What is patient self-scheduling software?
Patient self-scheduling software is a cloud-based platform that allows patients to schedule their own medical appointments, without calling or interacting with anyone. This is different from appointment request software or scheduling via chat, where the patient must communicate with an agent to complete the booking. Self-scheduling requires no intervention.
How does patient self-scheduling improve healthcare scheduling?
Patient self-scheduling software has numerous benefits for healthcare organizations:
- Greater patient satisfaction: Patients love having total control over their scheduling options.
- Anytime, anywhere scheduling: Appointments can be booked when the office is closed.
- Reduced call volume: More self-scheduled patients means less calls for providers and contact centers.
- Fewer scheduling errors (with AI): Artificial Intelligence makes less mistakes than humans do.
- Improved provider satisfaction (with AI): Providers maintain control over their scheduling preferences.
- Lower patient acquisition costs: Patients prefer self-scheduling, and seek platforms that offer it.
- Increased patient retention: Patients want to continue using platforms that give them the freedom and convenience of self-scheduling.
- Maximized revenue: 7+ more appointments scheduled per week, reduced no-shows, enhanced accuracy, and greater patient acquisition/retention means more cash for providers.
For more detail on the basics of patient self-scheduling, see our Patient Self-Scheduling Whitepaper.
What are the best patient scheduling companies?
Of the independent companies that offer patient self-scheduling, the following are generally considered the best:
Independent companies
- Clearstep
- Experian Health
- Keona Health
- Luma Health
- Mend
- Phreesia
- Radix Health
- Relatient
- ZocDoc
And then there are Practice Management (PM) and Electronic Health Record (EHR) companies, of which the following are generally considered the best:
Practice Management/EHR companies
- Allscripts
- Athena Health
- Cerner
- Epic Systems | MyChart
- NextGen
How much does medical scheduling software cost?
The price of patient scheduling software varies by company and by the services provided. The following is a broad overview of each platform’s cost:
Software |
Price |
|---|---|
| Clearstep | Not published |
| Experian Health | Not published |
| Keona Health | From $99/provider per month |
| Kyruus | From $30,000/practice per year |
| Luma | Not Published |
| Lumeon | Not Published |
| Mend | Free - $299/provider per month |
| Phreesia | $8 - $299/provider per month |
| Radix | Not published |
| Relatient | Not published |
What are the top features of patient self-scheduling systems?
Well-designed patient scheduling software contains features that afford specific benefits:
Feature |
Description |
Benefit |
|---|---|---|
| Web (no download) | The platform is cloud-based: patients don’t need to download an app (or anything else). | Patient acquisition: Saves patients the hassle of downloading. |
| Mobile friendly | Patients can access the scheduling platform on their mobile devices. | Patient satisfaction: The convenience of mobile access boosts patient satisfaction, acquisition, and retention. |
| Chat bot | A chat bot can answer any questions the patient may have. | Lower costs: Real-time assistance reduces staffing expenses and increases patient satisfaction. |
| No login | The software allows patients to schedule appointments without creating a username or entering a password. | Patient ease-of-use: Saves time and hassle by eliminating an inconvenience, which boosts patient acquisition, satisfaction, and retention. |
| (AI) Provider controls schedule | The provider maintains complete control over their scheduling preferences. | Provider buy-in: Dramatically improves provider satisfaction (providers love having control over their schedules). |
| (AI) Clinical guidance | The platform contains built-in clinical guidance, such as Schmitt-Thompson Clinical Contentand Harvard Health’s best practices. | Simplifies complex workflows: Ensures patient safety and streamlines digital triage processes. |
| (AI) Symptom bot | An AI-powered digital symptom checker uses natural language processing to accurately screen each patient’s specific symptoms. | Patient safety: Improves patient safety and streamlines triage workflows. |
| (AI) Automated patient matching | AI matches patients with the right provider for both the patient’s care needs and the provider’s scheduling requirements. | 25%+ online scheduling: AI scheduling enhances accuracy, maximizes revenue, and lowers stress on healthcare staff. |
| (AI) Scheduling quality | High-value patient appointments are prioritized and scheduling capacity is optimized. | Eliminates errors: Fuller and better schedules boost revenue and improve provider satisfaction. |
| Appointment reminders | Patients are automatically sent appointment reminders via text and email. | Less patient leakage: Cuts costs by reducing no-shows and improves patient retention. |
| Secure messaging | The software contains an HIPAA compliant messaging system that allows patients and providers to seamlessly and privately communicate. | Patient satisfaction: Improves care and enhances safety. |
| Waitlist | AI automatically waitlists patients for appointments that are already booked, then notifies or books the patient when the slot opens up. | Maximizes revenue: Boosts earnings by enlarging scheduling capacity. |
| Rescheduling | The platform allows patients to reschedule or cancel any appointment without calling or interacting with anyone. | Patient satisfaction & lower costs: Eliminates expenses and delights patients, who love the convenience of self-rescheduling. |
| Healthcare campaigns | The software allows providers to conduct email/SMS campaigns with tailored links for scheduling, rescheduling, and cancellation. These campaigns are used in preventive health, procedure follow-ups, weather closures, vaccine outreach, pandemic updates, scheduling changes, and more. | Population health & more revenue: Healthcare campaigns encourage comprehensive patient health while better managing program and site scheduling. Patients schedule, reschedule, and cancel based on your campaigns right from their phone. |
| Digital marketing campaigns | The software provides healthcare organizations with the data needed to conduct effective online digital marketing campaigns. | Patient acquisition: Get found online, then measure the results. |
| Front desk and call center scheduling | The platform can be used by not only practices, but also by call centers and front desks. | Reduce staffing costs: Allows call centers and front desks to offload a large percentage of their calls to patient self-scheduling, which cuts staffing and training expenses. |
| EHR/PM integration | The software integrates with the organization’s existing EHRs and PMs. | Work with your existing tools: Optimizes workflows for healthcare staff, which in turn maximizes revenue. |
Side-by-side features
Independent Companies
| Feature | Keona Health |
Experian | Kyruus | Luma | Lumeon | Mend | Phreesia | Radix | Relatient | Zocdoc | clearstep |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Web | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Mobile friendly | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X |
| Chat Bot | X | X | X | ||||||||
| No login | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | ||||
| Secure Messaging | X | X | X | X | |||||||
| Reminders | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||
| Waitlist | X | X | X | X | X | ||||||
| Rescheduling | X | X | X | X | |||||||
| Healthcare campaigns | X | X | X | X | X | X | |||||
| (AI) Automated patient matching | X | X | X | X | |||||||
| Front desk and call center scheduling | X | X | X | ||||||||
| (AI) Clinical guidance | X | X | |||||||||
| (AI) Symptom bot | X | X | |||||||||
| (AI) Provider controls schedule | X | ||||||||||
| (AI) Scheduling quality | X | ||||||||||
| Digital marketing campaigns | X | ||||||||||
| EHR Vendor Integration | 8 | not listed | 3 | 7+ | 2 | 5 | 13 | 5 | 10 | 100+ | 1 |
What is the best medical scheduling software for my EHR & Practice Management system?
The medical scheduling software offered by EHR & Practice Management solutions lacks the sophistication of AI-powered patient scheduling systems. For a detailed comparison of each Electronic Medical Record/Practice Management's scheduling capabilities, read this blog: "Best Patient Scheduling Software For Allscripts, Athenahealth, Cerner, Epic, & NextGen."
What is the best patient scheduling software for my business?
Patient self-scheduling is an investment—a potentially lucrative one—so choose your software wisely. The decision rests largely on your organization's specific goals. Increase patient acquisition? Ensure providers maintain control? Strengthen scheduling quality? Choose medical scheduling software with features that will produce your desired outcomes.
Below is a summary of the pros and cons of each patient scheduling platform:
Clearstep
What the company says: “Make access to healthcare easy with clinical AI chat.”
What you get: Easy to implement and performs well for the processes it focuses on.
Features: Chat bot, AI clinical guidance, AI symptom bot, basic scheduling.
What you're missing: A comprehensive scheduling tool for every type of schedule.
Missing features: Provider controls schedule, scheduling quality, healthcare campaign support, marketing campaign support for patient acquisition.
Experian Health
What the company says: “We partner with over 63 percent of US hospitals and 7,700+ other risk bearing entities to provide data-driven insight, connecting and simplifying healthcare for all.”
What you get: Experian focuses on large hospitals and payers, leveraging its relationships with payments, registration, and identity to expand patient access. Experian utilizes some Artificial Intelligence for provider-patient matching. Their solution primarily focuses on back-end operations and integration with existing data systems.
Features: AI automated patient matching, appointment reminders, healthcare campaigns.
What you're missing: Experian doesn’t have chat bots or marketing campaigns. Its AI also lacks the capability to automate very complex schedules.
Missing features: AI symptom bot, no login, provider controls schedule, marketing campaigns.
Keona Health
What the company says: “We believe that when you craft a caring experience for both patients and providers, great outcomes follow.”
What you get: A carefully designed Artificial Intelligence experience that puts providers and patients first. Keona's software boosts patient acquisition by 5-20 patients per month until the schedules are full. Within 6 months, 25-40% of patients are self-scheduling.
This, combined with its marketing capabilities, can increase revenue 5-10% per year while substantially reducing costs and improving scheduling quality.
Features: Provider controls schedule, AI automated patient matching, AI scheduling quality, AI symptom guidance, healthcare outreach, digital marketing campaigns.
What you're missing: To date, Keona's medical scheduling software does not allow for remote patient monitoring. Its AI focuses on automating complex schedules, not on predicting patient behavior (like Mend).
Keona also isn’t the cheapest available platform. It is a holistic solution that addresses both clinical needs and marketing expansion—but pricing is still competitive.
Missing features: Patient behavior prediction, remote patient monitoring.
Kyruus
What the company says: “Industry-leading provider search, scheduling, and data management solutions that help healthcare organizations connect patients with the right care—whether they look online, call in, or visit a site of care.”
What you get: Kyruus focuses on large systems and hospitals. Their largest customer base uses Cerner, and they’ve recently added Epic and Athenahealth.
Kyruus doesn’t offer its own CRM, but rather relies on deep integrations with Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Kyruus facilitates both patient self-scheduling and front desk/contact center scheduling.
Features: Front desk and call center scheduling, automated patient matching, healthcare campaigns.
What you're missing: Kyruus' medical scheduling software has patient matching, but lacks many AI-driven components. It also has minimal support for online marketing campaigns or integration with any of the EHRs outside the top three.
With Kyruus, administration is complex, and their engineers must handle many customizations themselves.
Missing features: No login, provider controls schedule, secure messaging.
Luma
What the company says: “Luma Health’s powerful engagement engine is simple for patients and flexible for clinics and health systems.”
What you get: Luma's medical scheduling software offers many positive features but doesn’t utilize Artificial Intelligence. One of its primary benefits is that it supports many EHR/Practice Management integrations.
Features: No login, waitlist, rescheduling.
What you're missing: Because it lacks AI, Luma can’t automate complex schedules, which means providers don’t maintain control of their scheduling preferences.
Missing features: Provider scheduling control, AI scheduling quality, online digital marketing support.
Lumeon
What the company says: “Lumeon orchestrates patients and care teams as one to eliminate gaps in care, transform the patient experience and ensure that care teams always work at top-of-license.”
What you get: Lumeon began as care coordination software, which is reflected in its self-scheduling platform. Lumeon integrates with Epic Systems and Cerner.
Lumeon relies heavily on chat interfaces/automation to help the coordinator. As such, it also automates much of the coordinator’s workflow in the call center.
Features: Secure messaging, no login, reminders.
What you're missing: AI bots handle much of the grunt work, which reduces patient safety and satisfaction.
Missing features: AI automated patient matching, provider controls schedule, AI symptom bot.
Mend
What the company says: “Easy patient intake & communications, custom in-office and virtual care workflows, and seamless telehealth—optimized with AI.”
What you get: Mend offers solid basic scheduling. Its AI focuses on predicting patient behavior: their Attendance Predictor predicts no-shows and cancellations.
Its interface is modern and easy to use, and practices can administer their own digital forms. Mend also supports many EHR & Practice Management integrations.
Features: No login, reminders, rescheduling.
What you're missing: AI that addresses complex patient scheduling. Mend’s software doesn’t help solve the issues facing front desks and call centers—and Mend doesn’t have marketing modules.
Missing features: Provider controls schedule, secure messaging, digital healthcare and marketing campaigns.
Phreesia
What the company says: “With automated tools for intake, access, payments and more, we help you deliver the modern experience patients expect.”
What you get: Phreesia began with patient intake support, then moved on to revenue cycle tools before finally tackling scheduling.
Its self-scheduling platform has all the basic, non-AI features you’d expect, including easy patient use and waitlists.
Features: No login, waitlist, healthcare campaigns.
What you're missing: Because Phreesia lacks sophisticated AI, it relies on schedule requests for complicated appointments. Phreesia also doesn’t support marketing campaigns, nor offer proactive outreach and care coordination support.
Missing features: AI automated patient matching, provider control of online schedule, healthcare outreach campaigns, online marketing campaigns.
Radix Health
What the company says: “Our digital front door solutions help medical practices streamline scheduling, improve ROI, and modernize the patient experience.”
What you get: This check-in and scheduling solution focuses on private practices. They utilize a rules-based engine for patient-provider matching—much as Kyruus does for larger entities.
Features: No login, AI automated patient matching, waitlist.
What you're missing: The AI tools are very basic—and consequently only a small portion of the schedule can live online—unless you pay their experts to construct deep configurations and preferences.
They’ve also been recently purchased by Relatient, so it is uncertain what will result from this technology and business mash-up.
Missing features: Provider controls online schedule, robust healthcare campaigns, AI symptom bot, digital marketing campaigns.
Relatient
What the company says: “Patient engagement software to reduce no-shows, fill the schedule, and improve patient experience and access.”
What you get: A product with many features and integrations. Relatient utilizes rules-based scheduling which allows for patient-provider mashups, and can incorporate provider preferences.
Features: Secure messaging, appointment reminders, rescheduling, waitlists, health campaigns, automated patient matching.
What you're missing: AI that can handle complex online schedules. Relatient supports provider preferences for matching, but more advanced features are not self-administered.
Missing features: AI scheduling quality, AI automated patient matching, provider controls schedule.
ZocDoc
What the company says: “Find a doctor near you.”
What you get: Listing in a national provider database, backed by ZocDoc’s impressive marketing. This makes it easy to get found by patients.
Features: Web and mobile scheduling, reminders.
What you're missing: From a marketing perspective, you are contributing to a brand that also serves your competition. From a scheduling perspective, ZocDoc doesn’t utilize AI to handle anything but the simplest of schedules.
Missing features: Rescheduling, waitlists, health campaigns, AI scheduling quality, AI automated patient matching, provider controls schedule.
The Bottom Line
There is only one company with AI sophisticated enough to ensure providers maintain control of their schedules while simultaneously automating patient matching, improving scheduling quality, and optimizing workflows. If these components are important to your organization, then Keona Health is the patient scheduling platform for you.
