Outbound IVA for Appointment Reminders
How DecisivEdge Helped a Behavioral Health Provider Improve Appointment Show Rates with an Intelligent Virtual Agent
At a Glance
A growing behavioral health company was experiencing less than satisfactory outpatient appointment show rates. Patients were missing appointments because they forgot, or didn’t put the appointment on their calendar, or couldn’t get a ride to the facility to meet with their counselor.
The practice was for advisors to manually call patients to remind them of their scheduled appointment date and time, but did not involve scheduling an outbound call with IVA contact center.
If the patient didn’t pick up, the advisor would leave a voicemail with the appointment date and time and manually send out a text message to the patient’s cell phone they had on file.
The process was ineffective, inefficient, and expensive to staff. There was a cost effective solution by implementing an outbound IVA contact center solution available in Five9.
DecisivEdge CX Transformation team helped design and implement Five9’s Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) to automate the outpatient appointment reminder process and improve the organization’s show rates.
Five9 outbound IVA contact center solution automates the appointment reminder for patients all the while letting patient advisors focus on critical functions.
The Challenge
A growing behavioral health provider was facing lower-than-expected outpatient appointment show rates. Patients were missing appointments for several reasons: they forgot the date and time, failed to add the appointment to their calendar, or had transportation challenges getting to the facility.
These missed appointments created several operational and financial challenges. Staff time was not being used efficiently, appointment slots were going unfilled, and patients were not receiving timely access to the care they needed.
The existing process was highly manual. Patient advisors had to call patients one by one to remind them of upcoming appointments. If the patient did not answer, the advisor would leave a voicemail and manually send a text message. This process was time-consuming, inconsistent, and expensive to staff at scale.
To solve this, the organization engaged DecisivEdge to design and implement an Outbound IVA solution using Five9’s Intelligent Virtual Agent.
The Solution
DecisivEdge’s CX Transformation team worked with the client to design an automated appointment reminder process using Five9’s Intelligent Virtual Agent.
The project included defining business requirements, documenting call flows, establishing call timing rules, and working with Five9 Studio engineers to implement the Outbound IVA solution.
Because patient appointment data was stored in the organization’s EMR and not directly available in Salesforce, DecisivEdge also designed a process to push appointment date and time data from the EMR into Salesforce in near real time. Once the data was available in Salesforce, DecisivEdge’s Salesforce and Five9 engineers built and activated an API that allowed the Outbound IVA to access the most current appointment information before placing reminder calls.
This ensured patients received accurate, timely appointment reminders without requiring staff to manually manage each outreach.
How the Outbound IVA Works
The Outbound IVA runs automatically based on custom time-of-day parameters built into the solution. When a patient appointment meets the timing criteria and the appointment status in Salesforce is marked as “not confirmed,” the Intelligent Virtual Agent retrieves the patient’s phone number and places the reminder call.
If the patient answers, the IVA provides the option to either confirm the appointment or reschedule. When a patient confirms, the appointment status is automatically updated in Salesforce. If the patient needs to reschedule, the IVA connects them directly to a live agent for support.
A key advantage of the solution is that patients do not need to press buttons to respond. Using Natural Language Processing, the Intelligent Virtual Agent allows patients to respond verbally, making the experience more natural, accessible, and user-friendly.
The Impact
The Outbound IVA helped the behavioral health provider create a more efficient, automated appointment reminder process while improving the patient experience. Staff who were previously dedicated to manual reminder calls were redeployed to support new patients entering the business.
The organization also saw improved appointment show rates and a positive impact on outpatient revenue. By automating reminder calls and making it easier for patients to confirm or reschedule appointments, the solution helped reduce missed appointments and improve care access.
Key Benefits
- Automated outbound appointment reminders
- Reduced manual calling and follow-up work
- Improved appointment show rates
- Fewer missed and rescheduled appointments
- Verbal response capability through Natural Language Processing
- Better staff utilization
- Improved patient experience and satisfaction
- Integration between EMR, Salesforce, and Five9
DecisivEdge Solution Highlights
- Built using Five9’s Intelligent Virtual Agent
- Designed as an Outbound IVA for appointment reminders
- Integrated with Salesforce for real-time appointment updates
- Connected EMR appointment data into Salesforce
- Customizable based on time-of-day calling rules
- Supports live-agent transfer for rescheduling needs