Top 5 risks a clinic should look out for

01-08-2018
Author: Toby Makmel
  • Best practice

We identified the current top 5 risks an aesthetic clinic might run in to. Continue reading to prevent these from happening to you!

Risk 1

ID verification

In a time where young men and women look more mature than ever, the risk of treating someone underage is increasingly more present. The Netherlands was recently shaken by a court case that ended, to nobody’s surprise, in the disfavor of a practitioner entangled with this very issue. Even though it was obvious the practitioner harbored no ill will or intentions. It was an honest mistake, but an honest mistake nobody should be making.

Most of you already have measures in place to avoid treating someone who can’t give their own consent yet. Your host might ask for ID cards, and you might personally check them on your first meeting. Few people know it’s actually mandatory in most countries to check ID at every meeting, not just the first one! Using a system that has an official step you can check off called ‘ check ID ‘ will help you make sure you take these things step by step.

 

Risk 2

The disservice trap

The disservice trap is quite simply failing to offer a service your nearby competition does. Say for example a nearby clinic offers online scheduling. Whereas your clinic has one of those annoying contact forms. Any prospect or opportunity might glance at both your websites. It’s after-all fairly common for someone to compare their options.

Instinctively, you would think that stars would win out. The clinic with the better reviews gets the client. That, however, isn’t true. According to research, 63% of clients prefer the clinic that seems more welcoming and that’s easier to reach. Service, in this case, wins out on quality. Yes, even in this sector! So in this example, the clinic with the online scheduler gets the booking.

 

Risk 3

Not preventing no-shows

I don’t mean financial repercussions to no-shows. While those can certainly be effective, they often leave a client with a sour taste. I recommend a prepayment only in scenarios where you have to make an investment of your own. Such as having a surgery room prepped or a surgeon on-site.

What I mean is email and more importantly, SMS based friendly reminders. Using your EMR (Electronic Medical Record) manager to send out automated messages shortly before an appointment to remind someone drastically reduces no-shows. Additionally, it puts you in a much better position if you ever need to collect a due payment. Because you have records of you going above and beyond to help the client in question be on time. Finally having the ability to reschedule your appointment if you get a reminder 3 days before your appointment further decreases no-shows, as people might remember something pressing coming up near the time of their appointment and simply reschedule immediately. Meaning you haven’t lost a customer!

 

Risk 4

Wasting your time

I think most people are familiar with the wisdom: See the forest for the trees. It’s a great one, appropriate for Aesthetic clinics too. If your administration is not up to snuff, you spend an incredible amount of time filing, checking and searching through your paper records or clunky excel files. If you don’t have an automated agenda or scheduler, you or your staff spend countless hours making sure everything lines up. And with a cluttered desk, your attention is almost never a hundred percent with the customer. And that’s what this product and service are all about. The customer! It’s a natively intimate sector, which is where your time should be. Forging those contacts and being in touch with your customers. Not sunk into countless hours of menial administration. Going paperless with an automated CRM system will alleviate this risk, allowing you to put your focus back where it belongs.

 

Risk 5

Managing complications

A lot of people, me included avoid thinking the worst scenario. It’s not healthy to do it too much, and it’s frankly uncomfortable. But it is important to consider such things for your clinic. One doom-scenario is a complication. Things might go well for two, three maybe even four years. But eventually, everybody runs into some form of complication. Someone claims not to have received an informed consent form. Someone claims damage that already existed prior to treatment is the result of your treatment. There are countless ways your clinic might end up with a complication.

What’s standing between you and the authorities? Your own administration. Having an EMR system that records the process from beginning till the end with pictures and saved records of every appointment, discussion, and signed form will be a godsend when you end up in that inevitably scary situation. Can you imagine having to fight that with paper administration from 5 years ago?

 

Alleviating these risks

With each risk, I listed my personal advice for them. But end of the day, there is an all-in-one solution. One I believe in, I’m writing for their blog after-all! Having a robust EMR system that allows you to go paperless, that automates your workflow, handles your agenda, scheduling and manages patients with laser accuracy is my recommended solution to all of these problems. They also feature useful features such as set and forget marketing, appointment reminders, and clinic analysis tools. Request a demo and try out their trial. I hope, like me, you’ll be impressed.

 

About Clinicminds
Clinicminds is an electronic medical record (EMR) manager with free CRM capabilities.
We strive to help clinics professionalize their workflow by going paperless, streamline their treatment registration process and by introducing features like online scheduling, set and forget marketing, digital autographs for consent forms and clinic-analysis tools.
With Clinicminds many clinics have faced their personal challenges.

Curious what challenges we might be able to help you with? Read more interesting articles on our blog: www.clinicminds.com/blog