Introduction
Welcome to the Flu 2022 Playbook! The goal of this playbook is to provide you with the knowledge and resources to make this your best flu season ever. We’ve combined the learnings from hundreds of pharmacies to provide you with the most efficient workflows and take advantage the latest MedMe features.
This playbook is divided into 3 parts, designed to help you get ready, vaccinate, and build on your momentum to power clinical services year-round:
New for 2022: Get a $50 credit for yourself and another pharmacy when you refer them between now and October 31. Read more here.
Preparing for Flu Season
🧠 Consider Your Schedule & Staffing
The first step to a successful flu season is taking a few moments to look at the upcoming calendar and the resources you will have available:
When will you receive vaccines?
Focus on building up your flu vaccine waitlist at least two weeks prior – pharmacies who use the waitlist feature have 81% more flu appointments and experience less phone calls from patients wondering when vaccines will be available
Consider how many vaccines will you have, and y
Plan ahead for inventory challenges – MedMe waitlists have features to support you in inviting a precise number of patients to book, and switching patients from high dose to regular dose
Do you have new pharmacy staff?
Encourage them to register for MedMe 101 Flu Training
📋 Use The Flu Waitlist
Did you know that pharmacies who use MedMe’s flu waitlist 81% more flu appointments on average?
Using the Flu 2022/2023 Waitlist is easy: first capture patient interest, then invite patients to book on specific dates in order to fill up the schedule.
The Ideal Flu Waitlist Workflow
Tip: The top 30% busiest pharmacies on MedMe have 63% of appointments booked by patients – letting patients join the waitlist and inviting them to book increases the number of appointments and saves you time when they fill out the documentation ahead of time.
🗓 Set Up Your Calendar
Once you have an idea of your capacity for staffing, your anticipated vaccine supply and your desired schedule, you can use MedMe’s flexible calendar settings to control patient bookings.
Calendar Settings
You can set the overall hours of operation using your calendar, including blocking dates or times when you won’t be available. Don’t forget to block off holidays and schedule time for breaks during your operations!
Many pharmacies use a single calendar to manage all their appointments, but MedMe now allows you to create multiple calendars to manage more complex set-ups (like two pharmacists concurrently giving flu shots in two different rooms).
If you need even more flexibility, check out event-type scheduling.
Appointment Type Settings
For a specific appointment type, like “High Dose Flu Vaccines”, you can further control the availability, such as:
The duration of the appointment
If you are accepting registrations for the waitlist, or direct bookings instead
The start and end date for booking availability
Narrowing the hours further than the overall calendar
❗️Remember to turn on public intake for your flu appointment types to make them visible to patients.
Matching Your Availability With Vaccine Supply
Here are three ways to maximize your schedule and minimize wastage:
Want to invite a specific number of patients (including those from multi-patient appointments) without doing math?
Invite the same number of patients from your waitlist (and automatically calculate the total with multi-patient appointments) as the appointment slots you will offer, and go back to invite more if the slots do not get filled.
Want to completely use a precise number of vials per day?
Use the appointment duration to control the maximum appointments in a day. Make the appointment durations for additional patients multiples (1 patient = 15 minutes, 2 patients = 30 minutes, etc). If you want to provide 60 doses of vaccine from 1-5 PM, set the appointment duration to 15 minutes (15 minutes x 60 doses = 4 hours). See an example.
Additional capacity or clinic days?
If you’ll have additional staff on certain days to provide more capacity, you can create an additional calendar to “add” their capacity on top of your regular schedule.
📈 Generate Patient Demand for Flu Vaccines
The top three ways to boost patient demand are:
Share Your Appointment Scheduling Link Widely
Add yourpharmacy.medmeapp.com/schedule anywhere that patients can interact with your pharmacy: on your website, on your social media profiles, on your Google search results.
Tip: Don’t forget you can also get a specific link for each appointment type:
Bonus Tip: You can showcase your URL with physical props too - think posters, flyers, or prescription bag stuffers!
Invite All Your Previous Flu Patients To Join The Waitlist
Make sure your previous flu patients invited with our tutorial here.Showcase Your Other Services
To patients when they land on your scheduling page. Set up your custom appointment types to let patients know about all the other services you offer and boost patient education.
🎁 More Resources
Attend A Training Webinar
More of a hands-on learner? Register for our MedMe 101 training for flu, or our flu season refresher training:
Check Out Free & Paid Marketing Support
From QR codes to print design and social media graphics, we've gone all out to create a library of offers - view the full list here
Meet With An Account Manager
Book an appointment with an account manager to discuss your needs
Earn Credits When You Refer MedMe
Use your unique referral code and get $50 for yourself and another pharmacy when they join MedMe
