Are your patients satisfied with your communication?

17-07-2019
Author: Guy Makmel
  • Best practice

The different ways Clinicminds helps you connect with your patients to build a lasting relationship

Today I would like to put a spotlight on one of our features: the transactional messages and documents that get interchanged securely between you and your patients.

It’s easy to miss, but the amount of messaging going back and forth between clinic and patients is immense! From confirming an appointment to consultation and treatment information and even post-treatment reminders.

We see a trend that the most successful clinics spend a reasonable amount of time considering how they approach their patients before and after their appointment, as that extra bit of service can make a huge difference in turning a single sale into a loyal returning customer. Clinicminds helps you do just that by automating treatment related communication for you. Even for clinics that aren’t quite ready for an EMR, making an inventory of what you should send your patients is very valuable.

Clinicminds isn’t just an Electronic Medical Record (EMR); it’s a complete system that helps run your clinic top to bottom.

Pre-visit

Before your clinic is even visited, there’s a few points of contact that are crucial to provide information to your patient and to avoid no-shows. This all starts with an appointment confirmation and sometimes a rescheduling or cancellation. Additionally, your patient should be reminded a few days prior and ideally on the day of the appointment as this decreases no-shows significantly!

Ideally, you’ll also use this opportunity to send your patients some brochures, and maybe a copy of the informed consent form they’ll be signing later. Clinicminds additionally sends out a secure link to a patient details and medical state form. That saves you a lot of time during your consultation, as your patient’s information is already available to you, rather than needing to ask your way through your medical questions time and again.

During & post-visit

During and after a patient’s visit, there’s a lot of information you want to provide. Not just to make sure your patient is fully informed and equipped regarding their treatment, however this correspondence will increase your engagement and improve your chance to convert someone from a one-time meeting into a loyal customer. Things that you might send your patient are a proposal, treatment plan, consultation letter, invoices, and informed consent forms (signed or just to read).

After your treatment, most clinics want to send a treatment summary, post-treatment information (tips, do’s and don’ts), before/after images and possibly prescriptions. Finally, a General Practitioner (GP) letter and some brochures to promote cross-sales tend to be on the itinerary. A conscious clinic will also follow that up with a ‘thank you for visiting’ text message, a survey as well as a treatment reminder or product sale reminder in a couple of weeks/months.

This totals to a whopping 20 correspondences! At different points in time during and post-visit…

2020 legislation on patient correspondence

Legislation in the medical sector is rapidly evolving; especially in the private medical sector expectations are set very high. In many countries, such as the Netherlands, being able to digitally and swiftly provide your client with their correspondence and patient file (upon request) will be a requirement. Make sure to check with your local lawmakers and representatives to see if this will apply to you as well. We believe, considering the current trend, that this will become a standard policy within the coming five years.

Clinicminds is as always on top of recent changes, and we’re proud to say we’re fully able to support our customers with the 2020 changes regarding patient correspondence.

Automate your messaging!

Over the course of this article, we have presented you with over 30 types of messaging that are sent between a clinic and a patient during just a single visit. Realistically this is impossible to do without some help. Especially since some of these messages need to be updated with information pertaining to the actual visit. Clinicminds fully automates this process, sending your patients both emails, documents, forms and SMS messages. Before, during, and after visits at your leisure.