New year, new QOF: how NHS practices can use Hero to transform the way they hit QOF targets through intelligent online booking

QOF appointments (and their corresponding targets) can be confusing and hard to hit at the best of times, often leading to practices missing out on crucial funding that could be used to procure other services or staff. This has only been compounded further by discussions in government as to whether QOF and IIF targets are the best way to incentivise practices to gain funding on an appointment type basis. However, while these discussions seem to be going back and forth, one thing is for certain (for the moment!): QOF is here to stay!

This means that practices need to have a fool-proof method of ensuring they can invite and see as many patients as possible who are due for QOF appointments before April. And importantly, practices need a way of doing this without adding unmanageable pressures and strains on an already stretched work force.

Luckily, Hero Health has a solution that will allow practices to maximise attendance and minimise administrative work. In essence, this translates into one key thing: more funding!  

Hero’s campaigns feature allows practices to upload a CSV list of patients and invite them all to book into a specific appointment online. Admins can subsequently track which patients have booked and which pesky patients they will need to follow up with, to make sure they’re seen.  

If we put this in real terms and appointments, let’s consider how a practice would go about inviting their remaining patients for their Asthma reviews.  

1. A practice pulls a list of all patients due for their Asthma Reviews from EMIS and uploads it into Hero ‘Campaigns’

2. They craft a message for the patients and create a unique booking link specifically for that appointment at their practice and send this out to all patients via a batch email or SMS

3. The patient clicks into the link, verifies their D.O.B., and selects the appointment, booking directly into their EMIS diary

4. The practice can then track which patients have booked in using the Hero link on their Hero dashboard

5. They can send follow up invites to non-booked patients and target this smaller group with a phone call if needed

6. A patient receives a reminder of their appointment 24 hours before to ensure they don’t forget (and reduce DNA’s)

7. As a result of using Hero, more patients have attended this appointment

8. The practice receives a substantial pay-out in funding at the end of the financial year

9. They repeat the process for each QOF appointment

Sounds too good to be true? Don’t just take our word for it. Jane Jones, a Reception Lead at Longcroft Clinic told us that:

‘thanks to Hero, we were able to hit our QOF targets for flu last year [as we were able to] use the campaigns feature to mass invite eligible patients’.

If you would like to learn more about the ways you can use Hero to mop up your QOF targets, please schedule a call with your account manager here.

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