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In your patients’ perception, is your practice easy to work with, or could you use some improvement? The level of convenience patients experience with healthcare providers can impact their loyalty, according to a recent report by McCaghy and Sinha. Particularly among younger people, convenience and ease of doing business ranked above even cost when deciding whether to stay with a provider. In particular, poor digital support and access to services served as driving factors in changing providers, and respondents
included convenient communication and scheduling solutions as top reasons to choose a new one.
Here are six things to consider for improving the patient experience and building practice loyalty:
1. Online Scheduling
In 2017, according to Bremer and Kadish, only 15% of all physician appointments were made online. At the same time, 80% of patients said they preferred providers who offered online scheduling. Today, people schedule most everything online, including meals, movies, vacation plans and grocery delivery. The last thing they want to do is make a phone call during working hours, pick their way through an automated menu and be put on hold to make an appointment.
Patient visits aren’t like movie tickets – one size does not fit all – but digital solutions exist that offer patients the freedom of online choice while allowing dentists to control their options. Fully customizable scheduling software like Solutionreach allows practices to define appointment types and times and make them available to patients through a 24/7 online portal that automatically syncs with their software to keep the schedule up to date.
By giving existing and potential new patients the ability to request an appointment any time, the practice not only meets patients where they are, but also fills empty slots in the schedule and frees up front desk staff to handle communications that require a more personal touch.
2. Flexible Hours and Same-Day Dentistry
If someone doesn’t want to take time out of their working day to make a phone call, how much less do they want to come to the office at that time or make multiple visits for one issue? According to McCaghy and Sinha, ease of access is the most important consideration for 71% of patients choosing a healthcare provider.
Significant investments, such as taking on a new associate or buying CAD/CAM technology, go into the ability to offer services like single-visit restorations and early morning, evening and/or weekend hours. However, making those investments offer great potential for growing your practice, and the alternative is to be much less attractive to both new and existing patients.
Growing a practice also relies on a robust practice management system. Whether you have a single location with on-site servers or a multioffice practice that uses the cloud, systems such as Eaglesoft and Fuse provide the scheduling support and patient data integration you need to keep everything running smoothly.
3. Online Forms
No matter what the appointment time, no one wants to have to arrive 10 minutes early to fill out paperwork. Nor do front desk team members need the busywork of deciphering handwriting to perform basic data entry.
Digital forms avoid the hassles of both. Solutionreach’s HIPAA-compliant digital intake feature provides a streamlined, paperless option for patients to enter the information the practice needs before their visit or, if needed, in the waiting room. Automatic, secure uploads to your practice management system or electronic health record software help eliminate errors and wasted time.
4. Online Payment
“Writing a check” has become an item on social media lists titled “You know you’re old if you remember…” But regardless of a patient’s age, online payment has tremendous advantages over traditional methods. Stamps, trips to the post office and worries about mailing bills late can all be avoided with just a few clicks.
Software like Fuse and Eaglesoft’s Card Payment makes it simple for the practice as well, by offering the ability to send a payment link via text or email as part of the walkout process and by posting payments directly to patients’ records, thereby avoiding both delays in billing and time-consuming manual entry.
5. Two-Way Texting
“Phone” may still be part of the smartphone name, but if making phone calls is unpopular, receiving them is equally so. Email inboxes can be swamped with hundreds of messages a day. But almost all text messages (95% according to Zhou) are opened and read, and nearly three-quarters of patients want the ability to text their providers. Two-way texting offers the ideal solution for communicating quickly with most patients, whether about appointments, insurance, payments or anything else.
With Solutionreach, team members can instantly engage with patients either through their desktop computer or a mobile device, providing information and fielding questions in a fraction of the time it takes to make a phone call – and with high expectations of getting through. And for those patients who aren’t on board with texting, Solutionreach supports efficient email and phone call contact as well.
6. Teledentistry
Sometimes words aren’t enough to describe what a patient is experiencing, but an in-person appointment isn’t convenient. For these cases, Solutionreach also has a secure, high-resolution telehealth video option. With the ability to schedule virtual appointments or set them up during a text session, Solutionreach enables the dental team to provide prompt, professional assessments and advice on needed care before the patient even leaves their house. HIPAA-compliant and mobile-ready, Solutionreach’s telehealth platform is easy for both staff and patients to use and demonstrates your practice’s ultimate commitment to patient convenience.
Practice-Centric Too
It’s worth noting that all of these services are designed to help streamline processes for the dental team as well. Systems that help reduce tedious tasks and simplify scheduling for patients benefit the whole practice.
References
Bremer M, Kadish B. Assessing online scheduling as an emerging trend in scheduling physician appointments. Healthgrades. March 2017. bit.ly/3UV6pja
McCaghy L, Sinha S. Healthcare experience: The difference between loyalty and leaving. Accenture. 2022. bit.ly/49CIFVE
Zhou L. The ultimate list of SMS marketing statistics [2024]. January 21, 2024. luisazhou.com/blog/sms-marketing-statistics
