Are You Still Tackling Last Year’s To-Do List?

Is one of your to-do’s to finally tackle that to-do list? Frequently the sheer volume of what we have to do prevents us from effectively dealing with how we got so behind in the first place. Medical practitioners seeking to optimize practice efficiency have some of the biggest challenges in this area. On any given day you face heavy client volumes, paper-based workflows and mission-critical needs for quality and accuracy.

One way to achieve efficiency is to automate your workflow through patient engagement software. While implementing a practice-wide automation program will add to your to-do list in the short term, in the long term it can help you meet and exceed your goals for staff fulfillment, patient satisfaction and profit growth. Let’s examine key features of this type of solution and how they can help increase your efficiency.

What Exactly Does Patient Engagement Software Do?

Patient engagement software goes beyond features commonly associated with client portals. It automates many time-consuming and manual functions, creates an office-wide workflow and accounting mechanism and builds in marketing functionality crucial for growth.

How Will Patient Engagement Software Benefit my Practice?

These software applications benefit doctors in three fundamental ways:

Practice Management

Practice managers can have new patients register using the system, thus avoiding new paperwork. Clients can schedule appointments directly from any device and will receive automated reminders prior to their visit. Paperless registration and calendaring means staff can minimize filling out forms, checking calendars and making phone calls.

Electronic Medical Records (EMR)

Doctors can review and mark-up electronic health records instantaneously, order lab work, prescribe postoperative care and approve prescription refill requests quickly. In addition to speed, they can do all of this with less chance of reviewing the wrong documents or misreading data.

Strategic & Targeted Marketing

By automating client follow-ups, initiating surveys and eliciting client feedback both positive and negative, automated workflow tools can help doctors identify their most profitable procedures, create incentives around new procedures, remedy perceived shortcomings, target client populations for specific treatments and reward loyal clients with offers geared towards them.

Employing a coordinated strategy improves your likelihood of seeing bottom-line results quickly.

How will Patient Engagement Software Benefit my Patients?

Many features described above also benefit patients. While clients can still interact with their medical records on-line, they also get much more:

The Ability to Participate in Their Treatment Plan

Patients can access their medical records when needed and even transfer them to other members of their care team. Messaging systems facilitate easy communication between patient and doctor regarding immediate concerns. Both features help doctors comply with Meaningful Use Stage 2 compliance.

A Personalized Practice Experience

Patients will receive personalized emails for on-going client education; pre- and postoperative care instructions; recommendations for future procedures based on their treatment history; monthly offers and promotions; and even birthday and anniversary greetings.

A Comprehensive Patient Education Program

Periodic “eBlasts” will ensure clients know the latest technologies employed by the practice as well as demonstrate the practice’s knowledge of cutting-edge medical advances and techniques. While building client confidence, this outreach function also introduces patients to procedures they may not have heard of or previously considered.

These automations help eliminate many of the to-do’s which prevent staff from focusing on patients when in-house and developing the relationships that will build return business. Practice support staff — now free from document retrieval, refiling, mailings and phone calls — can now dedicate more time and attention to the patient in front of them.

Is Patient Engagement Software Worth the Investment?

Automating tasks which are time-consuming and do not directly contribute to the bottom-line allows you and your staff to focus on providing high-touch, personalized and patient-focused care that will lead to satisfied clients, return visits and personal referrals. Enabling your practice to focus on client experience can mean the difference between simply maintaining your client base and actively growing it.

After your education, a workflow automation system can be one of the most significant investments you make in your practice. It requires not only a financial investment but also a commitment of time and resources — to customize a solution, implement the infrastructure, train users for effective use, troubleshoot any issues and monitor for results. While the cost of such an initiative can be high, the costs of doing nothing can be much higher.

Call PatientNOW today at 888-644-2987 to discuss how a customized patient engagement software solution can boost your practice’s efficiency and profitability.