So, you’ve successfully made the jump into the digital age by implementing software to help manage your practice. Maybe your contract is coming up for renewal, or you’re starting to wonder what else can be streamlined in your business by implementing more technology. We’ve scoured the latest tech features from practice management software providers to give you a list of problems in your dental office that the latest code can resolve.
Digital Ledgers
A well-designed digital ledger means fast and easy access to patient financial information, completed treatments, insurance and claims submissions, billing, and even printed statements. By digitizing billing, you remove lots of human error risk and the time it takes to complete, ensuring a faster response from insurance companies and payment.
Explanation of Benefits (EOB) and Coordination of Benefits (COB)
When invoicing, speed and accuracy are everything. Having a system that automatically updates the insurance co-payment amount in the transaction based on EOB provides instant and correct calculations of a patient’s portion of the invoice. This facilitates accurate, real-time patient collections. If your patient has dual insurance companies, a software system capable of handling COB electronically will do the job of forwarding the portion unpaid by their primary insurance to the secondary insurance to determine the eligible portion to be paid, and then forward any remaining to the patient, enabling real-time patient collection even in the trickiest case. These tech featuresensure seamless handling of complex billing scenarios, enhancing efficiency and patient satisfaction.
Electronic Data Interchange (EDI)
Submitting electronic claims is only one of the many things in a software system approved by CDAnet and ITRANS for EDI in Canada. You can learn more about EDI integrations through the Canadian Dental Association and their own CDAnet website. Some software systems can support all the EDI functions, such as the ability to transmit documents and dental images electronically, which speeds up insurance benefit adjudication, to future-proof your investment.
Ortho Contract Billing
Many software providers offer contract billing for ortho treatment to keep you on track for both treatment and billing. For ongoing treatments, you can automatically submit claims, send invoices, and update ledgers.
Dental Patient Scheduling
A staple of any dental practice software, the ability to integrate scheduling directly into calendars with easy viewing and updating is one of the biggest time savers you can find. Simplifying to the level of drag-and-drop, maximizing your schedule takes a second or two, instead of minutes or hours. A clear and easy boost to the art of schedule making.
Automatic Patient Reminders
An extension of expanded patient communication, automatic reminders remove the burden of early morning check-ins. Select a message for people a week before their appointment, starting their treatment, or who haven’t been in for a check-up for 6 months, and let the software take care of the rest.
Patient Communication
Increasingly, patients prefer to communicate over a silent text, rather than a call they might have to step outside to take. Comprehensive software will allow you to shoot out an SMS or email to confirm appointments, reminders, and everything in between. Automating reminders and confirmations takes even more strain off your front desk. Consider the increased value of group messages as well. Software that can message a single cohort means your staff can send one quick group message when trying to fill a hole in your schedule instead of calling or messaging each person individually. These tech features streamline patient communication, making it more efficient and effective.
Complete Patient Clinical Record
With built-in charting and imaging, x-rays can be fine-tuned to be seen in greater detail. Save even more time by automatically rotating, mounting, and labelling the image with the correct tooth number before attaching it to the odontogram. And, with periodontal charting built in, and click-to-include clinical notes, everything you need is just a click away.
Production Growth Reporting
Well designed, and easy-to-understand reporting is key to analyzing the metrics of your business. By visualizing the important day-to-day information, you can get comprehensive, at-a-glance insights into things like cancellations, comparative productivity, and average earnings.
Practice Communication
Sharing pertinent information from the operatory to the front desk means that reception can pre-verify completed procedure codes, submit an electronic claim right after treatment is complete, and prepare an accurate patient invoice if required before the patient arrives for checkout
Staffing + Hours
Ensure there is coverage for all your patients and appointments with a system that allows you to see your schedule while also tracking staff hours from sign-in, to sign-out. Removing the manual counting of hours and the required comparison to the shift schedule will also translate to a smoother run of payroll.
Inventory Management
Don’t get caught with low stock. An inventory management tool keeps track of quantities and can notify you when supplies are close to depleted. Top-of-the-line inventory services will also provide vendor price comparisons, so you know when you’re getting the best deal.
Mobile Applications
If you’ve become accustomed to late hours in the office pouring over your schedule and checking in on patients, it’s time to consider support for mobile apps. Many software solutions now offer a way to securely access records and even connect with multiple practices or locations with much more convenience. A few companies will even offer tablet or iPad apps to speed up patient check-in and record reviews!
Want to learn more about tech features and what practice management software can do for your office? Download the free guide today!
Without proper dental scheduling, there are many ways that time can be wasted in a busy clinic. And when time is lost, revenue and morale take a hit too.
A full schedule does not always translate to productivity and profitability. The goal of an efficient schedule is to run your dental clinic smarter not harder, maximizing time and revenue. A well-managed appointment scheduling system allows you to anticipate, prevent, and react to unexpected changes while minimizing the impact to both your team and patients.
Everybody suffers with an ill-managed schedule:
Patients are kept waiting when appointments are overbooked or lagging behind
Potential revenue is lost when appointments are under-booked
Dentists are burnt out when there is no balance between types of appointments
The team feels stressed and overworked when they’re behind schedule
The role of a dental scheduler is not an easy one but we’ve got four dental scheduling tips that will help you avoid the problems above, run an efficient schedule, and optimize your clinic to its fullest potential.
Set goals for your clinic
Your dental clinic is a business like any other. Before you delve into the nitty-gritty of day-to-day scheduling, take a step back and look at the whole picture.
Ask yourself what is it that you’re trying to accomplish; it will help you set a production goal for your dental scheduling.
To create a profitable schedule, work backwards:
Determine how much profit you want to make in a year,
Then translate that to a monthly goal,
And get your daily average production goal by dividing your monthly goal by the total number of working days in a month.
This gives you an idea of how much production you should aim for in a day. Use this goal as you schedule a mix of routine and complex appointments. However, remember to be mindful of available resources, which leads us to our next tip.
[Keep track of your goals easily using ClearDent analytics, aka ClearInsight – book a demo today to learn more]
Schedule dental appointments strategically
When scheduling appointments, you have to consider factors such as available time slots, types of procedures, cancellations, and much more to ensure the mental, emotional, and financial health of your dental clinic and team. Use these tactics to strategically schedule appointments:
1) Organize your daily schedule in blocks to accomplish your goals
Designate time blocks for different types of procedures, such as:
Determine how long procedures take by timing each accurately for the most common length. Don’t forget to factor in time for the anesthetist, hygienist, and dental assistant. This exercise will give you a good idea of the average time needed for each procedure.
For example, complex restorative procedures can sometimes require 2 hours or even more. While on the other hand, new patient consultations don’t require as much time but are equally as important. You need to allocate enough time to a first appointment so the team can make a good first impression and build a relationship with the patient – new business is critical to growth.
For longer procedures, consider blocking off a specific time slot for that type of procedure each month so when a patient wants to book a longer procedure, there’s an appointment available.
Set up your schedule with blocks dedicated to each type of appointment in a way that helps you reach your production goal. Complexity and time involved for each procedure are both useful to know when scheduling appointments so that you can make sure to properly block off enough time for the procedure, as well as to let patients know how much time they need to take out of their schedule.
2) Stagger the schedule
Creating an effective schedule is almost like a puzzle. When scheduling appointments, always keep your team in mind. Complicated procedures can be mentally and physically draining for both dentists and dental assistants. Schedule procedures in a way that gives dentists and assistants some buffer time to recover by alternating routine and complex procedures.
3) Maximize the team’s time
Avoid dental assistants waiting for the dentist by scheduling their tasks separately. This way, both dental assistants and dentists can perform tasks concurrently, maximizing everyone’s time. In addition, try to schedule appointments so that the dentist is able to use at least two chairs at any given time, rotating between the patients.
Set up proper clinic practices
There are certain procedures you should have in place that allow you to organize your schedule more efficiently.
Keep detailed notes on your patients
Some appointments require more time depending on the patient, and detailed notes can help you plan for that. For example, a dental cleaning will take longer on someone with gum disease than one that does not or certain patients may be chatty, while others just want to get in and out. Maintaining notes about patients’ preferences and history can help you properly schedule sufficient time for each.
Automate patient recalls
Ensuring your patients return for regular check-ups helps keep your schedule populated. Using an automated patient recall system takes the onus off of you to keep track of when it’s time to reach you. You can set up reminders in the form of email, text, or phone call that automatically go out letting them know it’s time to reschedule.
Minimize patient cancellations
No-shows and last-minute cancellations are an unfortunate but inevitable part of running a dental clinic. However, there are ways to minimize its impact.
Send appointment reminders
Considering appointments are often made weeks, even months, in advance, relying on patients to remember their appointments is likely to lead to many unnecessary cancellations. Prevent this by sending reminders a couple weeks before the appointment date, asking patients to confirm the appointment and allowing them to reschedule if the time no longer works for them. Follow up with another reminder within 24 hours of the appointment if they haven’t confirmed.
These days, many dental solutions have patient communication tools that not only sends these appointment reminders automatically but allow you to communicate with your patients through their preferred method of contact, whether it’s by email or text.
Have an on-call list
A patient waiting list can help you fill gaps that last minute cancellations create in the schedule. There are a number of dental systems that help you maintain online waiting lists. These allow you to send out a mass notification of an opening to patients on that list, rather than having to go down the list and call each person. This instant communication significantly increases your chances of filling the slot.
Creating an efficient appointment scheduling system is a fine art, requiring carefully honed skills over time. These tips will help you schedule effectively and run a well-optimized dental clinic.
Knowing the right moment to adopt new technology in dentistry and understanding the role that technology plays in your clinic is how you can use innovation to grow your dental business.
Let’s cover how technology changes already help, what these changes can look like for a business, and how to keep an eye out for opportunities in the future.
Taking the Paper Out of Paperwork
We spent a lot of time writing things down on paper before computers became as ubiquitous as they have. With the paper format, we had a system that worked easily and felt easy, even when an error required a whiteout or a new sheet to correct. What wasn’t easy was finding something misplaced or lost. As more and more of our records and bills digitize, software that focuses on your workflow as you move between sensitive oral care and insurance provider billing continues to speed up.
Patient management software, especially digital records, has taken much of the stress out of record-keeping, largely speeding up the busy work of dental practices everywhere. By creating a reliable digital system that saves on investment and even square footage costs, but is focused on ease of use, you can grow your productivity while costs continue to decrease.
Technology as a Service
The classic approach in business is to appraise market demand for a product, and then make a call on whether that business can profit over a period of time.
Services can be different. They often require additional training or specialty staff. While not especially new, take sedation dentistry as an example: simple training, yes, but to offer a full range of services that meet the many demands of those suffering from deep anxiety, you need IVs, access to general anesthesia, and even another medical degree. While that investment in a specific niche can pay off, full sedation is unlikely to work for a dental office without an oral surgeon.
Making The Case For New Technology
When you see an opportunity to provide additional services, the cost to the bottom line can be complex depending on how you intend to offer those services. Judging whether or not a new technology in dentistry is the right fit requires looking at the influences and conditions that could impact success outside of your office.
However, sometimes vendors back out of a specific space and force entire markets to reassess their needs. In the case of practice management software, when vendors back out of offering on-premises software, dental clinics are forced to judge whether it is time to switch to a new software vendor.
Chase Solutions, Not Products
People are more passionate about the brands they choose than ever. When the ones that innovate in a particular field get the word out, they can better create a passionate following. When patients inquire about invisible braces, are they asking about getting a beautiful smile without ugly braces, or about Invisalign? The invention of invisible braces cracked the market wide open for self-conscious adults actively chasing the opportunity to straighten their teeth.
Listening To Your Patients
In an age where product marketing can achieve cult status, you don’t want to end up simply buying into the most viral video. If your patients are routinely mentioning a product or service, dig deeper to find the reason that stands out for so many, and then find a way to tackle the issue they present. Even if many companies will narrow your choices by way of patent or expensive training, knowing that you’re paying for a technology in dentistry solution your patients will love, and not the marketing that sold them is what makes a difference to your bottom line.
Having your dental practice listed as a business on Google has more impact than you think! Currently, 41% of patients state they search for new dentists online. Therefore, if your practice doesn’t show up on their Google search, you have just lost a potential patient. It’s crucial to verify your dental office on Google to ensure your practice is visible to those seeking dental care.
The same goes for online reviews; 30.4% of patients find their dentists through online reviews. Consequently, not having any patient reviews or having one to three rating stars impacts the patient’s’ decision when choosing a new dentist.
This is why you should invest time on developing and enhancing your online reputation – and this is where Google My Business will help you!
Google My Business is a free tool that allows you to promote your business on Google Search and Google Maps. By verifying your business, you can engage with your customers, manage your business information, and gain insights on your audience.
To take advantage of this free tool and start enhancing your online reputation, follow these 2 easy steps below:
Log in with your business account. If you’re already logged in, click “Manage Now”
Fill out the necessary information
Verify your business listing: choose from post card, phone or email verification
All done! You can now:
Add photos and videos to your listing
Write a description of your business
Use Google My Business Q&A to engage with your customers
Request and manage Google reviews
Explore search insights
You may have noticed we’ve made some adjustments to our brand. These were made in tune with how we see the future of ClearDent and the improved solutions, refreshed look, and services we aim to provide dentists across Canada and align with our three core values: Community, Creativity, and Courage.
When it comes to our Community, we are always listening and looking to improve the way we communicate. This includes the release of a new ClearDent News feature that will be accessible within your ClearDent software, to ensure important messages don’t go unnoticed.In our Support team, we’veincreased our capacity to answer your calls, resulting in lower average call wait times. We’ve also introduced new methods to route your request to those who can help you best including a new Cloud support team (cloudsupport@cleardent.com) available to help you via e-mail.To strengthen our lines of communication, we also intend to re-introduce an improved Account Management team (myaccount@cleardent.com).
During a time when everyone is doing their part to limit in-person interactions, we’ve looked to Creativity in both the software and services that we provide. We’ve launched a Patient Portal as part of ClearConnect that helps you provide a safe, contactless experience for both your team and patients. While we normally invest in your continuing education through in-person seminars, we’ve pivoted to holding monthly webinars for our customers on best practices in dentistry and using ClearDent.
Working toward the future, we are also setting bold goals that will hold us to our final core value – Courage. We’re excited to be working on a Cloud solution that will offer a full suite of administrative, clinical, and patient engagement features. Our all-in-one Cloud solution will enable us to broaden our community by working with partners on third-party integrations and more. The future of dentistry is always changing and we strive to be at the forefront of emerging technology, teaching our community how to use these tools to improve efficiency and productivity across your dental practice.
As we continue, we will continue leaning on you, our customers, to create solutions made for Canadian dentists.
Over the past year, there has been a greater surge in the number of dental practices looking to create an easier, more streamlined patient engagement experience.
Keeping chairs filled in a dental practice is a constant challenge, and a lack of patients in your dental practice likely means there is work to do in your patient engagement strategy.
At a micro-level, there are a number of options that can keep seats filled and keep them that way. For one, your practice management software should be able to send individualized e-mail and text reminders as their appointment draws closer. Adding onto this, it is an expectation that your dental software should also be able to create a routine text or e-mail schedule for your patients, one week, one day, and a few hours before their appointment to confirm their arrival. With everyone owning a smartphone nowadays, it doesn’t take much for your patient to confirm their appointment in advance or allow you to send an advanced notice to fill a cancelled appointment.
While these individualized, micro-level engagements are effective in building one-on-one engagement, this isn’t all you can do. In fact, to stand out from the crowd of other dental practices doing the same, there are several emerging features and technology you can leverage to further streamline and add to the touchpoints that your patients receive. If you’re aiming to be a true, modern dental practice, keep reading.
At a macro-level, there are several large-scale solutions that can make a very big impact on all your patients.
Social media is nothing new to anyone – except for how it’s being used in dentistry. While platforms including Facebook and Twitter used to be for connecting with your friends and family, they are quickly becoming a source for local news including what’s going on in your community (including your dental practice). Having an active presence on these platforms can be as simple as an occasional post on what’s new at your practice, updated office policies, and monitoring your online reviews. And speaking of those, social media and other online platforms have completely replaced the Yellow Pages and other printed materials on the go-to resource for where those looking for a new dental practice (or those contemplating leaving their current dentist) will go. This is where your dental software should come in.
Reputation management is a big part of any business’ marketing and engagement strategy, and your dental practice is no different. Being able to retain or draw in new patients, and sometimes all it takes is a patient to glance at the number of 5-star ratings beside your name. That’s where another feature of an all-in-one dental software comes in. Driving satisfied patients to leave reviews online, for others to see, can highlight the quality of the patient experience for others to decide on for themselves. It can be as simple as setting up an automated patient feedback survey at the end of each treatment. For those that are positively reviewed, encourage them to post that same review online.
How has ClearDent been leveraging emerging technology over the past year for Canadian dental practices?
Beyond the examples listed above, there are additional ways to leverage emerging technology in dentistry and ClearDent has been quick to release a number of these features due to the changing expectations in patient engagement, and all are included in ClearConnect.
Though individualized e-mails have already been discussed, what about those that can reach all your patients at once? For that, look for a dental software that includes a bulk newsletter/communication tool. If there is news to be announced including a new promotion, updated office hours, COVID-19 protocols, these are all necessary pieces of information that would be useful to your entire patient base. Even better, pre-loaded templates can allow you to customize these e-mails depending on the topic (single message, newsletter, etc.) while including your company logo.
Another patient engagement solution is the advancement and introduction of a cloud-based patient portal. Your patient experience doesn’t begin and end with your initial communication and post-appointment follow-up, but also how you can manage everything in-between. Patient portal allows you to control digitally, including the signing of medical documents, filling out questionnaires, and ensuring there are fewer touchpoints for patients (and staff) that can alleviate safety concerns All of this should be accessible in the cloud, with secure and compliant data measures in place – and if you aren’t sure if it is, ask your dental software provider.
If the number of different platforms, solutions, and processes included in this article can seem a bit daunting, don’t let it discourage you. The many advancements in patient engagement over the past year, all due to changing market needs in dentistry, have all began from feedback we have heard from dentists across Canada. Just as you listen to your patient’s feedback, it is important for us to listen to and create solutions for the dental community.
Dental practices across Canada have faced significant challenges due to the COVID-19 pandemic. While protective guidelines have been implemented across all provinces to safeguard patients and staff, the process of adapting to these recommendations has been a learning curve for most practices. The introduction of the patient portal enhances efficiency, helping practices manage these challenges more effectively.
Initially, reevaluating best practices was essential for reopening, but it has now become crucial for eliminating inefficiencies as the pandemic continues. Many solutions and strategies have focused on how to integrate screening procedures with the existing office layout. To assist with this, ClearDent introduced a new feature, Patient Portal, a secure cloud-based access point that allows patients to access and update their records through ClearConnect.
Traditionally, dental offices have relied on longstanding practices, such as handing over a clipboard for quick paper reviews. However, the pandemic has forced a reevaluation of these methods. Even as technology began to reshape the waiting room experience, it took a global pandemic to question whether these approaches were ever truly effective.
In the post-pandemic world, handling paperwork for health history updates or adding a family member to dental care is seen as a logistical challenge. Routine checkups and first-time visits now pose obstacles for many businesses striving to maintain excellent health outcomes. Care providers, administrative staff, and office managers have found ways to keep their offices open, but often at increased costs to protect their teams and patients from COVID-19 risks.
By eliminating the need for records to be updated only in the waiting room or during appointments, Patient Portal simplifies record management for patients. This innovation reduces the reliance on paperwork, tablets, and concerns about the accuracy of file updates, streamlining the process and improving efficiency in the post-pandemic dental practice.
Word of mouth referrals are still as powerful as ever – think of the number of times in your life that you’ve looked for affirmation in your daily decision-making. But instead of seeking reassurance from your physical network of peers, word of mouth has taken online in a huge way, from daily purchase reviews to healthcare referrals. This shift emphasizes the importance of maintaining a positive online reputation, as potential patients often rely on these online reviews and testimonials when choosing a dental practice.
As of early 2019, 97% of consumers are reading local business reviews. Of that almost-everyone group, around 90% admit that positive reviews influenced their decision to try out a new business. In other words, your ultimate strategy will still need to incorporate a public online presence, even if this might be new territory for your practice.
Tools for managing your online reputation are fantastic at being able to consolidate information, automatically ask patients to leave a review after their appointment, and keep you on top of updates as they happen. Knowing when you’ve received a glowing review is a morale boost for your staff, but knowing when you receive a negative one gives you time to act.
Understanding how to respond to negative ads is a hallmark of better ratings. Being courteous, informative, and, when appropriate, apologetic is an opportunity to win them back to your side. With over 80% of consumers saying they read and factor a business’s response into their decision, accepting negative criticism and responding thoughtfully can be as important as getting a great review. Calling them a liar or troll will not get you very far, regardless of who’s right and who’s wrong.
Top Sites for Review
Google – The search engine that everyone knows, reviews, and ratings automatically populate whether a potential patient uses Maps to look for a nearby dentist or is searching out the most talented doctors in town.
Facebook – A healthy and vibrant community that is ready to leave vocal feedback, but also more receptive to conversation and community.
RateMDs.com – Love it or hate it, this site has provided insight into the care that doctors provide right across North America
OpenCare.com – A reliable resource for patients that are looking for specialty services, or a recommendation for a dentist that comes well-equipped for their care needs.
Yelp.com – Commonly associated with restaurants and food faire, Yelp allows anyone to leave a review of a local business. Thanks to their ambitious search engine optimization, they’ll always be on the first page of search results with the reviews their members provide.
Reputation management software providing you with up-to-the-minute info about what’s being said allows you to quickly respond, making your overall rating easier to manage. Typically for small to medium offices, dipping below an average of 3.4 stars on reliable review sites will actively deter potential patients from even asking if you’ve got room for them. It’s also worth considering what a potential new hire may perceive or learn when Googling your practice’s history.
What if you’re having trouble getting patients to leave reviews online for you? Just like surveys, there are always plenty of ways to grease the wheels of your favourite patients. A review opening with the explanation of being given free dentures to voice their glowing opinion will raise an eyebrow, so it’s best to save the giveaways for just toothpaste and floss samples at the end of an appointment. Inciting your patients with a draw or giveaway, while also expressing that you want their truthful opinion, good or bad, is a fantastic way to get some momentum when increasing your online presence. You can always use your practice management software to set up a survey that automatically sends after every 4th or 5th visit. This makes it easier to grab feedback, without your patients feeling like providing their opinion is a part of each appointment.
As tempting as it may be to go the ‘bot’ route, these moves are becoming easier and easier to spot. Going from 35 followers to 10,000 in a week, without staring in a major movie or becoming a nationally elected politician, makes for obvious fraud. The same applies if every review you have is 5 stars, and the reviews themselves are the same 6 or 7 different sentences copied and pasted. Your patients and potential patients could come to their conclusion about why you’re spending the time and money to inflate perceptions online. Getting noticed for fraudulently inflating your presence inevitably comes with backlash that can even end with your online accounts being removed.
Executing a well-developed, thoughtful communication strategy that uses templates to automatically engage patients over text or email isn’t quite as useful when you’re not allowed online. Your online reputation as a reliable and welcoming dental practice is everything. That reputation is equal parts word of mouth as it is online reviews. Managing your reputation means keeping a thoughtful eye on the feedback that you ask for, and the feedback that you don’t.
While most people typically associate brands with their favourite snacks and drinks, in the world of marketing, a brand entails everything that customers – or patients – think about you and your dental practice. Without needing to be a catchy jingle or beautiful logo, the brand that represents your dental practice is how patients perceive you, and how you want to be perceived. Building a strong brand helps in creating a loyal patient base, ensuring that patients return for ongoing care and recommend your practice to others.
This topic is rarely covered on the path to your DMD or DDS, so it can feel a little daunting. If you haven’t considered the idea of branding your practice, try this as a quick exercise:
What are the three words you want your patients to associate with you, the care you provide, and your staff?
Your answer will vary based on the type of person you are, the dental care you offer, and the suite of services that you offer to the mouths that walk through your front door. Aside from the benefits of aligning a team working towards a single goal, your brand works as a north star for every task you undertake. If you’re focused on providing reliable attentive care that always finishes on time, you might label yourself as Efficient. Focusing on creating better experiences for people that struggle to get enthusiastic about a checkup might have you land on Caring. However, you reach the three words that guide your practice and your work, these ideas also inform your decisions on how to communicate with your patients.
Whether we explicitly use the word or not, as a business, branding means almost everything to your patients and customers. Offering consistent experiences builds trust. Taking extra steps to properly outline the correct use of a prescription will make patients more confident in their treatment. Texting a patient to remind them that a pill should be taken on a full stomach tells them you’re invested in their health.
This volume of engaging communication can seem like an insurmountable task if your current communication plan is a pile of phone numbers to be called throughout the week. Keeping up with a couple hundred patients week to week is next to impossible for even two or three skilled communicators without the right toolset. Thankfully, many pieces of practice management software now provide options for templating your important missives. Just like an invoice, it’s paramount to have a reliable format that is straightforward and easy to replicate, especially because your business relies so heavily on them.
Pausing for a moment, you’re likely well aware of the topics that generate your most common messages. With the right tools, applying your brand to the emails, text messages, and updates you publish allows for opportunities to build on the relationships that keep your business afloat. If this happens to be the first time you’re thinking about engagement, take the time to sit down and focus on drafting a version of the message you know needs to be sent every day. Make sure it’s especially human and acts as a call to action.
As this system grows and becomes automated, you can establish routines that create expectations with your patients. After a few visits, expectations can turn into reliance as busy patients rushing to or from work know they’ll receive a reminder about the next appointment long before they double-book their precious spare time. That means fewer no-shows and cancellations.
This process doesn’t happen overnight. A brand is cultivated over time with plenty of hard work and vigilance, but the rewards for generating a loyal following that trust you cannot be overstated. Providing open lines of communication every time your patient interacts with your office is the easiest way to squash complaints before they happen, plus you’ll quickly discover patients that consider openness and availability in communication as an important indicator for their care providers. As it turns out, some people value your ability to fit into their busy lives as much as your distance from transit or their office. Those current and potential patients not only have better health outcomes but become evangelists for your business over time.
If you’re curious about what an evangelist is, remember your last social or professional gathering. There’s always someone who cannot stop raving about their recent purchase, newest restaurant, or latest show that’s streaming. When you’re offering a standout service that sets you apart from the competition, people will go out of their way to tell their friends and colleagues how amazing you are. That’s invaluable marketing for your practice, but most importantly – it’s free.
When patients happily spread the word of your proficient care and concise communication, they’re providing social proof. Dental practices have almost always relied on strong social proof, whether it was an eloquent quote, passionate testimony, or personal recommendations, especially now that 84% of people trust an online review as much as a personal recommendation. People can be nervous when it comes to the in’s and out’s of their own mouth. but knowing a practice works hard to provide amazing oral care that doesn’t start and stop with each appointment makes their decision all the easier.
Now that we’ve covered the importance of building a brand that permeates into every email and text you’ll send, think about actionable steps you can take that lead to success and loyal, engaged patients.
To provide meaningful communication and break through the noise, you need to be able to zero in on one specific message that acts as a call to action. This applies even when you’re connecting for a cavity follow-up for one patient, or need to send notice about your practice’s updated operating hours to every patient. When you’ve carefully calibrated this system, and recognize the channels you’re using, you’ll start to develop engagement with your patients.
The difference between patient communication and engagement is simple: Communication is when your front office attempts to book a patient for a cleaning or new x-rays. Engagement is when a patient reaches out to you, or books their own appointment, directly impacting the business of your dental practice.
While it would be a dream for dentists everywhere for patients to flock to them, scheduling their own treatments, practices of all shapes and sizes need to rely on a strategy that incorporates communications and engagement.
For generations, dentists have communicated with two tools – a phone and a Rolodex. It isn’t surprising that most dental practices and offices continue to rely heavily on dialling up their patients. The direct access, being able to grab their full attention, and 30 consecutive seconds of back and forth being more productive for your staff, feel like a persuasive focal point for the job of filling a schedule week-to-week. The reality of the situation is that this behaviour is rapidly changing, and the phone call is becoming a less efficient way to connect.
It’s no secret that younger patients are less likely to answer when someone gives them a ring. While there may be a generational gap at play, or that their caller is actually a robot, there’s also the fact that calls are simply disruptive compared to private and quiet texts. Thankfully, dialling in is no longer the only avenue to get a hold of your patients.
Patient Communication Options for Your Practice
Text (SMS) – Got their phone number? You’ve got a second way to reach them immediately! While being stuck on ‘Read’ without a response is a risk, this tool is great for nudges and reminders about care or scheduling a recall.
Email – Most everyone is already deeply familiar with email. Considering the majority of people will check it 3 or more times each day, email is the perfect avenue for appointment confirmations, invoices, and receipts.
Direct Messaging – For practitioners and practices that want to stay directly engaged across multiple channels, apps like Messenger and WhatsApp provide multiple avenues to reach out, and can be done with either a phone number or email address.
Social Media – Sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even LinkedIn can establish a more direct relationship between you and your patients without individual contact. You still have an option for private messages, but these sites are perfect for getting the word out to everyone.
Regardless of how you choose to send out your requests, alerts, and reminders, keep in mind that the stepping stones to engagement are not built on task completion. Moving a guilt trip from the telephone to the touchscreen will bring down costs with the right software, but it might not increase attendance right away. For that, you need to start a conversation.
Even in exchanges as small as a text, there are plenty of opportunities to build on the relationship you’ve established with your patients.
People are more engaged when they feel like they’ve got skin in the game. Moving away from “It’s been X months, you’re due for an appointment”, and towards the patient’s own health creates an emotional connection between you, them, and the care you provide. Approaching each communication as an opportunity to converse directly with them, you’ll find patients more likely to book their recalls, less likely to cancel their appointments, and more likely to rate you highly as a dentist and care provider (but more on that later).
As practice management software evolves to utilize these beneficial patient communication channels, setting up a system that is responsive to your patients’ needs only becomes easier. Adding cloud availability, you and your staff have the option to make a meaningful connection, even when you’re away from the office.
