand Conversion

Cold hard facts that showed up in a study indicated that over 80 percent of medical call centers could not schedule a patient for an appointment with their first call.

That presents the practice with a failed attempt to convert demand into a booking instead of that client looking elsewhere for more organized care.

In assessing access, medical systems need to analyze the number of patients who interact with their practice with any form of communication whether through the call center, online, telephone, etc.) and who progresses forward into booking an appointment.

These rates measure the level of effectiveness when engaging with the client and if needs are being satisfied.

●      Growth

Growth within the practice with new patients is another indication of “demand conversion.” A potential new client will often pass from one channel to another before the final booking process.

Many will research the clinic online, and the information you make available needs to be clear and concise but, most importantly, accurate and up to date.

When assessing the metric, the calculation to consider is the overall number of new patients along with the new patient percentage overall compared to all those clients booked.

●      Hurry up and wait

When a practice reduces the amount of time that patients need to wait, it can help decrease the likelihood of cancels and no-shows, thus improving demand conversion, outcomes in the clinic, and overall revenue.

Long wait times are inevitable when a provider does not have an accessible and comprehensive network or scheduling details. The actual goal is to ensure patients get care as rapidly and seamlessly as possible.

●      Retention of referral

Understandably, network retention is essential within a practice, but that does not mean they always refer to their own networks. One of the primary reasons referrals go out of network is lack of visibility. Those who make the referrals need to be provided a clinical network inventory to keep the referrals from leaving the medical system unwarrantedly.

A health system should be able to consistently monitor referral activity, including looking at the number of referrals inside the network and watching how that number differs over time as changes are implemented.

Final Thought

These metrics can assist a medical care system in measuring patient access as you assess how each impacts the overall care of the client community in your network. Click here for critical metrics used to improve medical care access experiences. These mean to help you see how the access program is impacting your medical care system and where there needs to be and how you can make improvements.

The absolute goal in making an analysis of each of the metrics is to ensure that the average patient is receiving optimum care and in a timely fashion.

To remain a relevant competitor in an industry that is fierce with competition, it’s essential to continually assess where you fall with your access. You do not want to blend in with what everyone else is doing. Ideally, you want to stand out, so the patients convert with you.

Share This Article
Facebook Copy Link Print
Share

Stay Connected

1.5kFollowersLike
4.5kFollowersFollow
2.8kFollowersPin
136kSubscribersSubscribe

Latest News

engineer fitting prosthetic arm
How Social Security Disability Shapes Access to Care and Everyday Health
Health care
August 20, 2025
a woman explaining the document
How a DUI Lawyer Can Help When Your Future Health Feels Uncertain
Public Health
August 20, 2025
physiotherapist at work
How One Fall Can Lead to a Long Road of Medical Complications
Health care
August 20, 2025
Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs
7 Most Common Healthcare Accreditation Programs: Which Should You Use?
Health News
August 20, 2025

You Might also Like

Mayo Clinic, Geisinger, Kaiser Permanente, Intermountain Healthcare, and Group Health Securely Share Patient-Specific Data

April 6, 2011

Policing The Internet: Physician Behavior In Cyberspace

February 9, 2013

8 Mistakes to Avoid when Securing Cloud Services

July 27, 2012
social networks
Social Media

Five Reasons Why Physicians Need to Use Social Media

December 12, 2011
Subscribe
Subscribe to our newsletter to get our newest articles instantly!
Follow US
© 2008-2025 HealthWorks Collective. All Rights Reserved.
  • About
  • Contact
  • Privacy
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Username or Email Address
Password

Lost your password?