The ease of online appointment booking for healthcare scheduling has become a commonplace expectation across the healthcare industry. Offering an easy-to-use appointment scheduling experience through your digital health platform is often one of the first touchpoints a patient has with your service, and can be the deciding factor when choosing your services.

Given the global pandemic, it’s no surprise that health and wellness services are by far the most popular bookable online services. Coupled with the need for healthcare providers to also find ease in managing their schedule, medical  scheduling stands as one of the most important features in t’s any healthcare delivery software. 

What Is Scheduling Software in Healthcare?

Healthcare providers today depend on a robust medical office scheduling software in their healthcare back office system, ideally one that can improve their workflows and connect with other necessary business features, such as patient onboarding, charting, and reporting. Recent online booking research suggests that these tools have proven to be highly beneficial to organizations, helping them boost both patient loyalty and operational efficiency. All of these can only result in more profits.

For any digital health company needing a robust clinic scheduling software , leveraging an API for healthcare scheduling can serve as a cost-efficient  way to build out a complex feature that will be fully functional from the start. There’s no need to invest the time and resources into building a scheduling feature from scratch, when open scheduling APs, like Healthie, can be utilized. Want to learn more about our Free Starter Plan? Click here.

However, not all healthcare scheduling APIs are created equal. Choosing the best scheduling API for your digital health platform will depend on the features your healthcare providers and patients will need to find success. The best scheduling API for your business will handle all the complexities of calendar management, and provide a powerful API and open-source widgets for your business. 

What Are the Benefits of Scheduling Software?

• Greater patient satisfaction: Patients like having control over their scheduling options in an easy to use program.
• Schedule anytime, anywhere: Appointments can be easily booked even when your office is closed.
• Reduced call volume: More self-scheduled clients means less calls for your practice.
• Fewer scheduling errors: Artificial Intelligence makes less mistakes than humans do.
• Lower patient acquisition costs: Patients prefer self-scheduling, and have even been known to seek platforms that offer it.
• Increased patient retention: Patients want to continue using comprehensive platforms that offer them freedom and convenience.

Maximized revenue: reduced no-shows, enhanced accuracy, and greater patient acquisition means more cash for your practice.

Features to look for in an API for Healthcare Scheduling 

Convenient online scheduling

Looking at appointment scheduling data from BookedIn, 46% of over 1 million appointments booked in 2019 were self-booked by patients. Moreover, 50% of people say they prefer to book appointments online.  

Online booking URLs and embeds are critical for modern healthcare delivery, and especially, healthcare scheduling software. Adding a link, button, or scheduling widget directly to your website, can directly increase the number of sessions booked, and drive profits. The same BookedIn data also shows that the most popular times for patients to book appointments are Sunday evenings from 4:00 - 8:00pm. Patient Pop, found similar data, with 34.3% of appointments booked online being scheduled during closed office hours.   

Enabling patients to self-book at the time that is most convenient for them can directly increase the number of sessions booked. There’s also the added benefit of an improved patient experience, and patient satisfaction that comes along with offering online booking. 

Build Smarter, Launch Faster

Whether you’re looking for clinic or hospital scheduling software, Healthier offers a comprehensive software solution specifically designed for digital health startups.

Multiprovider calendar support 

Does your digital health platform support multiple healthcare providers that need to coordinate care? In that case, you’ll need the ability to access and share a multiprovider calendar in your healthcare back office. This will allow multiple healthcare providers to set their individual availability, and for admins and office assistants to manage all bookings from a unified calendar. A multiprovider calendar can also work across multiple office locations, providing a centralized, and real-time, way to manage bookings. Healthie’s Calendar feature offers all of this and more. To set up your free Starter account and start using our clinic appointment scheduling software today, click here.

Manage availability 

Before a patient can book an appointment, their healthcare provider needs to have availability. While a basic concept, the ease of setting availability can be a major differentiator between different healthcare scheduling softwares. Can providers set one-time openings in their schedule, alongside recurring availability? Is there the option to block off time from their schedule? Can time buffers be set between appointments, to allow the provider to complete necessary work such as charting, prior to admitting the next patient? 

Choosing a scheduling API that supports a high level control over scheduling availability helps to prevent any double-bookings, overscheduling, as well as improves a healthcare provider's workflows. 

Healthcare scheduling with different appointment types

For most healthcare providers, there is a need to create various different appointment types (ie. initial consultations, discovery calls, follow-up appointments, and more). Each appointment type can be customized, including the length of time, location, and even how the session will be conducted (in-person, telehealth).

More than ever, medical office scheduling software that supports easy to book and launch telehealth appointments is critical to the success of businesses. According to the CDC, the number of telehealth visits increased 50% in the first quarter of 2020 (and even up to 154% at certain points during the early days of the pandemic). While this uptick correlated with Covid management, it’s well documented that telehealth care is here to stay. 

For digital health platforms looking to integrate telehealth alongside their medical scheduling software, it’s key to look for an API healthcare scheduling integration that can offer HIPAA-compliant video services. Another consideration is to seek out telehealth offerings that make it convenient to launch sessions, and won’t require plug-ins or companion apps.

Sync with outside calendars

Any robust scheduling API worth its salt is going to offer the ability to sync with outside calendars such as iCal, Google, and Outlook. Having to managing multiple calendars (ie. personal and office schedules) is a true source of frustration amongst healthcare providers, one that is completely eliminated with an easy calendar sync. 

Send automated appointment reminders

Not only is online scheduling a source of increased bookings, it can also help to minimize no-shows in any healthcare practice, which is a known source of revenue loss.

Healthcare scheduling tools that are tied to automatica appointment reminders, whether by email and/or SMS text, demonstrate immediate success improving appointment attendance. Adding appointment reminders can decrease no-show rates by 29%. 

Automate patient onboarding and e-paperwork

After a patient books an appointment, more often than not, there is a degree of onboarding that needs to occur. This can include having patients sign policies or agreements, provide billing details, or complete assessments. 

A robust scheduling software will enable patient onboarding to be automatically triggered, for patients to conveniently complete prior to their appointment. You’ll want to look for a platform that meets security standards, such as HIPAA- and PCI- compliant, to ensure that any private health or financial data is secure. Healthie’s free Starter plan is 100% HIPAA- & PCI compliant, sign up for a free account today.

Healthcare scheduling with patient portal access 

Another unique integration feature that you may want to consider when vetting scheduling APIs, is the ability for patients to log into their own patient portal. Within a patient portal, patients can typically maintain more aspects about their healthcare, from booking more appointments, to messaging their healthcare provider, completing e-paperwork, sharing documents, and more. 

Having a scheduling feature that is integrated with a comprehensive patient portal helps to engage patients, which goes a long way in patient retention, not to mention improved health outcomes.

Mobile calendar management 

Clinic appointment scheduling software for both patients and healthcare providers is needed more than just at the office. Leading edge scheduling software supports calendar management and appointment booking that is mobile-friendly. According to 2019 data by Allied Market Research, the estimated annual growth rate of the appointment scheduling software market’s native mobile app segment is 14.6%. Leveraging an API for healthcare scheduling that offers a mobile app booking option will allow you to bring online booking into your own app, further driving the convenience and profits that accompany easy online patient booking.

Healthie’s Scheduling API for Digital Health Startups 

Choosing a scheduling API that supports the functionality needed by your digital health platform is key. Healthie’s API is designed for digital health startups that are looking to build their business on top of the industry’s leading technology. 

Apart from having a robust scheduling feature, Healthie offers their entire feature set through a single API. Get access to Healthie’s robust patient scheduling feature alongside billing, EHR, telehealth, client engagement features, and more. The entire product can be semi- or fully white labeled .

Key aspects of Healthie’s API for healthcare scheduling: 

• Online patient booking 
• Automated appointment reminders (email & SMS) 
• Electronic patient onboarding & e-paperwork 
• Support for multiple locations & rooms
• Multi-provider calendar 
• Two-way sync with Google, iCal, and Outlook
• Companion mobile app 
  

Interested in learning more about Healthie’s scheduling API for digital health startups? Get in touch with our team today by filling out our contact form.