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Wilson Eyecare has found success with text messaging patients.
Steve Wilson and Shawn Simmons are
the practice’s ODs.

Steve Wilson, OD

Wilson Eyecare Associates
Williamson, W. Va.

Steve Wilson, OD, is a second generation optometrist practicing in West Virginia. After graduating from Southern College of Optometry in Memphis, Tenn., he joined his father’s practice in 1982. Years later, he was instrumental in the office’s move to a 3,200-square-foot freestanding location where it operates today.

Technology and innovation—including strategies that make the practice more efficient and permit more time for patient care—continue to be among his main interests. “We are trying to outsource as many things as we possibly can, we really are. If we can focus the attention of our practice and staff on excellent patient care, then everything else takes care of itself,” Wilson said.

The Wilson Eyecare practice currently uses EyeCare Prime’s Prime Nexus software, a cloud-based patient relationship management system that offers an intuitive user interface and enhanced functionality. (EyeCare Prime is a wholly-owned subsidiary of CooperVision.) The Prime Nexus software follows EyeCare Prime’s earlier patient relationship management software, WebSystem3.

“We were a WebSystem3 user,” Wilson said. However, with the Prime Nexus version, there are “enhancements in the software that have really been helpful to us. We’re already seeing a blip on the radar screen of improvement.”

For example, Wilson said, Prime Nexus, which integrates with the practice’s OfficeMate (from Eyefinity Inc.) practice management software, is designed to communicate simply and effectively with patients via text messages.

The system sends a text message to a patient that says “we are looking forward to seeing you at the appointment tomorrow afternoon,” Wilson explained. When the patient confirms that appointment with a text response, Prime Nexus sends a notification text to office personnel and also adds the appointment confirmation into the practice management software.

“Now, we can simply look into our appointment schedule and it will tell us that [the patient] has responded,” Wilson said. He noted that the Prime Nexus system is set up to help practices maximize their bookings and to improve patient retention.

“This is really, really powerful for us,” he said. “We certainly don’t want to over-communicate with our patients, but I think the realization that we have come to is that everybody today—even granny—has a cell phone in their hands.”

In the previous CRM program, the patient coordinator received an email with the patient’s appointment confirmation and then manually documented this information into the office scheduling system, Wilson noted. Prime Nexus is designed to communicate with patients in three different ways: text, email or a traditional telephone call, and it documents which of these tactics the patient responded to.

“What this does is to make sure my front-office coordinator doesn’t have to spend half of her day on the telephone reaching out to people and their answering machines,” he said.

Other features of Prime Nexus are: a mobile-friendly post-appointment survey program that can send requests to patients via text message and a streamlined online review posting and dedicated web page function, which allows completed reviews to automatically be published on a dedicated practice review web page to save staff time. There’s also a dashboard feature showing key practice performance metrics.

Wilson said he believes the text-messaging function of Prime Nexus has produced more positive responses to accounts receivable communications with patients. “If we are trying to get a hold of someone regarding an account that’s exceeded a reasonable period of time, when we send them a text there’s a high percentage of the time they are going to respond to that text,” he explained.

“It’s human nature that a text grabs our attention. If we can respond to that easily and simply, we are going to do so.”