With digitization taking over the healthcare sector, personalizing patient communication is becoming increasingly important.

AI has enabled practices to deliver personalized, efficient care regardless of the number of patients in their database. In this article, I will discuss how AI impacts the healthcare industry and the opportunities it provides for practices ready to join the revolution.

The Growing Role of AI in Healthcare

Artificial Intelligence has taken over several operational activities that otherwise require 100s of hours of manual labor.

Appointment scheduling and reminders, treatment plans, payment plans, e-prescriptions, and more are now efficient and personalized. This means your staff can move away from operational redundancies and focus on providing better patient care.

Why Personalized Care Matters

Imagine two practices: one uses generic communication with the same messaging to every patient in the database, while the other personalizes each message according to patient details, preferences, and medical history.

The response rate is bound to be higher for the second practice. Why? Because the messaging resonates with the patient's individual needs.

Smart practice owners understand the importance of patient retention for practice growth and, therefore, focus on personalization in patient intake, communication, and treatment plans.

Role of AI in Patient Communication Software

Artificial intelligence is a game-changer for practices that want to maintain better patient relationships and provide more personalized care.

AI augments every touchpoint in the patient journey, relieving administrative stress from the staff so they can focus on creating a better patient experience. Here are 3 ways AI augments patient communication:

1. AI Office receptionist

2. Patient note-taking with ambient option

3. Treatment planning & Diagnosis

Let's take a brief look at each of these.

AI Office receptionist

Have you ever wondered how many more appointments you can add to your practice if no phone calls are missed after office hours, on weekends, or during holidays?

While keeping your office open without a break is impossible, AI assistants have made it a reality.

AI assistants have been a game-changer for busy practices. When there is an overflow of phone calls during a busy day, your AI assistant can take on a supplementary role to ensure there are no missed appointments or administrative mess-ups.

With 24/7 availability to assist patients, AI assistants can respond to patient queries and allow them to set up a date and time that suits them best, whether after office hours, on a weekend, or during holidays.

AI assistants can conduct real-time conversations with patients about their personal details, insurance coverage, preferred time of appointment, and health history before setting up an appointment based on the practitioner’s availability.

This is not all; your AI assistant can also answer patients' frequently asked questions. Most dental offices spend much of their day answering the same questions: “What do I do in case of toothache?” “When can I visit your office?” “Do you accept my insurance?” AI office receptionists can handle these queries automatically by providing patients with accurate, up-to-date information. And if more information is required, they can pass on the queries to the concerned individuals.

AI-Powered Patient Notes:

Taking patient notes is a critical step in treatment planning and follow-ups, but managing clinical documentation is a time-consuming process. Recording, organizing, and using notes for communication purposes requires several hours of manual labor by the staff and doctors.

Consider a situation where a patient came in for a consultation. If essential details from your interaction with the patient are not recorded in real-time, they may be overlooked later.

With AI-powered note-taking, doctor notes are automatically transcribed and recorded to ensure the information is accurate and the conversation is uninterrupted.

Here are two ways AI facilitates notes taking:

1. Transcribing voice notes recorded and dictated by the doctor.

2. Transcribing voice notes that are automatically recorded by a smartphone.

In either case, the AI-powered voice recording can identify and request missing information before the consultation is over.

It transcribes these voice notes into documentation required for compliance and insurance reporting purposes, eliminates irrelevant conversations and keeps only notes and details related to the patient's diagnosis and treatment plan.

This leads to more consistent, accurate, and efficient documentation and more focused patient-doctor communication, which improves patient satisfaction and retention.

AI-Powered Treatment Planning and Diagnosis

One of AI's most powerful impacts in the healthcare sector has been on treatment planning and diagnosis. Making the correct diagnosis is critical to patient care. When dealing with complex cases or patients with a long medical history, the process can be time-consuming and prone to errors.

This is where AI-powered tools can act as your digital assistants. They can analyze X-rays and scans and identify underlying issues such as fractures, cavities, and gum diseases so you no longer have to worry about missing critical information on a busy day.

Consider a situation where you prepare a detailed orthodontic report and treatment plan for your patient. The treatment is complicated, and the plan is lengthy and expensive. Your patient seems skeptical about proceeding.

With AI, you can show a visual image of their current condition, generate simulations to show how the treatment will proceed, and present the impact of not proceeding with the treatment plan. Your patient will walk away better equipped to make a more informed decision about the treatment plan.

With the help of AI, analyzing complex medical histories with multiple underlying issues, creating a visual roadmap of the treatment plan, and generating simulations that help your patients better understand the treatment plan is easier than ever.

The results? Higher efficiency, efficient treatment plan, and better treatment plan acceptance rates.

Investing in AI can yield long-term benefits for your practice. However, it is essential to make sure that the AI tools you are selecting are HIPAA-compliant and have built-in features focused on encryption, access control, and security audits to protect sensitive patient data.

It may also be challenging to make patients and staff feel comfortable with the transition towards AI-focused solutions for your practice. Therefore, proper staff training and patient onboarding are necessary to make the transition smooth, efficient, and effective.

AI is already making waves in the healthcare sector. Are you ready to embrace the change?

• Automated Reminders: Automated reminders help practices send customized reminders to patients to improve show rates. These reminders can be personalized to include patient names, appointments, treatment details, and the doctor’s information and sent via emails, SMS, or in-app notifications.

  They are usually sent at intervals that ensure better patient engagement and response rates.

• AI-Driven Predictive Analytics: Artificial intelligence can help you predict patient health needs using their history, visits to the clinic and treatments taken, and tailor the communication and treatment plans accordingly.

  You can send health tips, set up hygiene reminders, or customized treatment plan reminders. This lets your practice stay engaged with the patients, improves patient engagement rates, and produces better results overall.

• Chatbots and Virtual Voice Assistants: AI-powered chatbots and voice assistants offer patients a personalized experience. They respond to queries 24/7 and are trained to answer common questions, schedule appointments, and even provide customized responses based on the patient’s history.

  The voice assistants can act like virtual office assistants and give your patients the feeling of conversing with a real person.

Benefits of AI-Enabled Patient-Doctor Communication

AI has transformed patient experience and increased the efficiency of operations for practices that have embraced the future and shifted their focus on patient care. Here are some ways in which you can also take advantage of automated, AI-driven practice management tools.

• Increased Efficiency: AI allows staff to move away from redundant operations by taking over repetitive operational activities, allowing them to focus better on patient care.
• Error Reduction: AI-driven appointment scheduling, note taking, patient data management, and follow-ups significantly reduce data-related errors, and practices can become more efficient and effective in providing patients with the quality of care they need.
• 24/7 Availability: The AI chatbots and voice assistants are available around the clock to answer patient queries and offer assistance with appointment scheduling, follow-ups, reminders, and more even after office hours.
• Enhanced Patient Experience: Personalized experiences tailored to patient information, treatment history, and health conditions lead to more meaningful interactions, improve the quality of care provided, and increase patient retention.

Overcoming Challenges in AI Implementation

Investing in AI for your practice can yield long-term advantages. It empowers your staff to focus on patients rather than tasks, allows doctors to make more informed decisions, and creates better, more personalized patient experiences. However, adopting new technology comes with its own set of challenges.

Here's how you can overcome two of the most common objections to adopting new technology in your practice.

Implementing AI in healthcare presents challenges, especially in data security. HIPAA-compliant AI tools have built-in features focused on encryption, access control, and security audits to protect sensitive patient data.

Staff and patients are likely to be resistant to change. Patients may feel reluctant due to a lack of human contact, whereas staff may not comfortably transition towards technology. Proper staff training and patient onboarding are, therefore, necessary to make the transition smooth, efficient, and effective.

Future Trends: What's Next for AI in Patient Communication?

The way technology is evolving, AI is bound to create more groundbreaking opportunities for healthcare practices. AI-enabled practices can use predictive analytics to use patient data from their existing EMR to offer educational resources, preventive care, and a more personalized patient experience to maintain long-term health advantages.

AI virtual appointments and telehealth will allow end-to-end patient interaction through scheduling and follow-up much more seamlessly. Real-time and remote health monitoring will allow providers to address underlying health concerns that are likely to turn into long-term health issues.

Conclusion

Patient experience is crucial for practices to stand out from the crowd, and this is precisely where AI comes into play. AI is changing not only patient-provider interaction but also improving the overall face of the healthcare sector.

By automating regular activities, staff can dedicate valuable time to improving patient experience without compromising data integrity. However, for any change to be effective, it is crucial to follow specific protocols to avoid common pitfalls that can impact the transition and cause resistance.

Smart practice owners take a more planned approach to automating their operations so that the staff and patients feel empowered and not overwhelmed by the new experiences.

If you are a practice owner, you can not avoid joining the AI revolution that has already started making waves in the healthcare industry. So take a step back and let your practice use AI-driven tools to improve the patient experience.