Method and apparatus for identifying and contacting customers who are due for a visit but have not scheduled an appointment

• US 8,458,001 B2
• Filed: 04/26/2012
• Issued: 06/04/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 07/10/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Brevium Incorporated
• Original Assignee: Brevium Incorporated
• Inventors: Gerlach, Brett Cornell, Perrin, Brian William
• Primary Examiner(s): Rines, David
• Assistant Examiner(s): FEACHER, LORENA R
• Application Number:
  US13/457,058
• Publication Number:
  US 20120271674A1
• Time in Patent Office: 404 Days
• Field of Search: 705/7.12, 705/13, 705/18, 705/19, 705/21
• US Class Current: 705/7.12
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0631 Resource planning, allocation, distributing or scheduling for enterprises or organisations
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/109 Time management, e.g. calendars, reminders, meetings or time accounting
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1093 Calendar-based scheduling for persons or groups
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1095 Meeting or appointment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/1097 Task assignment
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 30/0201 Market modelling; Market analysis; Collecting market data
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 10/60 for patient-specific data, e.g. for electronic patient records
• CPC Class Codes: G16H 40/20 for the management or administration of healthcare resources or facilities, e.g. managing hospital staff or surgery rooms

Abstract

A management database is queried to determine which customers have failed to respond to recall notices. The resulting list of customers may be sorted or filtered so that some customers are preferentially contacted first, based on expected value or office preferences. The list may also be sorted or filtered to fill specific providers'"'"' schedules first. Customer names and contact information are then presented to schedulers so that customers may be contacted. The time and date of each contact is automatically recorded along with the outcome of the contact. A customer name is presented to a scheduler only if the same name is not being simultaneously presented to other schedulers and that customer was not too recently contacted, so that redundant or too frequent contacts are avoided.

Claims

1. A method for scheduling an appointment for a customer in an office having one or more persons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in a computer-implemented office management system, the computer-implemented office management system describing each customer and appointment according to one or more attributes which influence profitability or office preferences and storing information in an office management system electronic database, comprising the steps of:

a) querying by a contact management program executing on a computer the office management system electronic database to determine a first class of customers whose appointments have not been scheduled despite reminding the customer at least once to schedule the appointment,

b) sorting the first class of customers according to an expected appointment value, so that customers whose appointments have a higher expected appointment value are presented for contact before customers whose appointments have a lower expected appointment value, wherein the expected appointment value comprises an amount of revenue expected from the appointment that is to be scheduled, wherein the amount of revenue expected from the appointment to be scheduled is based on an average billings per visit of each customer in the first class of customers

c) displaying contact information associated with a customer belonging to the first class of customers on a computer screen to prompt one or more persons to personally contact the named customer to schedule the appointment for the customer, wherein the expected appointment value associated with the customer being displayed to the one or more persons is higher than the expected appointment value of customers in the first class of customers that have not been displayed,

d) personally contacting the customer to schedule the appointment, the personal contact being made by at least one of the one or more persons,

e) noting the results of the contact in an electronic database, and

f) noting the time of step d).

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein step b) further consists of determining the average billings per visit based on the type of insurance or payment claims to which customer belongs.

3. The method according to claim 2, wherein step d) further comprises:

in response to the contact result indicating an incorrect phone number,

looking up and presenting a list of phone numbers for the customer to a person making the personal contact.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein step d) further comprises:

in response to the contact result indicating an incorrect phone number,

looking up and presenting a list of phone numbers for the customer to a person making the personal contact.

5. The method according to claim 1, where step b) further consists of sorting the first class of customers by at least one of a provider or location based on which of the at least one provider or location has the lightest schedule.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein step b) further comprises:

in response to the contact result indicated an incorrect phone number,

looking up and presenting a list of phone numbers for the customer to a person making the personal contact.

7. The method according to claim 1, where step b) further consists of sorting the first class of customers based on the appointment type, so that specific slots dedicated to specific appointment types can be filled.

8. The method according to claim 1, where step b) further consists of sorting the first class of customers based on the appointment type, so that appointment types which yield the highest average revenue are scheduled first.

25. The method according to claim 1, wherein the office is an office selected from a class of offices including a medical office, a dental office, and a law office.

9. A method for scheduling an appointment for a customer in an office having one or more persons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in a computer-implemented office management system, the computer-implemented office management system describing each customer and appointment according to one or more attributes which influence profitability or office preferences and including an office management system electronic database, comprising the steps of:

a) querying by a contact management computer program executing on a computer the office management system electronic database to determine a first class of customers who are due back for a visit according to accepted standards of care or office policies, but have not been scheduled for an appointment,

b) sorting the first class of customers according to an expected appointment value, so that all customers whose appointments have a higher expected appointment value are presented for contact before customers whose appointments have a lower than expected appointment value, wherein the expected appointment value comprises an amount of revenue expected from the appointment to be scheduled, wherein the amount of the revenue expected from the appointment to be scheduled is based on an average billings per visit of each of the customers,

c) displaying contact information associated with a customer belonging to the first class of customers on a computer screen to prompt one or more persons to personally contact named customer belonging to the first class of customers to schedule the appointment for the customer, wherein the expected appointment value associated with the customer being displayed to the one or more persons is higher than the expected appointment value of customers in the first class of customers that have not been displayed,

d) personally contacting the customer to schedule the appointment, the personal contact being made by at least one of the one or more persons,

e) noting the results of the contact in an electronic database, and

f) noting the time of step d).

10. The method according to claim 9, wherein step b) further consists of determining the average billings per visit based on the type of insurance or payment class to which the customer belongs.

11. The method according to claim 9, where step b) further consists of sorting the first class of customers by at least one of a provider or location based on which of the at least one provider or location has the lightest schedule.

12. The method according to claim 9, where step b) further consists of sorting the first class of customers based on an appointment type, so that specific slots dedicated to specific appointment types can be filled.

13. The method according to claim 9, where step b) further consists of sorting the first class of customers based on an appointment type, so that appointment types which yield the highest average revenue are scheduled first.

14. The method according to claim 9, wherein the office is an office selected from the class of offices including a medical office, a dental office, and a law office.

15. An apparatus for scheduling an appointment for a customer in an office having one or more persons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in an office management system, the office management system describing each customer and appointment according to one or more attributes which influence profitability or office preferences, comprising:

a) a computer programmed to query the office management system to determine a first class of customers whose appointments have not been scheduled despite reminding the customer at least once to schedule the appointment,

b) a computer programmed to sort the first class of customers according to an expected appointment value, so that customers whose appointments have a higher expected appointment value are presented for contact before customers whose appointments have a lower expected appointment value, wherein the expected appointment value comprises an amount of revenue expected from the appointment that is to be scheduled, wherein the amount of revenue expected from the appointment to be scheduled is based on an average billings per visit of each of the customers in the first class of customers,

c) a computer programmed to prompt one or more persons to personally contact a customer belonging to the first class of customers to schedule the appointment for the customer, wherein the expected appointment value associated with the customer to be personally contacted is higher than the expected appointment value of customers in the first class of customers that have not been displayed, and

d) a computer programmed to record the results and time of the contact.

16. The apparatus according to claim 15, wherein the computer programmed to sort the first class of customers determines the average billings per visit based on the type of insurance pr payment class to which the customer belongs.

17. The apparatus according to claim 15, where the computer programmed to sort the first class of customers is further programmed to sort the first class of customers based on an appointment type, so that specific slots dedicated to specific appointment types can be filled.

18. The apparatus according to claim 15, where the computer programmed to sort the first class of customers is further programmed to sort the first class of customers by at least one of a provider or location based on which of the at least one provider or location has the lightest schedule.

19. The apparatus according to claim 15, where the computer programmed to sort the first class of customers is further programmed to sort the first class of customers based on an appointment type, so that appointment types which yield the highest average revenue are scheduled first.

21. The apparatus according to claim 19, wherein the computer programmed to sort the first class of customers further determines the average billings per visit based on the type of insurance or payment class to which the customer belongs.

26. The method according to claim 15, wherein the office is an office selected from a class of offices including a medical office, a dental office, and a law office.

20. An apparatus for scheduling an appointment for a customer in an office having one or more persons tasked with scheduling appointments for the office in an office management system, the office management system describing each customer and appointment according to one or more attributes which influence profitability or office preferences, comprising:

a) a computer programmed to query the office management system to determine a first class of customers who are due back for a visit according to accepted standards of care or office policies, but have not been scheduled for an appointment,

b) the computer programmed to sort the first class of customers according to an expected appointment value, so that customers whose appointments have a higher expected appointment value are presented for contact before customers whose appointments have a lower expected appointment value, wherein the expected appointment value comprises an amount of revenue expected from the appointment that is to be scheduled, wherein the amount of revenue expected from the appointment to be scheduled is based on an average billings per visit of each of the customers in the first class of customers

c) the computer programmed to prompt one or more persons to personally contact a customer belonging to the first class of customers to schedule the appointment for the customer, wherein the expected appointment value associated with the customer to be personally contacted is higher than the expected appointment value of customers in the first class of customers that have not been displayed, and

d) the computer programmed to record the results and time of the contact.

22. The apparatus according to claim 20, where the computer programmed to sort the first class of customers further sorts the first class of customers by at least one of a provider or location based on which of the at least one provider or location has the lightest schedule.

23. The apparatus according to claim 20, where the computer programmed to sort the first class of customers further sorts the first class of customers based on an appointment type, so that specific slots dedicated to specific appointment types can be filled.

24. The apparatus according to claim 20, where the computer programmed to sort the first class of customers further sorts or filters the first class of customers based on appointment type, so that appointment types which yield the highest average revenue are scheduled first.

27. The method according to claim 20, wherein the office is an office selected from a class of offices including a medical office, a dental office, and a law office.