Messaging App Reduces Practice Costs, Allows Patients to Easily Access Providers

How many times have you called a physician’s office only to end up with a complex call routing menu that eventually leads to a voicemail for someone to call you back? Then you end up not receiving the return call and you have to start this fiasco all over again.

Welcome to medicine! Overall patients are displeased with phone communication with physicians—especially when you take into account the trend towards using the phone communication less and less and text messaging more and more.

We have moved toward text messaging due to its flexibility and the fact that you can: instantly send a message and when convenient for the recipient, receive a response—a process termed asynchronous communication. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to do something similar with your physician’s office?

Well, until now there has not been a means to do this in a HIPAA compliant manner with ease—but that has all changed with the launch of Klara.

Founded by entrepreneurs Simon Bolz and Simon Lorenz who understood the need for an asynchronous communication app for physicians and medical office staff. After developing the concept in Germany, the two decided that the most acceptable market was the United States. They then moved the company to New York City where they are now headquartered. 

Klara is an app that uses an approach similar to Facebook messenger. Their goal is to basically replace the phone. Their target audience is millennials and young parents, but interestingly the most common demographic using this service are patients in their mid 40s. The service is user-friendly, with adoption at 83% on average—compared to just 7% for patient portals.

Their business is built around secure messaging. Secure messaging can be used to promote care coordination between office visits and after discharge from a procedure, handle routine health issues, address patient questions and concerns, monitor patient conditions, adjust care plans in a timely fashion and eliminate the back and forth of missed phone calls. 

It allows patients to feel they have easier access to their providers and in some cases, patients are actually more comfortable talking about sensitive health issues with secure messaging rather than in person. 

To start, a physician needs to signup with Klara for access. The physician then sends an invitation to his or her patients who can access Klara via web browser or iOS app.  The patient completes a confirmation process to authenticate his or her identity and the conversation can begin. 

Each communication with the provider is hosted privately (and kept for at least 7 years to comply with HIPAA). The messages are received by the physician’s office and are answered promptly or assigned to the proper individual. Large offices will dedicate a person to assign the message.

There are about 10,000 physicians currently using Klara, and early reports suggest that phone call volume has decreased by 40% on average. Cost to the physician is on a per-provider basis, which is targeted at $150 per physician per month. Although this might seem like a bit to chew off for cash strapped physicians, the company cites increased revenue and increased efficiency as additional benefits. For example, a five provider practice can save $45,000 yearly based on call volume. While on the surface it seems like Klara might create a lot more work, over 75% of practices report reduced workload.

Klara does not seem to have any real competitors at the present time according to a call to their office as part of my research. Data is secure and private, and all employees of Klara are required to be HIPAA-certified. They do not currently use this data except for some basic reporting back to the physicians. The information collected (from both the physician and the patient’s conversation), can be exported and uploaded into the EMR system.

If you are like most people, you will probably welcome relief from the “push 9 for…” frustration! Klara again provides an example of the transformation of our medical delivery system!