We understand that hospital systems are complex—both operationally and physically with regard to layouts and buildings. That’s why we’ve put together a few posts with some tips and resources to help you use Uber Health in various situations across your hospital. This post focuses on using Uber Health for outpatient appointments. You can find our suggestions for using Uber Health for patient discharge here.
Using Uber Health to help reduce missed appointments
If you’re using Uber Health to help reduce no-shows for ambulatory appointments, you might be using case managers, scheduling call centers, or patient service representatives (PSRs) to help request rides.
Existing partners have shared these suggestions to help identify patients’ transportation barriers to appointments:
- Ask about transportation barriers during appointment setup and reminder calls.
- When patients call to cancel an appointment, ask if it’s due to transportation. If it is, offer a ride. Customers have told us about doing this through voicemail systems, contact centers, and scheduling and referral coordinators.
- Monitor high-no-show patients and proactively offer transportation.
- Add a question about transportation access with SMS scheduling systems.
Getting people to their appointments
There are a few ways that you can request rides to help get people to their appointments:
- 1. Request on-demand to increase accountability
- 2. Use Flexible Rides to let the rider confirm they are ready
- 3. Schedule in advance
Getting people home from their appointments
There are a few ways that you can request rides to help people get home after their appointment is over:
Other ways to use Uber
For more information and tips to get set up and started, check out our Administrator Guide and Coordinator Guide.
As a reminder, Uber is committed to the safety of riders and drivers. Everyone must follow advice from public health authorities, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), that ridesharing should not be used for people diagnosed with COVID-19 or for symptomatic riders who suspect they may have it. Read more about the steps Uber is taking to help keep communities safe.
1 Based on data based from Jan – October 2020