Friday, September 27, 2019
There are currently millions of referrals sent and received between dental and health care providers across the United States. These referrals are essential for both providers and patients, but referral leakage, or the lack of communication between providers and specialists, could lead to problems such as unfinished cases and missed appointments.
With the average general dental patient bringing in $300, losing just three patients a week can cost nearly $1,000 in lost revenue. Implementing an electronic referral system that uses cloud-based storage can reduce referral leakage by 80% and save your practice thousands of dollars each year.
Referral leakage can cause more than just financial damage. Leakage can contribute to low patient satisfaction and even malpractice. This can be because of delays in treatment, lack of communication between providers, or misdiagnosis.
Monitoring your referrals with an electronic system can greatly benefit your clinic’s reputation, improve paperwork management and bring in new patients. Here’s how:
No more physical paperwork
More referrals translate into more paperwork in the office. As paperwork continues to increase for dentists and office managers, how can you ensure every referral gets completed or even processed?
Electronic referral management systems eliminate physical paperwork. These programs help with organization and accessibility so all referrals are readily available and never lost or forgotten.
A variety of solutions improve efficiencies and help you provide better patient care
A referral program can provide solutions including live updates on inbound/outbound referrals, real-time chat with providers, and a secure database. Keeping track of all referrals becomes much easier to manage when you are able to see them go through each step of the process from creation to completion.
Collaborating with other specialists ensures all providers are on the same page so your patients can feel more secure about their plan of care. Databases with specialists will help you save time on researching the right doctor for every patient.
Bidirectional referrals strengthen your patient resources
Bidirectional referrals, which focus on dental-medical integration, are a new technology dental practices should take advantage of. Dentists today lack comprehensive care coordination with medical specialists, something that also contributes to referral leakage and unfinished cases.
Incorporating a bidirectional referral system and establishing a method of communication between medical facilities will strengthen your resources for patient care.
You’ll attract more patients
Collaborating with medical facilities also can help bring in more patients to your practice. Many people do not see oral care as important as other aspects of health care. They will be more likely to come to your practice if they are referred by their primary care physician. Conversely, more people will choose you as their primary dentist if you are able to easily connect them with physicians and medical specialists.
You can quickly and securely share patient information with other doctors
A referral program with a communication platform will save you the time it takes for patient records to be mailed. Using HIPAA compliant platforms, patient records can be securely shared between dentists and physicians in real time. This also will eliminate the stacks of paper cluttering your office. Going paperless will make a positive impact on case completion rates for your practice.
Reduce referral leakage
Referrals can help your practice grow. Implementing an electronic system that manages your referrals will help reduce referral leakage, bringing more patients to your practice and boosting your bottom line.
Alisha Sabnis is currently pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration at Drexel University. As a business development intern for Medcohere, she has been researching dental-medical integration and office management techniques for dentists. For more information on Medcohere's solutions, go to Medcohere.com or contact Alisha at [email protected].