How to Increase Your ROI with Patient Engagement

Using a laptop to research and check the ROI of patient engagement.

Patient engagement as a healthcare strategy needs to increase a provider’s return on investment (ROI). While it strives to provide better patient care and improve health outcomes by promoting positive patient behavior, it needs to do this with a demonstrable improvement in revenue, margin and/or reduction in overall expenses. 

According to a report, the global patient engagement market is expected to reach a market size of $41.20 billion U.S. dollars by the year 2027. The market demand for patient engagement solutions is driven by chronic diseases and conditions. Diabetes, cancer, and obesity are a few of the conditions and diseases contributing to this market.

Learn more about how patient engagement can drive ROI below.

Key Takeaways:

  • Patient engagement can help to grow revenue by increasing patient volume. 
  • There are several benefits to transforming your healthcare through patient engagement.
  • Creating a digital engagement strategy for your patients and tapping the digital market is essential to increase your ROI.

The ROI of Patient Engagement

Patient engagement can help to increase a hospital’s revenue. For larger hospitals, they can increase their revenue by millions of dollars. This is accomplished by either boosting patient volume or improving the pullthrough rates.  Even for smaller hospitals, boosting the number of patients through a patient enablement platform can prove to be a differentiator that allows them to stay competitive. Furthermore, by engaging patients in self-management of their journeys, it reduces the administrative burden on staff

4 Benefits Which Influence ROI

Patient journey when engagement is initiated from healthcare provider and patient
httpswwwmckinseycomindustrieshealthcare systems and servicesour insightsnext generation member engagement during the care journey

Enabling the patient to become more active partners in their healthcare journey will result in greater benefits to patient, provider, and healthcare systems. Systems that have higher patient engagement scores have better outcomes for patients and better pipeline health for providers. The benefits are: 

  1. Enhancing Patient Experience

Patients are given more focused care and an active role in coordinating their outcomes. It becomes more of a partnership between the patient and provider.

This partnership is reflected in increased satisfaction and loyalty, as well as better online reviewsPatient loyalty and referrals help to increase ROI. If a patient is satisfied with their experience, they are more likely to refer their provider to family or friends, which in turn will increase patient volume and generate more revenue.  This is especially true with online reviews left by patients.  A study by PatientPop indicates that almost 70% of patients say that a positive online reputation is very important.

  1. Better Profit Margins 

Physicians are also reaping the benefits with positive online reviews and ratings, which help lead to more referrals. The Harvard Business Review notes the profit margin increases by 1% for every five-point increase in hospital rating. This increase in profit margin can be linked back to both patient experience and employee engagement, showing that creating a positive patient experience can lead to higher revenue. 

  1. More Effective and Efficient Healthcare

Patient engagement solutions create time and cost efficiencies.  atients will spend less time at the hospital and have many of their requirements complete even before arriving at the clinic or hospital. This frees up time and resources that providers can then put towards other patients and addressing theneeds of the more complex cases. 

Additionally, patient engagement can help patients keep their appointments. Data shows that patients who forget their appointments or simply do not show up can cost providers up to 14% of their revenue.

  1. Fewer Readmissions and Complications

Having fewer readmissions is good not just for the patients, but also for the hospitals who admit them since hospitals can be fined for readmitting too many patients. According to Fierce Healthcare, 83% of 3,080 hospitals evaluated by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) were penalized for their history of having to readmit patients. 

Hospitals also strive to reduce readmissions to cut healthcare costs. By focusing on patient engagement, providers can identify high-risk patients, such as those with congestive heart failure or pneumonia, who are more likely to be readmitted and cost more resources. Following this assessment, the necessary care and considerations can be made for the patient upstream from the surgery, allowing the clinical team to mitigate the likelihood of readmission following a procedure.  

Create a Digital Engagement Strategy for Your Patients 

The pandemic continues to transform how providers and patients interact. Digital health extends patient engagement through technology and mobile phone applications (“apps”). These digital tools can help patients: 

  • Self-monitor
  • Track behavior changes
  • Better understand their diagnoses and discharge plans
  • Encourage communication and partnership between them, physicians, and systems
  • Take charge of their healthcare 

The technological landscape continues to change and force healthcare systems to adapt.  It is critical for leaders to look at using technology and digital tools as allies in this ecosystem. 

Gartner’s top 3 predictions for healthcare in the future. Both patients and providers benefit from the advantages of technology and the digital landscape. It effectively engages patients and increases the ROI.
Source httpswwweffyhealthcarecompostgartner top 3 predictions for healthcare beyond 2020

Learn More About ConnectedCare(™)

The opportunity gap continues to grow in the bariatric market as millions of patients search for surgical solutions, but only 250,000 surgeries are performed a year. With strong margins across many programs, growing the bariatric volume is becoming more critical for the financial health of healthcare systems. Patient engagement and a digital engagement strategy can help increase patient volume and the ROI.

While bariatric patients have used digital tools to explore their options, the pandemic has further accelerated the need for utilizing these patient-facing technologies throughout the entirety of their journeys. They are taking advantage of the online world and the digital tools at their disposal by searching for answers online. 

Wellbe’[s ConnectedCare delivers results and can help tip the scales in your favor. We can help boost your growth while giving you great results through deeper program performance insight, higher patient and surgical volumes, and efficient patient tracking and support with zero additional staff. We can help boost results to higher ROI levels: increasing consults by up to 20%, increasing pull-through rates by 35% or more, increasing patient satisfaction to 80% or more, and all without adding additional staff to manage the increased volume.

Contact us today to learn more about our personalized care automation platform, how we can help you engage more effectively with bariatric or any other patients, and get started on building a better ROI on patient engagement! 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *