Managing a clinic is by no means a simple or easy task, so it is only natural that people tend to follow some rules-of-thumb that they’ve heard or see others adhere to. Concealed among them, though, lie some of the business’ greatest misconceptions that you can easily fall prey to and harm the efficiency and improvement rate of your clinic.
1. Enabling online booking will cause more no-shows
This is a big misconception today that has the potential to reduce the number of patients that choose your clinic. A significant number of patients opt for online booking since it is faster and more convenient to both parties. In addition to this, online bookings come with a streamlined booking process that provides all the necessary information to the patient, eases the (pre-)payment processes, and relieves your clinic from a big chunk of administrative chores.
The perceived downside of online booking causing more no-shows is not based in reality. On the contrary, online bookings are usually coupled with no-show prevention measures such as online deposits that further prevent no-shows and reduce the number of last-minute cancellations than the traditional booking methods. Embrace the present and leave this old misconception to the past!
2. Allowing patients to cancel online will wreak havoc in my calendar
Yet another stereotype that seems to hold water but crumbles upon analysis. With automation, the clinic’s calendar is tightly integrated into the clinic management system and a change in any point in the system, online systems included, is recorded and reflected in its every other part. At no point will you lose control of your clinic’s schedule and calendar.
On the contrary, empowering the calendar with streamlining your schedule can lead to greater optimization of time in your clinic, leading to a surge in efficiency and less time wasted in general.
3.Pre-payments are taboo
Pre-payments suck, right? Patients despise them so introducing them will negatively reflect on our business, surely?
Another big misconception. Pre-payments and online deposits represent an integral part of an efficient business. Being able to cover the costs of a procedure without having to juggle your clinic’s finance books is the main advantage of pre-payments which helps your finances stabilize and thus boost the productivity of the whole place. Furthermore, as mentioned earlier, they massively reduce the number of no-shows and last-minute cancellations. And that is never a bad thing.
The benefits outweigh the perceived risks of negative patient experience caused. After all, a miscalculation in your books or a disastrous bout of no-shows can cripple the patient’s experience more than a thousand conducted pre-payments.
4.Treatment registration during patient visits takes a lot of time
Wrong. Treatment registration used to be a time-consuming and tedious task, sure, but with streamlined medical records and improved and automated data acquisition this is no longer a fact. Pre-formulated questionnaires, both in the booking process and the visit itself, drastically reduce the time required to perform this task. It goes without saying that your medical experts no longer have to worry about whether they have gotten all the information required and can fully focus on the medical task at hand.
5. Gut feeling-based decisions are correct business decisions
Whether due to pop culture or massively popular dream-success stories of big businesspeople, we have idealized a person who follows their gut feeling to success. This is a misconception, and a potentially disastrous one. Instead, efficient managers do not work on gut feeling but on thorough and frequent analyses. And collecting data with automation software is, well, automatic. Compare the data charts and you can always calculate the best due course for your clinic. Gut feeling, on the other hand, is pure gambling. Why rely on something that can fail if you can always bring about a correct business decision?
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