The Pros & Cons of Web-based Check-in and Registration

At 6 p.m., the last thing sick patients want to do is sit in rush-hour traffic only to reach an urgent care waiting room and sit some more. Offering patients the option of registering and completing their medical forms online is a clever approach to improving the patient experience.

Online registration from an immediate care center lets users bypass unnecessary questions and forms. This “shortcut” expedites the check-in process and improves the quality of information collected for the healthcare provider, said Chakri Toleti, vice president of healthcare industry marketing for NCR Corporation, the parent company of Galvanon, which offers the MedKiosk solution.

“In addition to gathering demographic and insurance information, these tools can collect patient histories and generate dynamic clinical questionnaires that are specific to the patient’s unique health situation,” Toleti said. “This approach to registration not only reduces wait times at the facility, but it also ensures that providers have the information they need to provide quality care. In addition, the information entered by patients can be passed along to the organization’s clinical system, data repository or scheduling system, which helps to minimize data entry errors.”

Benefits and Drawbacks

There are benefits and drawbacks to using Web-based registration for the centers and the patients. One of the benefits is that patients can experience part of the wait time from the convenience and comfort of their own home, said Tracy Patterson, executive vice president and chief operations officer of NextCare Urgent Care. However, there are drawbacks. Web registration does involve accessing a computer and being “on call” to come to the clinic when contacted.

“The benefits for the clinics are that there are less people spending their wait time in the clinic reception room, and the customers are more satisfied with waiting at home,” Patterson said. “It does add additional steps to the process, though, by staff calling the patients when they’re ready for them, and connecting to the information that these patients have entered online.”

Under NextCare’s current system, patients register online and are subsequently contacted by the call center.

“The call center can make recommendations as to the clinic with the least amount of waiting time and essentially serves as ‘air traffic control,’” Patterson added. “This is advantageous to the patient (less wait time) and helps the clinics by distributing patient volume to those with capacity. The ultimate goal is to have the patient select their clinic of choice when contacted by the call center, and, assuming the patient’s condition is not an emergency, that clinic will then contact the patient when their room is about to become available. The patient can convalesce in the comfort of their own home.”

Benefits for patients include shorter waits and less time in the lobby with other sick patients (they can make their own appointment and arrive 15 minutes prior, rather than waiting in the lobby while they fill out paperwork), added Mike Blumhoff, MD, president and CEO of Alliance Urgent Care PLLC. “They can make sure they have all of their health information complete (including medications, medical history and allergic reactions) from the comfort of their home, and they will be reminded to bring copies of their insurance cards and IDs, which are required for check-in,” he pointed out.

Blumhoff acknowledged that there could be minor drawbacks to the system, particularly for those who are less experienced with computers. “They have to know how to use the Internet,” he cautioned. “One possible drawback is that occasionally patients think that if they’ve done Web check-in, they will automatically be rushed back to see the physician, which may not be the case, as we are an urgent care and patients are triaged based on acuity. An acutely urgent patient will always take priority.”

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