Monday, August 10, 2015
You use technology in your practice to keep in touch with patients and to streamline office tasks. It’s important for attracting and retaining today’s patients and for keeping your staff as productive as possible. But there comes a time when your technology outlives its usefulness.
Outdated practice technology is more harmful than you might think. Here are some things that can happen—some of which you might already be experiencing—when using outdated practice technology:
- You lose patients
- You waste time and money
- Your patients’ information is at risk
- You see a decline in practice productivity
- You are unable to provide the best possible patient care
- Your practice’s image declines
The following seven signs will help you identify if your practice technology is outdated.
1. You Use Paper Files and Bulky Filing Cabinets
In addition to not being eco-friendly, paper files can easily be lost or stolen. The filing cabinets take up valuable office space, and when you use paper and folders, it takes your staff too long to find a patient’s file.
Reliable practice management software such as Easy Dental provides an easy and more cost-effective way of inputting and storing your patient information and records. When you use the latest practice management software, your staff is able to spend less time looking through file cabinets and more time where they’re needed—with your patients.
2. You Call Your Patients to Remind them About Upcoming Appointments
In today’s digital age, the preferred methods of communication are texting and emailing. A consumer study found 36 percent of respondents check their texts and emails after waking up and before doing anything else, and other statistics show the average text message open rates are 99 percent. Patients favor texting or reading an email because it is more convenient.
Instead of having your front office staff spend hours dialing, waiting for an answer, and leaving voicemails, they can save time by sending text messages and email reminders. This can reduce your number of missed appointments and lets you contact your patients via their preferred methods of communication.
3. Your Staff Spends Countless Hours Printing and Mailing Patient Bills
Manually handling patient billing statements takes your staff hours every day. They have to print and sort through papers, and then fold, stuff, seal, address, and send off each envelope.
Electronic patient billing removes those time-consuming hassles and streamlines all these steps into a few mouse clicks. It makes creating and sending patient billing statements simple and affordable. You can also customize the billing process by adding personalized notes, choosing which statements you want mailed and when you want them mailed.
4. It Takes You Several Weeks to Receive Payment
Do you wait several weeks to be reimbursed by insurance companies? You shouldn’t—and with modern technology—you don’t have to. With an electronic claims service you can get paid faster. This will simplify your insurance claim process, so in a matter of minutes you can create, validate and electronically send claims in a secure format. Your wait time to get paid will drop from weeks to days.
5. You Experience Downtime and Lose Info When Backing Up Your Data
Numerous things can go wrong when your staff is required to manually perform backups. These issues include desktop failure, insufficient storage space, and even human error. If manual processes aren’t properly conducted they can leave your important practice and patient data vulnerable.
Rather than manually backing up your data, use an automated and reliable online backup solution. These solutions securely perform scheduled online data backups in a short amount of time. They will also keep you informed of the status of every backup with backup logs.
6. You Write Patient Prescriptions on Pieces of Paper
Electronic prescribing will help save time and cost as well as reduce legal and safety risks. With electronic prescribing, your practice can send patient prescriptions directly to retail and mail order pharmacies. This allows for automatic prescription renewals and lets you store the preferred pharmacy information of your patients. In addition, it will ensure you are HIPAA compliant.
7. You Don’t Have a Website
Your patients are online. They bank, buy clothes, talk to their long-distance relatives and find out about businesses online. If your practice doesn’t have a Website, you’re missing out on one of the most effective ways to attract new patients as well as stay connected with your current patients.
Website management software can become a valuable extension of your front office. It can decrease the number of front office calls and provide your patients with 24/7 access to their personal information, appointments, treatment plans, and account balances. A valuable website manager will also let your patients make online payments. These are the types of convenient features that patients have come to expect.
These seven reasons demonstrate some of the key ways it’s important to stay up-to-date with your practice technology. Updated software, equipment and processes will save time, improve productivity, and increase profitability. As a result you will be able to provide high-quality care and keep your patients happy.