The Changing Landscape of the New Consumerism and the Impact of Convenience
Today’s healthcare consumers demand convenience.  They demand more patient-friendly services that provide more information about treatment options, quality and price.  Convenience has become the most important element for revenue growth, and revenue cycle management has become more complex as demographic trends shift toward less profitable case mixes, making positive patient and physician relations more important than ever.  Due to this trend, consumers feel the need to be more informed and in charge of their healthcare delivery, and realize there are choices out there.  They require the same conveniences they receive in other industries, including unrestricted access to scheduling services. 

This patient-centered, consumer-focused model requires passion, commitment, reinforcement, and continuous education.  The web has become a significant medium for consumer education in general, as well as access to products and services, including payment alternatives.  Hospitals have found that if they do not participate in such a model, they are committing themselves to the risk of poor quality.  With all of the other risks and financial pressures the current economic situation has put on today’s healthcare environment, you can’t afford to sacrifice quality.  By embracing an open, transparent, and patient-centered environment, huge gains in safety and quality are attained. 

Consumer Access and Scheduling for Healthcare (CASH)
Unibased's web-based patient portal is a unique solution designed to improve communications between consumers and their healthcare providers.  Its primary goal during these times of busy patient lifestyles is to ensure convenient access to services while assisting your healthcare organization in obtaining the most current demographic data and incorporating measures to assure patient privacy and safety.  The benefits accrue to hospitals, clinics and their associated physician offices.  However, the major benefit is provided to the patient who is given an alternative process for scheduling or re-scheduling a visit to meet the changing needs and priorities of an active lifestyle.  With Unibased's consumer portal, your patients will enjoy a complete scheduling functionality without requiring scheduler intervention, a value-added functionality for those with busy lifestyles who are not able to contact your scheduling department during normal operational hours. 

With these benefits, your healthcare organization will realize:

• Improved patient satisfaction with the ability to choose best location and time to meet their busy schedule.
• Expanded marketing capabilities to support tracking of targeted promotions.
• Ease of administration with the ability to link off your existing facility web site.
• Enhanced patient safety using the existing facility procedure listing as well as attached clinical questions and alerts.
• Reduced no-shows with integrated clinical preps and instructions to ensure proper preparation.
• Reduced departmental resources leading to increased capabilities or options to reduce staff.
• Improved physician satisfaction due to reduced demand on support staff and reduced time on phone with facility scheduling office.
• Easy identification of physicians providing referrals, even if not in medical staff or physician listing.

Major features of CASH include:

• Password protected access - anytime, anywhere.
• Complete patient itinerary to review, print, or email.
• Validation of demographic and insurance information, with routing to a scheduler queue if data in the MPI needs to be changed.
• Recognized MPI-verified patients upon return.
• Ability to reschedule or cancel previously scheduled events.
• Facility control of procedures offered for scheduling selection.
• Incorporation of existing clinical questions, with internal intelligence to determine if the procedure selected is appropriate based upon the clinical question answers.
• Ability to select one or multiple procedures.
• Ability to select from multiple locations where procedure(s) are performed, with the first available openings automatically presented for selection.
• Inclusion of the prep and instruction text for each procedure.
• Online and email confirmation of the scheduled event to the patient.