At Houston ENT & Allergy, CEO Chuck Leider is committed to using technology to improve the experience for both patients and staff. Using Luma integrated with their NextGen EHR, Chuck and his staff get more patients in the door, provide a white-glove experience, and automate manual tasks – all creating revenue savings of $1.2 million in filled appointments, $1.8 million annually in prevented no-shows, and $575,000 in scheduled referrals.

At a Luma community summit for NextGen EHR users, Chuck shared insights that help Houston ENT & Allergy create success for patients, staff, and the system. Here are 3 things he’s focused on: 

Solving for Patients’ Pain Points and Feedback 

The digital patient experience journey at Houston ENT & Allergy began, fittingly, with patients’ insights. 

After years of manual phone calls to remind patients about their appointments, then an automated voice reminder system, Chuck and his colleagues wondered why no-shows weren’t going down. Revenue was majorly impacted by no-shows, and providers were frustrated that they weren’t seeing as many patients as they could be. 

To get to the bottom of the issue, Houston ENT & Allergy interviewed 65 patients about their experiences. 

“We thought our system was highly effective. But patients were telling us that the calls came through and they didn’t pick them up. Sometimes, they didn’t recognize the number – we have a number of clinics, and they often didn’t realize we were calling about their appointments. At other times, they couldn’t take a phone call because they were in a meeting, for example.”

Houston ENT and Allergy also has a large geriatric population that reported issues hearing the message in an automated call. 

With patients’ feedback, Chuck and his team realized they needed a solution that would meet the specific needs their patients pointed out. After moving to text-first appointment reminders with Luma, Chuck calculated that a 9% reduction in no-show rates saves Houston ENT & Allergy $1.8 million in annual revenue. 

“Looking at the reasons our patients are having trouble getting to us, and making things simpler for them, has created huge value for our patients. Hearing from them directly has paid off,” said Chuck

Streamlining the Solutions Staff Need to Learn and Maintain

As Houston ENT & Allergy has grown, their tech stack has, too. Now, Chuck is focused on eliminating redundant systems to make staff’s days simpler. 

“With several different platforms, it gets very hard to train people. They’re having to master the EHR and multiple other technologies, and it’s challenging,” Chuck said. “Especially if the staff are patient-facing, navigating these systems can interfere with the white-glove experience we want to provide.” 

Looking for ways to pare down systems where possible – especially when the system performs a single function – has made Houston ENT & Allergy’s day-to-day operations more efficient, and helps avoid training and re-training on many different systems.

Eliminating unnecessary technology has the additional benefit of saving money, Chuck pointed out. 

“We chose to layer in Luma to request feedback after appointments, instead of using a separate system. And just getting rid of that additional system saves us $2,500 a month. With budget constraints, containing those costs makes a difference.” 

Automating a Great Experience and Removing Manual Tasks

Like other healthcare organizations, Houston ENT & Allergy is struggling with staff shortages but committed to providing a great experience that keeps patients coming back. According to Chuck, self-scheduling and customizing automated reminders are key to this balance. 

“It is harder for us to compete for limited staff, so we look at technology to take on manual tasks,” he said. 

Instead of staff “constantly monitoring the phones or on the computer personalizing each message,” reminders integrated with NextGen are automatically personalized based on each patient’s personal information, provider, appointment, and more. From scheduling referrals alone, Houston ENT & Allergy has gained $575,000 in scheduled referrals. 

An automated waitlist has provided some of the biggest value to Houston ENT & Allergy. Now, instead of staff answering calls from patients who need to cancel, then reaching out manually to patients who might be able to take the appointment slot, both the cancellations and the waitlist offers are automated. 

“We’ve saved over 1.2 million because of Luma’s Smart Waitlist,” Chuck said.

Finally, Chuck encourages other organizations to offer self-scheduling online. It helps reduce phone calls and follow-up, but even more importantly gives patients better access to Houston ENT & Allergy. 

“We get great feedback from patients that come in and say how easy it was to get in with self-scheduling. Maybe their kid had an earache in the night, and they can find us online and book an appointment for nine o’clock the next day,” he said. 

“Our website is open 24/7. Over the holidays, I saw so many patients booking appointments.” 

Interested in using Luma + NextGen to see value like Houston ENT & Allergy? Contact us to learn more. 

Why Patient Success is a series from Luma staff about their experiences as patients and caregivers navigating the healthcare system. 

“We knew from the beginning that we wanted to have kids,” remembers Joe Zboch, Luma’s Director of Marketing. He and his wife Emily, both the youngest in their families, hold fond memories of growing up with siblings. When they married in 2017, the couple planned to grow their new family in the subsequent years. 

Two years and one cat later, Emily and Joe felt ready. 

“We were in our mid-twenties and never imagined the process would be anything but easy,” Joe said. “We hadn’t really talked about infertility.” After a year of trying, the Zbochs realized they needed extra support for their pregnancy journey. In March 2020, they were matched with a fertility specialist. 

“It was an emotional step to realize we can’t get pregnant on our own. What I didn’t expect was that I’d also have to advocate for my pregnancy every step of the way, even despite the healthcare specialists,” said Emily. 

Emily started fertility treatments in March 2020, which was a tumultuous time to receive healthcare of any kind thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. She learned quickly that she had to be proactive in asking for the tests and treatments that would work for her, as some of the doctors she encountered were dismissive and her care team changed frequently.

“We were assigned an IVF nurse to shepherd us through the process, which is very time-sensitive. Our nurse was supposed to call us and keep us up-to-date with the medications and deadlines,” said Joe. “When we stopped hearing from her, we found out she had been reassigned, but no one had told us. Emily had to call every single day for two and a half weeks until we were reassigned a nurse,” said Joe. 

The fertility treatments were physically intensive and draining to Emily, a pre-K teacher. “To have to get on the phone and manage my care after a long day in the classroom is hard enough, let alone adding the fatigue and stress of the IVF shots,” she remembers. 

Joe and Emily took it one day at a time, focusing on their relationship and building teamwork skills as they faced this difficult daily challenge. “We each had our areas of the process we would manage, but it was so hard to be the middleman between insurance, nurses, genetics testing, medication, IVF, billing, etc,” said Joe.  

After nearly two years of treatment, Emily and Joe welcomed a son, Remy, into the world. “He is worth everything we went through and more,” said Emily. They hope to continue to grow their family in the future. 

Joe and Emily’s fertility journey has left an indelible mark on Joe’s work at Luma. “I hear so many stories from patients who, just like Emily and I, had to be their own advocate in a difficult season of their life. I’m proud to be working with Luma to get healthcare out of the way of care–those touchpoints can literally change lives.”

With fewer staff and more revenue challenges, healthcare organizations need to quickly reach their patients and keep schedules full. 

Integrating Luma with their Epic EHRs helps Luma community members superpower their patient outreach. Using patients’ preferred messaging channels makes outreach more effective, while API-based EHR integration means no double-documentation or manual work. 

Here are some ways the Luma community gets more out of their workflows. 

With Luma integrated with Epic, Luma community members’ outreach is:

Customized 

At Franciscan Health, reminders are customized to each patient and appointment type, making them more relevant and actionable.

Details already documented about the patient in Franciscan’s Epic system – from appointment details to preferred contact method – drive the outreach.

For example, patients who have a follow-up appointment the same day or who have previously been seen at Franciscan see different reminders than someone being seen for a new patient appointment.

With these text reminders, Franciscan Health sees a 70% click-through rate – about 50% more than with their previous email reminders.  

Text-First

By switching to text-first outreach, Columbus Regional Health immediately saw results. Before implementing Luma, Columbus Regional Health reminded patients about their appointments by automated call, which patients were less likely to pick up or respond to.

“We often have patients make appointments six months out, so it’s important that we provide them with reminders,” said Gayle Wilson, Senior Systems Analyst at CRH. 

Luma reminders are automatically sent to patients on CRH’s schedule in Epic. To get even more out of the switch, they made the decision to move from text opt-in to text opt-out, where communication preferences in the EHR use text by default. Now, CRH is sending SMS reminders to more than 80% of their patient population. 

Since delivering most reminders via text, CRH has seen no-shows drop by more than 40%. 

Actionable 

Montefiore Health System in New York sees many of its patients via referral. To ensure as many referred patients get through their doors as possible, Montefiore sends Epic-integrated Luma messages reminding those patients to schedule. 

From the message, patients can schedule with just a few taps.

The referral in the EHR is linked to the reminders to keep them up-to-date and actionable. so if a patient hasn’t scheduled, they’ll receive another nudge to schedule. When the patient schedules, the referral is closed automatically and the patient no longer receives reminders. 

Want to learn more about how Luma can superpower your Epic-first workflows? Schedule a Luma 1:1 today.

For practices like Seaview Orthopaedics, “healthcare” can get in the way of patient care. Seaview’s growth was booming, but behind the scenes, manual calls and mountains of paper intake forms led to crowded waiting rooms and lost patients. It was time for a change. 

“We wondered, how many new patients did we lose by not calling them back soon enough?” said Micheal Gibson, Director of Marketing, Business Development, & Patient Engagement. 

New patients needed to email for an appointment, while existing patients were routed to voicemail to cancel or reschedule. Staff members budgeted hours each week to respond to emails and manually transcribe voicemails, but patients inevitably fell through the cracks. 

As demand for their expertise grew, Seaview needed a modern solution that wouldn’t inhibit their growth. Staff noticed changes immediately after implementing Luma. 

“Right away, our staff was able to spend more time with patients and less time on the phone. We had been considering adding more FTEs for manual tasks, but that wasn’t necessary anymore,” said Christina Flaherty, Seaview’s Director of Project Management.

Patients now schedule and change appointments in real time from their phones. The integration with Seaview’s eClinicalWorks EHR means staff see updates right in the clinic schedule – without manual transcription. 

Appointment day for each patient has transformed, too. 

Before Luma, patients needed to complete intake forms specific to their conditions in person while waiting for their providers. Now, bottlenecks in Seaview’s waiting rooms have virtually disappeared now that patients complete paperwork from home. 

“Patients love how simple things are now. They appreciate how we send the intake forms before their appointment, instead of using up so much time in the waiting room,” said Gibson. 

Seaview now has no problem welcoming in a higher volume of patients, thanks to their new automated processes, even converting former waiting room space into additional physical therapy rooms. In just five months, they earned over $765,000 ROI from increased patient volumes.

“I never thought that intake forms could be an easy process, especially because there are so many complexities in orthopedics,” said Flaherty, “With Luma, we now can focus on next-level growth.”

Patient Success Advocate Profiles highlight the perspectives of providers and healthcare leaders in delivering world-class healthcare access and outcomes.

When you walk into North Florida Women’s Care’s administrative office, the first thing you’d notice on CEO Bill Hambsh’s door is a yellow sign displaying one word: Believe. 

Bill is a fan of the television show Ted Lasso, which features an inspirational American football coach leading a British soccer team to victory. 

“I love Ted Lasso’s leadership style–listening, caring, and motivating. Here at North Florida Women’s Care, belief in our mission is the foundation of our practice. Even though I’m not a clinician by background, I am helping improve the lives of women and babies by making sure everyone has access to the care they need,” said Bill. 

With a background in accounting, Bill works to advance his patient outcomes by evaluating market trends for growth opportunities. 

“By growing our footprint, we can make a bigger difference in our area,” said Bill. 

Tallahassee is home to Florida State University and Florida A&M University, with a combined student population of approximately 55,000 in 2021. Bill saw an urgent need to better reach the student community to bring them in for preventive care. 

“Young people use their phone for everything–they expect to be able to book healthcare from it too. Some of the services we provide, like cancer screenings, might fall lower on a busy college student’s priority list.” said Bill, “But we know how important those are for long-term health.We have to embrace text messaging because it’s just the best, most effective way to get through to patients.”

He started his search for a mobile-first vendor over five years ago and evaluated several options before finding Luma Health: “I have a high degree of expectations when I pick a vendor, especially when it comes to the cost value. Within 10 minutes of the Luma demo, I was just blown away by the capabilities and the quality. Choosing Luma and growing together these last five years has been a no brainer.” 

Bill’s belief in accessible care has become a daily reality at NFLWC, as they now are able to see more new patients than ever before. With Luma, the practice increased scheduled referrals by 25%, gaining $10,000 in monthly revenue. “The growth we’re experiencing is just the beginning, thanks to our collaboration with Luma,” said Bill. 

 Learn more about NFLWC’s outcomes with Luma here: NFLWC + Luma Case Study

WATCH: Bill’s story here

Healthcare providers have good reason to be concerned about data breaches. According to the HIPAA Journal, in the first half of 2022, there were 347 data breaches of 500 or more healthcare records, and healthcare providers are consistently the worst-affected type of HIPAA-covered entity.

At Luma, patient success must also mean comprehensive data security. We are proud to announce that Luma has earned HITRUST CSF certification, a validated security certification for healthcare IT companies. The HITRUST Risk-based, 2-year (r2) Validated Assessment is among the most rigorous industry security certifications, and involves the performance of onsite procedures, as well as an extensive testing program. 

To find out more about HITRUST and what it means for Luma’s customers and partners, we caught up with Nick Lees, Luma’s information security and compliance director.

Why is HITRUST so important?

Our customers and partners are putting a huge amount of trust in us to securely handle their data—and their patients’ data—securely. When partnering with a vendor such as Luma, they want to ensure they are not introducing additional security risk into their business. For any HIPAA-compliant  IT vendor, attaining HITRUST certification is essential.

What does attaining a HITRUST certification say about Luma?

HITRUST is the security gold standard for companies that are handling health information. By successfully completing all the steps needed to attain HITRUST Risk-based, 2-year (r2) Validated Assessment, we are assuring our customers and business partners that a) we are deeply committed to security, and b) the way we conduct business and handle sensitive data meets or exceeds recognized, industry-specific best practices.  

What makes the HITRUST certification the gold standard?

Unlike security audits such as SOC 2, HITRUST certification requires that an authorized HITRUST assessor spend time onsite to observe data-handling practices and score a business across several dimensions. Luma was graded on security policy, process, and implementation, and had to achieve a specific score for all of the controls that HITRUST requires to qualify for certification.

Through this process, what did you learn about Luma’s systems and processes?

We discovered that we have a very strong and mature information security program, backed up with a fully documented set of policies, procedures and controls. These have now been independently audited and validated, so we can be sure we are supporting our customers securely.

How does this certification prepare us for the evolution of healthcare regulations?

The HITRUST certification is constantly evolving, with new control requirements being added as the healthcare tech landscape changes. Luma’s already excellent foundation is now certified against the HITRUST framework so we can drive continuous improvement and stay ahead of any new requirements.

At Luma, the patient comes first–and our job is figuring out ways to make their healthcare journey successful. From easily paying a bill to quickly rebooking an appointment or getting a question answered via 24/7 chat, our goal is to make the hard parts of getting care easier. That’s what patient success means to us. 

As our platform has grown, we’ve expanded beyond patient engagement and toward making the entire care journey successful. Our new brand reflects this shift.

So how does our patient success mission translate to our new look? 

One of the most key aspects of our new brand is Luma’s new logo. This is our first new logo since our inception in 2015, and we created a logomark with a trifold meaning that represents our core values. The logomark took inspiration from the Chinese character for “light,” an energy spark, and an upward arrow, representing our name and vision for better healthcare.

Warmth has always been a key component of our branding and you can see how that translates in our new palette and visual elements. We’ve added additional vibrant colors, which lends Luma a confident, distinctive style with a dash of optimism to match our mission. We’ve also included more photography to highlight the very real faces of patients and providers.

We also updated our website to focus on the patient’s journey to success, including graphics illustrating the individualized journey, which often extends beyond the point of care. Healthcare is not transactional — it’s personal. As patients, it takes a lot of trust to put our health in the hands of another person, which is why the patient-provider relationship continues to be so essential to good care. Other industries may try to replace or automate face-to-face interactions. Our goal is to enhance them. 

The future of healthcare remains bright–and here at Luma, we feel lucky to help our customers share that spark of success, connection, and care with patients.