How a Terrible Patient Experience Brought Kingsley Medical Back To HealthEngine

Kingsley Medical is a WA based integrative practice committed to promoting health, wellbeing and disease prevention to all of their patients. 

To Practice Manager, Dorothy, patient experience is at the centre of everything they do.

“We’re a modern state-of-the-art practice, and we pride ourselves on providing an excellent service. We’re very fussy about the experience we offer patients and we don’t like to make them wait. If a doctor is running late, we make the effort to call the patient ahead of time to let them know but we also try to ensure our doctors are running on time to avoid it altogether.”

Above: Kingsley Medical’s vibrant, modern reception area

Why the decision to leave HealthEngine?

Despite being really happy with the service and results HealthEngine was providing, it was a new doctor to the practice that raised the idea of changing. 

“We had a new Doctor join us who had previously used a patient engagement platform so we decided to give them a go. They were a cheaper option and we were looking to cut costs.”

Lured by the cheaper price, Kingsley Medical decided to make the move away from HealthEngine, believing that a lower cost wouldn’t equal lower results.

Not the results they were expecting 

Despite the expectation of their booking numbers to remain the same, it only took a few weeks for the impact of the switch to become clear.

“Within 4 weeks, the impact was significant – patients were simply not booking with doctors.”

“One doctor, in particular, was having huge spaces here, there and everywhere. On Sundays, he got practically no appointments at all through the platform, so it was a very messy and unhappy period for him.” 

And it wasn’t just the odd Sunday that the appointment gaps were noticeable. 

“It wasn’t just Sundays that we were having large gaps, it was every day of the week which was really unusual because we have doctors who are generally booked up a week in advance.”

Above: One of Kingsley Medical’s consulting rooms

A confusing experience for patients

For a practice with a focus on providing the best patient experience possible, the switch also had a very negative effect on the experience for their patients.

“Our patients hated it. They found the app really hard to use. A lot of patients complained.”

“They weren’t getting their appointment reminders and a lot were having to call our practice and say, ‘I think I have an appointment with you but I’m not sure’… it was really pretty poor.”

 “In the end, we thought hello, no good, we’ll go back to HealthEngine.”  

The decision to switch back to HealthEngine

After weeks of poor results, and feedback from patients, Kingsley Medical switched back to HealthEngine.

For one of their Doctors, the reason for the new patient fee became clear based on the return on investment they were getting.

“It got to the point where he just said ‘I can’t do this, I don’t want to do this, I’m happy to pay the extra because I realise there is a reason for it’.”

Back to a happy and healthy practice!

After switching back to HealthEngine, Dorothy is happy to report that patient numbers are back up and the practice is running smoothly again.

“We’re a happy little camper again and more importantly, our patients are happy. Plus, we don’t seem to have lost our ranking in the area too which is great. We are now back to being fully booked every day – including Sundays – and we have a waiting list of up to a week.“

“HealthEngine is just more sophisticated. Our patients are saying ‘You’ve gone back to HealthEngine Yippee!’”

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