Typically, dental clinics heavily rely on staff to coordinate patient-related communications, store data manually, and spend a significant amount of time maintaining several different static databases and applications to keep all patient information current.
Understandably, these forms of operations create the perfect storm for communication gaps, mix-ups and human errors.
While these administrative practices used to manage patients at dental clinics have remained standard over the years, the rise of cloud-based management tools has become an essential component in operating successful clinical practices, today.
By freeing up the time spent on the more arduous manual tasks, your staff can instead focus on providing high-quality patient experience while employing automated tools that help make managing your dental clinic easier. And the programs & applications are there to do it.
In this article, we break down the top three dental software trends for 2021.
One of the most recent and notable changes that the dental industry has seen is the shift in the method and style of communication between clinic and patient. Today, patients want online booking options and a simple communique that can be stored electronically so they can easily refer back to it at any given time for the convenience factor.
Normally, appointments are scheduled via phone call by the administration team, and the responsibility would then fall on the patient to note down the time and date for their booking.
Online booking software is an easy and convenient solution that allows patients to schedule their appointments on their own time. There are a number of options that are available. A simple Google search turns up hundreds of options you can look into to find the tool that suits your clinic’s functions the best.
These solutions are often paired with clinical forms/applications and the ability to sync and automate online appointments directly with both your administrative software and patient management system. This will ensure there are no gaps in information or instances of double-bookings when managing your dental practice.
When running a busy clinic, it can be understandably difficult for any given administrator to be available for every incoming patient-related call and inquiry. That’s why we are seeing more and more websites offer chatbot functionality, which allows users to ask basic questions and get quick and readily available responses. This method not only allows customers to get direct and simple answers to their questions, but it also saves your representatives the time to respond back to your patients, which in turn helps increase efficiency in your operations and give your staff the time they need to focus on more urgent priority requests and functions.
If you are considering a change in your practice management software, consider new cloud-based solutions, in lieu of manual, on-premise and server-based tools.
Cloud-run solutions have the following advantages:
Cloud-based solutions require little to no maintenance and see frequent updates and improvements since they are fully online. Remote access to cloud-based management solutions makes it accessible, secure and easy to store important information and patient data.
While most legacy softwares focused on specific tasks, modern dental softwares aim to unify administrative, clinical, and all other functions into one solution.This in return saves management the upkeep labour by using a cloud-based platform.
Integrating intuitively designed dental software applications between clinical and software tools also improves work quality and output. This step eliminates the need to manually transfer data between one program to the other, allowing for a seamless flow of data in real-time. This also allows dentists to visualize patient information and store it all in one place, with integrated patient management solutions.
The Takeaways
- Offer the convenience of online booking options for patients to schedule their appointments on their own time.
- Create a chatbot capability on your website for current and new pt
- Set up automated responses for common questions to save your team time.
- This includes hours of operations, online scheduling, frequently asked questions, things to prepare before coming into an appointment, etc.
- If you are considering upgrading or migrating your practice management software to a different platform, look into cloud-based dental software that will easily integrate with the other solutions you are currently using, or plan to use in the future.
Shift Accounting works with over 80 successful clinics across Canada. We go beyond basic book-keeping, providing a range of financial and administrative services, as well as consulting and CFO contracting. We are invested in your success. Contact us today for more information on how you can take the next step to grow your practice and build a more profitable business.
