1. Paper Forms Are a Thing of the Past
As business automation solutions continue to see adoption across all industries, patients expect their healthcare providers to follow suit, too. If your practice is still handing out paper forms any time a patient walks in the lobby, it's time to embrace tech!
When patients can complete all of their necessary forms before they even step foot in your office, it saves them time and skyrockets your staff's efficiency too. A minute saved waiting for a patient to complete insurance forms is a minute gained on your maximum capacity as you funnel patients through faster.
2. Cybersecurity Can No Longer Be an Afterthought
We understand that when time and money is at stake, it's often a matter of establishing the bare essentials to get patients into your exam rooms. The unfortunate reality of today's world, however, is that cybersecurity needs to be at the forefront of all practice owners' minds. Ransomware attacks and data breaches are a daily occurrence, and the costs of recovery can simply shutdown a business altogether.
Investing in structured IT management and security is one of the best insurance policies you'll ever pay for. A quality managed service provider ("MSP") will routinely evaluate your practice's security posturing and establish controls to prevent risks to your infrastructure.
3. Password Fatigue Is More Than Just an Expression
If your staff and providers are still jumbling multiple passwords across multiple systems, it's time to reach out to an IT consultant (like Cosmistack?). Today's interconnected world boasts a huge time-saver: Single Sign On. With Single Sign On ("SSO"), your staff only need to remember one password for all of your business applications, including email, EHR, and other services. While not all applications support SSO, the vast majority of popular apps will support it to some extent, and the minutes saved entering and resetting passwords will accumulate and pay for themselves multiple times over.
4. EHR Is A Must
If your practice is still managing all patient records on paper, welcome to the 21st century! But seriously, while electronic health record systems ("EHR") used to be reserved solely for the largest of healthcare systems with bulging budgets, EHR solutions have become increasing available to the small practices across all specializations. Moving to an EHR solution from paper records is certainly a daunting task, but it's without a doubt one of the best investments your practice will ever make.
5. Doctor’s Offices Are Businesses, Too
Most people don't think of their doctor's office as a traditional "business" that needs to make sales. But, if you're a private practice owner, you know this is the farthest thing from the truth. While the services offerings might look a little different, at the end of the day, a medical practice needs to have patients walking in the door to pay the bills. That being said, don't skimp out on some of the foundational things in tech when it comes to promoting your practice.
Having a solid website with SEO can pay for itself many times over. Social media is becoming an increasingly popular marketing tool for medical offices, too. As more patients look to the internet to find their next provider, seeing the providers their friends and family already interact with digitally can be an excellent opportunity for reaching your next new patient. And yes, medical offices use CRM too.
