February, 2014 - Los Angeles based Screenpush
launches Notifly, aiming to re-imagine the way small businesses save money.
With the launch of its new automated appointment reminder platform Notifly,
Screenpush is changing the way medical professionals and businesses approach
no-shows.
Every
day, thousands of scheduled appointments are missed in hospitals, medical
treatment centers, doctors’ offices, salons and other appointment-based
businesses, with costs and lost income totaling in the millions of dollars each
year. But now with Notifly, scheduling is easy and effective, with an automated
reminder system greatly reducing no-show rates and allowing organizational
managers to adjust schedules on the fly in the event of cancellations.
Notifly
works with 99% of cell phones, sending text message reminders in the days
leading up to an appointment, prompting clients and patients to confirm or
cancel their upcoming appointments. Scheduling desks use an intuitive
color-coded interface to keep track of daily appointments and work around
last-minute changes.
With
Notifly, businesses can expect no-show reductions of 65% or more, saving
thousands or even hundreds of thousands of dollars in unnecessary preparation
efforts and lost billing time.
“The
technology behind Notifly is advanced, but the logic is simple,” says CEO Josh
Otten, “save money, improve efficiency. The Notifly service is affordable and
pays for itself almost immediately. And the results will improve everything
about how a business functions. The idea came out of a very real problem facing
many businesses and health organizations in particular. And the product offers
a smooth and effective solution at a low cost.”
Any
appointment-based business has had to deal with the confusion and costly
inefficiency of no-shows. In some cases, no-show rates can run as high as 50%.
There is the revenue lost from the appointment itself, and then the wasted
costs of preparation time and materials, which run on average between $150 and
$500 per no-show in the case of medical practices, according to health systems
expert Elizabeth Woodcock.
Solutions
to the problem have been elusive. Charging clients for missed appointments has
produced mixed results, with many claiming it creates a harmfully antagonistic
business relationship. Overbooking has been a popular response, but a crowded
schedule leads to long, frustrating delays for clients and ultimately encourage
no-shows. And while studies have shown that at least 40% of missed appointments
can be attributed to simple forgetting, businesses have struggled to find an
efficient reminder system. Phone calls are bothersome -- one study by the
Consumer Health Information Corporation (CHIC) showed that only 1.3% of
respondents would like to receive phone call reminders -- and expensive, in
terms of the labor costs involved in making them. Snail mail is slow and
unlikely to elicit a response. Emails, too, often go unopened.
Text
messaging is a vastly better answer to the no-show problem. According to a CHIC
study, 41.3% of respondents would like to receive text messages reminding them
of their appointments. Overall, 85% of text messages are opened within one hour
of being delivered, and a study performed by Royal Children’s Hospital in
Australia found that 90.2% of patients who received text advisories beforehand
eventually attended their appointments. At Adelaide Meath Hospital in Ireland,
a similar study lead to 29.6% reductions in overall no-show rates, including a
63% reduction in patients aged 16-30. An SMS alert pilot system implemented by
Kaiser Permanente reduced no-shows by almost 2,000 appointments and saved a
single clinic over $275,000 a year in added business. The problem is that many
existing text alert systems are expensive and complicated for users.
Several
services have attempted to curb the cost generated by no-show appointments, but
none achieved to do this using an interface as simple as that Notifly which
automatically sends reminders and displays reminders sent in an easy-to-oversee
environment.
Notifly
costs users as low as 2-4 cents per reminder, whereas existing competitors can
cost as much as 50 cents per reminder. Instead of complicated response forms,
clients can respond with a simple ‘Y’ for yes or ‘N’ for no to Notifly’s text
reminders. Notifly automatically tracks appointments, using a running
statistical analysis to choose the optimal time to send a reminder. A colorful,
easily navigated calendar confirms that the message has been sent and updates
the schedule display, with green time slots indicating a confirmation, red
indicating a cancellation, and yellow indicating a pending response. Scheduling
managers know as soon as a client has confirmed or cancelled, allowing the
maximum amount of time for adjustments and eliminating the need for
overbooking.
“Not
only does Notifly save businesses money, but it also improves their operating
efficiency, making things easier for employees and more streamlined for the
clients themselves,” says CEO Josh Otten.
With
Notifly, businesses have an inexpensive, automated scheduling system that is
easy to track, easy to manage and proven to save businesses money and improve
business functioning.
Notify’s parent company,
Screenpush, was founded in 2009 as a strategic mobile, social and interactive
marketing firm. Screenpush specializes in helping brands connect with their
audiences in the digital space and beyond, and it works with agency partners,
Fortune 500 brands, and small-to-medium sized businesses in creating original
marketing and technology solutions. Screenpush is also incubating a number of
its own startups, showing clients large and small that the company practices
what is preaches.
About Screenpush
Founded in 2009 as a strategic
mobile, social and interactive marketing firm, Screenpush specializes in
helping brands connect with their audiences in the digital space and beyond. We
work with agency partners, Fortune 500 brands, and small-to-medium sized
businesses in creating original marketing and technology solutions. Our
immensely talented team of marketers, designers, strategists, creatives, social
media experts, and techies has more than 50 years combined experience in
advertising, marketing, design, technology, editorial, sales, business
development, and CRM. We'd like you to regard Screenpush as your partner for
digital marketing and technology solutions.
Contact Information
Name:
Eddie Arrieta
E-mail:
eddie@brownsteinegusa.com
Phone
Number: 646-580-6997
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