Practice Revolutionizes Patient Communication with Texts, Auto-Recalls, and Increased Reviews

Sugar Mill Diagnostic Imaging spent a lot of time playing voicemail phone tag with patients, manually sending recall postcards for annual appointments, and onboarding new patients to the practice. They knew something had to change. When they signed on to Zingit in March 2020, they didn’t know how much would actually change, and they continue discovering new features of the program that save them time, effort, and allow them to get to the important work of improving the patient experience and attracting new business.

337

New reviews

340%

Increase in reviews

About Sugar Mill Diagnostic Imaging

Practice Offerings: Comprehensive radiology services, including CT, MRI, Mammogram, X-Ray, Ultrasound, and more.
Location: Homosassa, FL
Size: Approximately 1,300 patients per month
Competition: One of 3 radiology services in the area.

“It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s a no brainer. It saves us 10-15 hours of work PER WEEK!"

Tripled Reviews

  • Before Zingit:  From 2013 thru – February of 2020, the practice received < 100 reviews
  • With Zingit: From February 2020 thru April 2021, the practice now has 436 Public Reviews!

Like many practices, Sugar Mill had limited success in the past getting customers to leave positive reviews. A few patients here and there would leave a review online, but most happy patients wouldn’t go out of their way to leave an online review. However, with Zingit’s automated review requests, patients now receive an automatic text message after an appointment requesting a quick star rating.

With this process, they receive a steady volume of public reviews (on Google, Yelp, and Facebook) that average around one per day. This has led them to triple their review volume in just one year, compared to the prior 6 years of growth in total. “The review feature is huge,” says Bangs. “Now when people search Diagnostic Imaging, we come up higher with a 4.9/5 star rating on Google.”

Automated Appointment Reminders Save Staff Time

Save 10-15+ Hours of Staff Time Per Week

Prior to using Zingit, the team at Sugar Mill Diagnostic imaging spent a lot of time on the phone for appointment reminders alone—making the calls, missing the patient, leaving messages, and checking messages that were left. “For appointment reminders alone, I would say it saves us a good 2-3 hours a day in staff time. And that is just for appointments,” says Practice Manager Amy Bangs.

“We use it for a lot of other things.” Now, Zingit automates appointment reminders, which are sent via text. The patient receives the message, and can respond to it within the text if necessary. “It used to be a ton of time and effort—and now we don’t even have to think about it,” says Bangs.

Easy Communication Via Text

3000+ Text Messages have been sent to patients

“One of our favorite features is the confirmation of appointments via text message,” says Bangs. “We love the ability for the patient to reply to appointment confirmations if they have questions and being able to communicate back and forth with the patient without having to pick up the phone.”

Sugar Mill uses Zingit’s text communication to send patients:

  1. automated appointment reminders
  2. co-pay information
  3. past due balance notices
  4. pre-appointment instructions for a test
  5. easy reschedule conversations
  6. recall reminders
  7. and more!

This use of messaging offers a 2-way bonus: the patient does not have to wait on hold, and the practice phone line is freed up for new business. “We love the fact that we can communicate directly with so many different people in a matter of a day, as opposed to trying to get a hold of people.

We can put a message out there and get one back. We can get to them leisurely, without missing calls or having the patient be available at the same moment we call. It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s a no brainer,” says Bangs. “It’s like everyday texting. Just like that, but you are doing it from a program. I can see all the messages from the past few days, and quickly answer them. And patients are happy. You don’t have to work hard, and patients don’t have to wait on hold.”

No-Effort Recalls

No postage, no staff time, no moving barrier for annual recalls.

In the past, Sugar Mill put a lot of manual labor and postage into bringing patients back for their annual or bi-annual appointments or tests, like mammograms. They would collect a patient’s name and address on a postcard, and create a pile of postcards for each month reminders needed to go out. The month prior to appointments, they would add postage to the postcards and mail them. They ran into problems when people moved within that year, with a lot of returned post cards and a new need to track the patients down.

Now that they’ve adopted Zingit, the postcard system is gone. Zingit automatically sends a text recall (or automated phone message if the patient doesn’t have text) at a very precise interval, one year and a day after a patient’s annual mammogram.

No manual labor, no postage, and moving isn’t a problem, as people bring their cell phone number with them when they move. With the reminder, the patient can call or reply to the text to get scheduled. “It’s an easier process,” said Bangs. “This keeps us in better contact with a patient for a longer period of time.”

Excellent Customer Service

Sugar Mill has loved the full experience of working with Zingit, and specifically their Account Manager Danielle. “She helped get everything going and helped us know what to do. She will teach you anything and everything you need to know. It’s always no problem—she’s extremely positive. Even if you ask her a question 10 times, she takes all the time and effort that is needed,” says Bangs.

“We truly appreciate her.” In addition, Bangs notes that Danielle continually teaches Sugar Mill new Zingit features as they go along, and helps them to take advantage of the robust tools available.

“Zingit is money well spent. It is going to save you more money than what Zingit even charges. It will be absolutely worth every penny. It will save so much time and energy for several of your staff. You can then use staff for earning money rather than follow up. Anyone considering Zingit should definitely do it.”

“We love the fact that we can communicate directly with so many different people in a matter of a day, as opposed to trying to get a hold of people."

"We can put a message out there and get one back. We can get to them leisurely, without missing calls or having the patient be available at the same moment we call. It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s a no brainer. Thank you, Zingit!”

How can you improve your practice with Zingit? Talk with an expert to find out.

Recent case study

"Practices considering getting Zingit should do it, because it’s so worth it. We wasted money on so many other things that never brought us results—especially in the areas of patient communication and reviews. To be able to get reviews without thinking about it is huge—and we are too busy to think about it. With Zingit, it’s so little effort to add it in and go."

Dr. Ken Gilman and Office Manager Jenny Gilman

120%

Increase in reviews

130

New reviews

Running a practice without Zingit is like leaving money on the table.