Online Patient Scheduling | Cloud-Based Dental Management Software
Just how important is online appointment scheduling?
"Online appointment scheduling is growing quickly. Management consulting firm Accenture published a study, where they estimated that across the medical industry, "by the end of 2019, 66 percent of US health systems will offer digital self-scheduling and 64 percent of patients will book appointments using digital tools. Nearly 38 percent of appointments will be self-scheduled—almost 986 million appointments—creating $3.2 billion in value."
In addition to offering convenience, online appointment booking can give you access to patients who have a tough time scheduling an appointment during their workday. According to Zocdoc, 45% of appointments booked through its system are booked outside of business hours, and many patients see a doctor within 24 hours of requesting an appointment. Though you are unlikely to see a 45% increase in patient visits just by using one of these platforms, you will make it easier for patients who are too busy during the day to call your office in order to schedule an appointment. Many of these patients prefer the convenience of online booking, and will opt for one who provides this option, especially if they're looking for a new provider.
Online appointment scheduling can also save your staff a substantial amount of time, which enables them to focus their attention on patients who are currently in the office, so that patients can have the best in-office experience possible. This is a much better use your staff's time than making phone calls, leaving voicemails, and handling subsequent followup phone calls.
How do online appointment scheduling systems work?
To enable patients to book appointments directly from your website (or Facebook profile), the online appointment booking system will provide you with a URL (hosted on their domain) that you can link to from your website. This URL is specific to your practice, so when users visit it, they'll be able to learn more about your practice, and book appointments directly. You won't need to design the website or create any of the scheduling functionality -- the hosting company has already taken care of it for you, and provides you with your own profile that you simply need to maintain. You'll just need to ensure that the information (contact information, practice hours, accepted insurance providers, services offered, etc.) is correct and up to date. Once you have this URL, you'll be able to link to it from your website or social media.
In the ideal case, the online appointment booking system syncs with your practice management system, and displays the available times for each provider. Since both systems are up to date, this maximizes the chance that the time the patient requested is actually available. This is important from the patient's perspective, since patients find it frustrating to request a time, only to find out later that it's unavailable. If the requested time is unavailable, your staff will have to follow up with the patient to discuss other times that might work for them, which negates a lot of the convenience of online booking.
It's also important to understand that many online appointment booking systems that claim to sync with your practice management software are only able to read your schedule, but are not able to write to it. In this case, after you confirm an appointment through the booking system, you'll have to manually enter the appointment into your practice management system. Ideally, the system you choose will be able to automatically enter appointment details into your practice management software. LocalMed is an example of one such system that accomplishes this.
If the booking system doesn't sync with your practice management software at all, then patients can only email you in order to request times -- they won't actually know if the times are available. This would then require you to manually reach out to the patient in order to discuss alternative times, if all of the times that they requested are unavailable. Once you agree on a time, you'll also likely have to manually enter the appointment in your practice management system's schedule. This option is roughly equivalent to letting patients email you to request an appointment, which is not ideal, but still more convenient than requiring patients to make a phone call." All of this info can be found at: https://www.softwarepundit.com/overview-online-appointment-scheduling-systems-dentists
We are so proud to be able to offer this unique software scheduling solution to our patients. We are always striving to improve our patient experience, and I think our patient are really going to love having this ability!
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