Boosting Your Bottom Line: Maximizing Revenue with Patient Reactivation Software

Healthcare professionals across the nation understand that patient retention and reactivation of established patients is the backbone of their practice’s success. However, many practices not only don’t utilize the most effective strategies to re-engage these patients, but also lack the necessary digital tools needed for an effective patient reactivation campaign. In an industry where practices increasingly turn to software solutions to improve operational efficiency and drive organizational growth, practices should consider investing in patient reactivation software—a tool that employs automated solutions to identify your lost to follow-up patients, engage them and use the resulting data to track your campaign’s success. This comprehensive blog post will walk you through the role of patient reactivation software within the practice workflow, key features needed for effective implementation, and proven best strategies for software optimization and maximizing revenue. We’ll also highlight the effectiveness of Brevium’s unique patient reactivation solutions through testimonials and case studies from real Brevium customers.  

Understanding the Importance of Patient Reactivation

What defines an inactive patient? Though the answer varies depending on your practice’s specialty and patient diagnosis, an lost to follow-up patients is a customer that has been absent from your practice past the recommended return date and has no existing appointment scheduled or pending recall to return to the office. Brevium estimates that 25 percent of patients are lost or overdue from their practice, yet studies show that only 30 percent of practices implement effective strategies to win these patients back. There are many reasons for this low percentage: 

1. Practices confuse patient reactivation with reminders or recalls.
2. Practices don’t know the true number of lost to follow-up patients in their database and therefore don’t prioritize reactivation. 
3. Practices don’t know the most effective patient reactivation strategies. 
4. Practices don’t think patient reactivation brings any additional value to the business and consequently don’t invest time and resources toward an effective campaign.

However, Brevium’s 2019 ALOHA study showcases the importance of patient reactivation for fueling organic practice growth and profit maximization. Within the constraints of the study, reactivated patients generated an average of $173.52 on their first appointment back and an additional $284.34 in the year following their return—resulting in a $457.86 total median revenue over a 12-month period. Consider the number of patients and providers in your practice. With most practices having 1,000 to 2,000 lost to follow-up patients per provider, patient reactivation has the potential to significantly transform practice growth and generate greater returns. 

Exploring Patient Reactivation Software

What is Patient Reactivation Software?

Patient reactivation software is a comprehensive digital tool purpose-built to help healthcare organizations streamline their reactivation efforts. These platforms act as a “safety net” for when patient recall efforts fail and often include features such as patient segmentation, automated outreach and advanced reporting tools that are essential to helping practices effectively identify, target and re-engage their lost to follow-up patients. 

Benefits of Implementing Patient Reactivation Software

The benefits of patient reactivation software are well documented across many different healthcare settings, with practices of all sizes, structures and specialties experiencing significant returns and maximizing profit implementing these tools and strategies. Let’s look at the some of the benefits of utilizing patient reactivation software in your practice:

• Boosts revenue and ROI by significantly increasing appointment volume and efficiently managing resources. Reactivating lost to follow-up patients costs less and is more effective than marketing to new ones—meaning your practice sees greater returns without sacrificing unnecessary time, money and effort. 
• Increases appointment volume through automated patient outreach and increased contacts sent. 
• Maximizes practice efficiency by automating and streamlining the entire reactivation process and lessening administrative burden (i.e. identifying lost to follow-up patients, segmenting them, performing outreach, and measuring your campaign’s success). Implementing automated systems over manual processes lowers the risk of staff error and provides the consistency, reliability and sustainability essential to a reactivation campaign. 
• Measures your success with extensive reporting tools. These reports allow practices to track any given part of their reactivation campaigns, providing detailed insight that empowers educated decision-making.  
• Optimizes practice scheduling by intentionally choosing patients to reactivate depending on provider availability. 

Key Features of Patient Reactivation Software

There are many different software solutions on the market claiming to do patient reactivation; however, not every software is created equal, and many have unique features that would further optimize your reactivation efforts. Keeping in mind your practice’s unique patient reactivation goals and the digital support needed to accomplish these objectives, here are four key features of patient reactivation software to consider: 

Segmentation Capabilities

Patient segmentation is essential for effective patient reactivation as the process helps your practice reactivate according to its needs and specific goals. This tailored approach allows practices to ditch the random reactivation habits in favor of intentional outreach, empowering them to identify and target high-risk and high-value patients. However, many practices avoid this step because of its tedious and time-consuming nature and instead, reactivate solely based on last treatment date—a strategy ineffective for reaching practice goals and generating greater returns. Luckily, any effective patient reactivation software should streamline this important process by identifying and segmenting your lost to follow-up patients for you. With software like Brevium, practices can find and engage patients based on many different patient segments, including treatment history, billing history, insurance carrier, no-shows or cancellations, previous providers, treatment location, referrals, and more. Further, Brevium has patented the ability to mine practice databases for overdue patients using ICD-10 and CPT codes—a unique ability that allows practices to more effectively target and engage their highest priority patients. 

Automated Patient Outreach

Now more than ever, automation plays a prominent role in healthcare practices to help ease organizational stress brought about by industry-wide staffing shortages. By using patient reactivation software to streamline the time-consuming and repetitive task of patient outreach, practices eliminate the need for consistent staff availability while ensuring their contacts go out on schedule. Plus, automated solutions allow practices to send relevant, personalized patient communication on a greater scale, creating a more efficient reactivation campaign without needing staff intervention. 

When choosing your patient reactivation software, keep in mind not only the automation capabilities but also the contact methods at your disposal. Many practices and software solutions only utilize emails and texts to reach lost to follow-up patients; however, Brevium found in its ALOHA Study that 30 percent of overdue patients remain uncontacted when using text and email as the only outreach methods. For this reason, Brevium employs automated multi-channel communication that includes a mix of autocalls, letters, postcards, emails and texts to ensure practices are reaching the highest number of patients; in fact, Brevium found that using even one automated contact method with a higher reachability—think autocall or postcard—along with texts and emails will help practices reach more than 95 percent of their patients. 

Software Customization

With the right patient reactivation software, practices should be able to customize every aspect of the process to fit their individual needs and goals; otherwise, the software is a hinderance rather than an effective support tool. The following are common examples of how your chosen software solution should adapt to fit your needs:

• Patient Outreach: Choose which automated contact methods should be used on your behalf and whether the campaign should be centered around automated outreach, staff calls or both. Brevium offers a live caller program that can be used alongside automated outreach methods, allowing your staff to reach out to patients over the phone when they are able; after all, Brevium finds that staff calls are the single most effective method for returning inactive patients to practices due to its high reachability and slow decay. Having the ability to customize your outreach campaign is essential for seeing the highest returns and conversion rates. 
• Provider and Location: Targeting lost to follow-up patients based on provider and location appointment availability will help your practice maximize scheduling efficiency. For example, you may have a provider who may be too busy and does not want additional patients. You might also have a provider who recently retired or has left the practice. However, these providers still have lost to follow-up patients that need essential treatment. With Brevium, practices can contact these patients to meet with a doctor who has openings, further allowing practices to optimize their schedules and increase appointment volume.  
• Custom Codes: Some practices have unique guidelines in place when it comes to labeling or notating patients. If your chosen software cannot adapt to your practice’s notation system, the software will not be able to effectively find and reactivate lost to follow-up patients. Take the dermatology specialty for example. Though dermatology practices use the same ICD-10 and CPT codes to identify medical patients, every practice uses unique codes to track aesthetic procedures. This difference means that if dermatology practices want to reactivate cosmetic patients, they either must find them manually or customize their software to read their specific codes and find these patients. Luckily, practices can shape Brevium’s software to adapt to their own coding by working with Brevium’s support team to build out customizations within the software. 
• Diagnosis and Procedure Codes: While other software may have some segmentation capabilities that allow them to find and reactivate patients according to specific demographics, only Brevium has the unique ability to mine your database for patients using ICD-10 and CPT codes. This patented feature grants your practice the ability to target and prioritize its high-priority patients—especially those who may have high-risk conditions or bring more value to the practice. For example, Brevium customers frequently use the data mining tool to target patients with diagnoses who are more likely to need essential procedures. This way, the patients filling the schedule are those who are in greater need of treatment and eventually, the practice generates more revenue from performing surgeries and other procedures. 

Advanced Reporting Tools

Healthcare data is constantly evolving and without the right technology to manage and make sense of this information, practices are left to make important decisions based off assumptions and inaccurate data. By choosing a software that allows clinics to monitor key metrics and quickly analyze results, practices gain invaluable insight into the overall effectiveness of their campaigns and empowers them to make data-backed decisions to drive organizational growth. When it comes to reporting tools, Brevium’s mentality is that any software worth the investment will prove to you its worth. One of Brevium’s best features is its in-depth and accurate reporting tools that provide immediate insight into the success of your reactivation and retention efforts. With customizable reports that analyze every aspect of your reactivation campaign, Brevium arms you with the concrete data for fueling practice growth and maximizing profit potential. The following are examples of Brevium reports that customers use to gauge success:

• Contacts sent: tracks the total number of contacts sent and the communication channels used to reach these patients. 
• Appointments scheduled: tracks the total number of appointments scheduled and how many patients kept those appointments. 
• Revenue generated: total revenue brought in from lost to follow-up patients.
• Return on investment (ROI): tracks the amount of money the practice makes versus amount spent on reactivation.
• Patient type: patients currently being targeted for reactivation (i.e. by diagnosis, procedure codes, provider, no-shows, cancellations, last treatment date, insurance, etc.).
• Patient conversion rate: percentage of patients reactivated compared to contacts sent. 

Best Practices for Maximizing Profit with Reactivation Software

Capitalizing on the benefits of patient reactivation software requires your practice to be strategic with planning and implementation. Here are three strategies your practice can adopt to maximize the effectiveness of reactivation software and drive practice growth:

Prioritize and Target the Right Patients

Despite your software’s ability to find and group patients according to determined segments, your practice still must decide which patients to target first. Though patient reactivation software can send thousands of contacts daily, these contacts are still limited in number—meaning practices should have most of these contacts going to their highest priority patients. For most practices, high-priority patients are often those with high-risk, threatening diagnoses and those who may provide more value to the practice through continuous treatment. One of the most common ways Brevium customers use the software’s segmentation tools is by reactivating patients with diagnoses or conditions that will likely lead to additional procedures and surgeries. These patients bring incredible value to the practice because they aren’t coming back for just one appointment but will require multiple office visits and follow-ups to ensure the highest quality care. Though providers are driven by delivering compassionate care to their patients, healthcare practices are also businesses that rely on revenue generation, resource allocation and strategic planning to counteract the high costs of providing healthcare. Using a patient reactivation software to fill your providers’ busy schedules with the highest priority patients will help your practice’s operational efficiency and profit maximization. 

Implement Staff Calls with Automated Outreach

Many practices use patient reactivation software to completely automate the outreach process often due to lack of time, staffing shortages or simple convenience. However, keep in mind that staff calls are the single most effective outreach method for re-engaging your lost to follow-up patients and returning them to your practice. Not only do staff calls have the highest patient conversion rates, but they also maintain effectiveness with consecutive uses. Brevium understands that many practices don’t have the time to call inactive patients every day. For this reason, Brevium lets practices decide which outreach methods they’ll use and craft a customized reactivation campaign that utilizes automated outreach, staff calls or a mix of both. Further, practices that include staff calls in their patient outreach will have access to Brevium’s live caller program—a program that allows staff to call patients alongside automated outreach. Practices that implement this strategy could increase patient reactivation rates by 81 percent, ultimately allowing practices to capitalize on revenue potential and experience significant returns. 

Measure Your Success

Tracking financial metrics through your reactivation software’s advanced reporting tools is critical for maximizing profit and measuring operational performance. There are many different metrics your practice could track to evaluate the overall success of its reactivation campaign; however, using your patient reactivation software’s extensive tools to understand and evaluate the metrics that matter for maximizing revenue is critical for future growth and sustainability. The following are key financial indicators that will help your practice measure its performance, optimize workflows and ultimately, experience greater returns:

• Return on Investment (ROI): performance indicator measuring your return based on your investment (i.e. money, time, effort). 
• Total Revenue Generated: revenue generated from reactivated patients, 
• Cost Per Reactivated Patient: Average cost per reactivated patient. 
• Patient Conversion Rate: Percentage of patients reactivated compared to contacts sent. Helps your practice know which contact methods work best for your patient base. 

The Brevium Advantage: Success Stories and Testimonials

Unlike many other software solutions, Brevium has the tools and capabilities to transform healthcare organizations both large and small and grow with them through expansion. Brevium’s technology was purposely created to help practices realize their growth potential and access the untapped revenue dormant in their overdue patients. This patented, data-driven solution integrates with your practice management system to engage your lost to follow-up patients and fill provider schedules with those deemed highest priority. Below are just a few examples of why healthcare professionals across the nation enlist Brevium to help with maximizing profit and driving organic practice growth:

Schweiger Dermatology Group (SDG): SDG provides medical, cosmetic and surgical dermatology treatment to patients throughout the Northeast. Since the first office opened in 2010, SDG has expanded to over 110 locations and employs roughly 400 providers—establishing the group as the largest dermatology organization in the Northeast and one of the largest on the East Coast. This case study emphasizes how Brevium has been able to help a group as large as SDG experience stellar returns and how the organization plans to keep using Brevium through future acquisitions and expansion. After going live with the software in July 2022, these were the results as of January 2024:

• Brevium contacted over half a million patients of which nearly 100k returned for an in-office visit.
• Employed a variety of contact methods, with text/SMS accounting for around 48 percent of the appointments scheduled through Brevium.
• “In my role, I am looking for opportunities to build strong use experiences that efficiently create value. The case for Brevium is clear. Impact is measurable and ROI is positive.” – Laura Fink, Chief Marketing & Growth Officer

Eye Physicians/Vitreous Retina Macula Consultants of New York (VRMNY): Eye Physicians is a private practice of 12 internationally renowned ophthalmologists and retina experts providing specialized care across five different locations in New York City. Eye Physicians first learned of Brevium at trade show where COO Karen Medina was immediately interested in how the unique patient reactivation software could help them identify and re-engage their lost to follow-up patients to return for essential care. After going live with Brevium at the end of June 2023, Eye Physicians experienced these stellar returns in only seven months: 

• 30.1x ROI – Eye Physicians received $30.10 for every $1 paid to Brevium.
• One million dollars in additional revenue from reactivated patients alone.
• 246 lost to follow-up patients on their schedule within a month of using Brevium.
• 2,257 appointments scheduled by the end of 2023, with 1,718 of these patients already reactivated.
• “Brevium has been instrumental in our growth strategy, enabling us to quickly fill new appointment slots and ensure our patients continue to receive essential care. Its impact on keeping our providers busy and re-engaging lost to follow-up patients has been transformative for our practice.” – Karen Medina, Chief Operations Officer 

Carolina Allergy and Asthma Center (CAAC): CAAC is an asthma, allergy and immunology practice with over 70 years of experience delivering exceptional care to patients in the Charlotte, North Carolina area. Having expanded to over 14 locations since the first practice opened in 1952, the group has experienced tremendous growth and success in their field. CAAC practice administrator Charlie Furr first heard of Brevium’s transformative patient reactivation solutions through a peer at Southern Ear, Nose and Throat Allergy Physicians (SENTA) and was interested to see how the software could re-engage overdue patients—specifically those who had no-showed or cancelled appointments. After going live with Brevium in January 2022, CAAC saw these incredible returns after one year with the software:

• 37x ROI on office visits (not including surgical revenue) – CAAC received $37 for every $1 paid to Brevium.
• 5,500 patient reactivations.
• Relied solely on automated outreach methods (texts, emails and autocalls) with 42 percent of patients scheduling in response to the autocalls.
• “For every dollar we’ve paid to Brevium, we’ve received over $37 in revenue. You don’t find returns like that in the stock market. Quantitatively, it’s been very good for us.” – Rob Ellis, CAAC CFO

Conclusion

It’s evident how important patient reactivation software is for not only effectively re-engaging lost patients, but also receiving the highest return on investment by streamlining practice operations. Equipped with the right software best fit for your goals, you can begin to quickly and efficiently fill your schedule with the highest priority patients and access greater returns through the untapped revenue streams lost to follow-up patients provide. However, choosing the best software vendor for your practice is often easier said than done, and if the software doesn’t offer the right solutions, the system could be more of a hinderance than a helpful tool. Consider using Brevium’s patented reactivation software as your trusted solution; after all, Brevium is the pioneer and leader in patient reactivation technology created with the sole purpose of helping practices return lost and overdue patients back to the office. Brevium is more than just another software—it’s your trusted partner in boosting patient engagement and practice efficiency, ultimately ensuring your practice continues to enhance patient care and maximize its revenue and growth potential. 

Ready to take patient reactivation to the next level? Schedule a free demo with Brevium today!