Navigating the Galaxy of Health with Halaxy (October)

Alison Hardacre -

Welcome to the October edition of our Navigating the Galaxy of Health with Halaxy newsletter. As part of this monthly newsletter, we’re committed to bringing you some of the biggest developments in Australian healthcare, including top research, news, and the inside take of what’s been happening at Halaxy.

🌌 Inside Halaxy

In October we held one of our most requested specialised webinars: Online Bookings! This webinar looks at how Halaxy’s online booking feature streamlines and automates your practice’s entire booking flow, removing your administration so you can focus on what matters most: treating patients. 

You can watch the recording of that webinar here or watch all of our latest webinars by clicking the button below:  

Watch Halaxy Webinars

🗂️ Research that caught our eye

A literature review of 162 articles examined the impact that SMS reminders have in healthcare service settings.  

According to researchers, the evidence from that review is clear: "SMS reminders provide an inexpensive, easily implemented, and automatable method" to not just improve patient appointment attendance but also to positively impact patient health-related behaviours.  

4 out of every 5 appointments made in Halaxy use an SMS reminder not an email reminder, highlighting that patients now view SMS reminders as the default reminder option, not email.  

With Halaxy, when SMS reminders are coupled with Halaxy auto payments, practitioners can reduce no-shows to as little as 1%. 

Sending SMS reminders in Halaxy costs 1 credit and becomes even cheaper when you purchase Halaxy credits in bulk. 

Want to learn more? Read our full help guide article on reminders here.  

📰 What we’ve been reading

Check out the healthcare news and updates that we’ve been reading:

  • Updates to the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS) will see a number of changes to general medical services, diagnostic imaging services, and pathology services, from 1 November 2024. Halaxy makes it easy to update your fees from our Global Preset Fee database, letting you import automatic updates for the fees you use and that are relevant to your profession, into your Halaxy software, in just one click. This removes manual data entry and ensures your fees are always up to date. (MBS) 
  • Queensland is set to remove its GP payroll tax. Will other states in Australia follow? (RACGP) 
  • The Australian Federal government is investing $14m into research focused on improving the mental health of Australians over the long term (Department of Health and Aged Care) 
  • A new perspective on improving health outcomes for women in Australia (MJA) 
  • Discover the measures taken to improve eye health for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people (Australian Institute of Health and Welfare) 
  • What we know about the latest XEC covid variant (The Conversation)  

🗣️ Top Help Guide articles

Discover some of the most talked about Halaxy Help Guide articles in the last month: