Archive for the 'Online Appointment Scheduler' Category

Who is in Control in your medical clinic?

Richard Lango March 8th, 2010

Is technology controlling you or are you controlling it? Do you find that your medical practice management system determines how you work, or are you the one who determines how the system should function?

There are very many types of remote receptionist services that you can choose from, and here is where you should start determining whether you will be in control or not.

Live agent vs an automated system

This begins by considering whether you want to use an automated appointment scheduling programme or a live agent. While you may think of hiring the services of a live agent because of the human touch among other things, there are several drawbacks to using this method. For example, a live agent will simply relay all the messages without making any distinction between emergency and non-emergency ones. A good medical office assistant online, on the other hand, will filter the calls and give more priority to the emergency ones.

Another very significant consideration is the cost of the services. An effective automated system will give you 24/7 medical reception at just a small fraction of what you would otherwise spend on a live agent service.

Payment methods

Another way that you should determine whether your medical practice management program will have the upper hand is the way you make the required payment. First of all, a reputable system will give you the ability to test the services before you make any commitment. This will give you the best way of verifying whether you will really benefit from what is being offered.

You should as well consider whether the system requires you to make a large upfront payment that effectively ties you up for several months. You should find an online scheduler that you just use on a monthly subscription basis, without making such long-term commitments.

Another consideration as far as payment is concerned is the ability to choose different payment plans. For instance, would you like to go for a flat rate monthly payment? Or would you rather opt for a method that charges you per call? A good system will be flexible enough to offer you both methods among others.

Freedom of accessing your scheduler from your blackBerry, iphone or smart phone

This refers to both the way you will manage your online scheduler and how easy it will be to reach your patients. Basically, a good system will not tie you to your office to be able to check and make your appointments. For instance, it should be able to synchronise with Google Calendar so that you can check your appointments and make any necessary adjustments. It should even go further by allowing you to use it whenever you may be, even if there is no internet connection by using sms service.

You should as well have different ways of reaching your patients, which ensures that you cater well for the needs of different people. These ways include via the telephone, email, and mobile text message SMS.

Be in control.

The Secret to Cutting Patient No-Shows

Richard Lango February 24th, 2010

“If patients don’t have a relationship with physicians, they don’t mind not showing up,” said Dr. Tim Gorski from Arlington, Texas. If this is the case, how do you form a relationship with a patient who has not yet shown up for an appointment? This is where your office automation system comes in handy.

You should know that the monthly fee of a good scheduler with telephone, email and mobile text message reminder is roughly about the cost of one patient no-show to you. So can you afford NOT to use a reminder service?

The appointment stage

Your first contact with a patient will often start at the appointment stage. You should therefore ensure that you use a medical appointment scheduling program that is friendly to the patients. Although the patients will obviously like to speak to a live human being, they would rather find a faster alternative than being put on hold.

There are also other patients who would prefer to use the internet to book their own appointments. Self-service patient appointment scheduling makes this possible, where you will set up an online scheduler.

Remind the patients

After the patients have booked their appointments, it is important to make a follow-up by having an effective reminder service. There are some important factors you should consider when finding a good reminder service.

First, it will be very boring for a live agent to keep calling patients with the same message over and over. The frustration and exhaustion that results can easily make the receptionist talk in an unpleasant tone to the patients, and this will cost your business.

You should therefore let a computer that does not get tired or experience boredom do the job. This does not mean that you need to install any hardware or software in your office, which will be unnecessarily expensive. You just have to sign up for an appropriate service to take care of your needs. In this way, preventing just one patient no-show per month will be enough to pay for your subscription.

The appointment reminder service you use should enable you to get in touch with the patients in a variety of ways. For example, you should be able to reach your patients via the telephone, email, and mobile text message (SMS). This will ensure that you reach different types of patients. Each method has its strengths and drawbacks, hence using all of them will offer you the best possible deal.

You can also opt to give your patients the ability to cancel their appointments during the reminder process to further eliminate patient no-shows. You will be able to re-schedule the empty slots in good time.

Your office automation system should help you to maintain a good relationship with your patients and cut patient no-shows.

Office Automation – How to Get the Best Medical Practice Management Program

Richard Lango February 17th, 2010

The importance of office automation has resulted in the supply of many types of programs in the market. It is therefore very crucial that you go for a system that will give you the best value possible. This means that you should consider some factors before you even start looking for your office automation program. The following are some of the pertinent points that you need to bear in mind.

Compatibility with your office work flow and multiple communication channels

You most likely already have some system in place. For instance, you are already using telephone in your clinic. The automated telephone reminder that you would like to set up should not create a complete overhaul because it will not be able to operate seamlessly with your present telephone system.

People use different modes of communication in today’s world of Information Technology. You should therefore ensure that the office automation system you want to use is compatible with many types of systems and devices. This means that apart from using the telephone, the program you are looking for should be able to send emails, and instant text messages among others. In this way, you will be able to cater for the needs of different types of patients. While there are those patients who will prefer to use the telephone, particularly the elderly, others will prefer using the Internet. There are still some patients who have busy schedules and would like to receive automated reminders on their cell phones.

24/7 medical reception with automated virtual receptionist

While your medical office front desk receptionist will not be able to work round the clock, the virtual medical office receptionist should give you a 24/7 service. You will therefore have a self-service patient appointment scheduling, whereby the patients will be able to book their own appointments at any time of the day or night.

This means that your system should be robust enough to handle unlimited number of appointments in a day.

In addition to these considerations, you should use a pre-paid medical scheduler. This means that the patients will make some small payments when they make their appointments. As a result, you will be protected even when some patients do not show up. Patient no-shows result in what are known as invisible costs.

The type of office automation that you use will either make or break your medical practice. You should therefore ensure that you get the best service that suits both you and your patients.

This Virtual Receptionist Can Do More Than You Think!

Dr. Maulik February 8th, 2010

If you run a health care center and in search of efficient frontdesk helper for multitasking, you should probably give a shot to a state-of-art automated virtual receptionist that can function as substitute of your live staff!

A typical human virtual receptionist would answer patients’ calls with some limitations –for instance most live agent will not book appointment for your caller, or if they do, the fee they charge for the service can be hefty to your. An automated virtual receptionist will help your caller with an appointment at a fraction of the human agent’s fee.

Because a virtual receptionist is electronically connected to doctor’s online scheduler, a doctor can also turn this wonderful system into patient reminder service –automated calls to patients for reminding them about forthcoming appointments and visits to the health care center. Clinic owners can therefore minimize the risk of financial loss due to the patient’s no-shows issues. In addition to reminder service, online scheduler that support prepaid medical appointment also help doctors deals with such issue as it ensures partial or full payment of appointment be made at the time of appointemnt booking.

An all-in-one Virtual receptionist-Appointment Scheduler can synchronize your schedule with Google Calendar and send it to handheld device such as Smartphone, iPhone and Blackberry. This feature has been proved to be very useful for doctors who travel out of their stations frequently. 2ways Google Sync allows them to manage their schedule from handhelds device without computer. It is truelly “anywhere anytime” convenience and flexibility.

New technologie is here to help you run a better business. An all-in-one Multi-tasking virtual receptionist could be the best helper you ever known.

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Redefining Medical Management with Online Appointment Scheduler

Dr. Maulik January 29th, 2010

There could be many difficulties doctors face while running health care centers. Right from managing patients appointments to answer incoming calls –the tasks are innumerable. In the field of health care management, even a bit of apathy may bring unwanted consequences. To overcome all these problems at a time, there is software available on the market.

The revolution in internet technology has reached its leaps and bounds. Medical management can be made easier with the help of system called as online appointment scheduler. In addition, this system is multipurpose and can be used for other important tasks too.

Online appointment scheduling helps in managing appointments of the patients and added feature of pre-paid appointment ensures checking no-shows patients. In this way, the revenue loss can be saved and the time of appointment can be allotted to genuine customers. Automated office powered by online appointment planner is easier to manage and maintain. Online appointment scheduler can also be used as virtual receptionist that would not miss incoming calls at clinic. In addition, no patient would get a busy tone at any given time due to latest technology used in system.

When your scheduler can be used as virtual front desk receptionist, it can be set into patient reminder service. The system would automatically call patients and inform them about their forthcoming appointments and visits to clinic. This way, they are kept up-to-date and doctors can also set system as per their expertise. The system comes with multilingual option as to tackle foreign patients smoothly.

There are many health care centers in US and Canada using online appointment scheduler, which is accessible 24/7 for better service. For the doctors who travel frequently, online appointment scheduler proves to be the best manager and teller since it synchronizes patients’ appointments with Google calendar and sends it on handheld devices such as iPhone, Smartphone and Blackberry. A doctor, outside his/her clinic or town, can alter or modify the appointment and manage it as per schedule. This saves times and there are less chances of human error.

The system uses no emotion or brain and hence, unlike human medical receptionists, this multipurpose software does not take any decision based on emotion or intention. Depandable, friendly and low business cost are three of the important factors you should look for a system like this for medical office automation.

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Effective Office Automation

Richard Lango January 26th, 2010

We live in a world of advanced technology where people use a wide variety of machines to simplify the things they want to do while they get a better output. You should not let yourself remain behind as technology passes you by if you have a medical clinic. If you would like to streamline your medical practice in order to be more productive, you should ensure that you set up a good medical practice management system. In order to achieve this, you need to set up an effective office automation system.

There are various areas that you need to take into consideration as you look for your office automation system. One of the crucial areas has to do with booking of appointments. You should use a system that gives your patients the opportunity to book their own appointments. The self-service patient appointment scheduling program that you use should enable the patients who would like to use the phone to do so. In order for this to be more effective, you should put up a very robust automated medical receptionist that will work round the clock, even during those times when your front desk receptionist is off duty.

In addition, the service should enable those patients who are Internet savvy to be able to carry out online medical appointment scheduling. You will thus take care of patients with different tastes.

The office automation system you use should also incorporate the ability to remind the patients of their approaching appointments. A good appointment reminder service will help you to deal with the problem of patient no-shows, which can affect your business significantly. Apart from this, you should use a system that will protect you in case a patient still fails to show up even after being reminded of the appointment. Are you wondering how you are going to achieve this? Simple. Just use a pre-paid medical appointment scheduling program, which will require the patients to make a small payment during the booking process.

You should ensure that the system you use gives you as much anywhere-anytime convenience and flexibility as possible. First, the program should be easy for you and your staff to use. Second, you should be able to access your records irrespective of where you are. You should be able to access your records either online or via instant text messaging, which means that the system needs to be compatible with a wide variety of devices, including ordinary cell phones, iphone and Blackberry devices. Remember that you are automating your office, not yourself!

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The Importance of Using an Online Scheduler with a Friendly User Interface

Richard Lango December 31st, 2009

There are very many aspects of a good online medical appointment scheduler. Basically, the online scheduler you use should make the entire process of booking appointments easier for both the patients and your medical staff.

First of all, let us look at the patients’ side. Is it convenient for patients ? They should be able to make their own appointments without having to wait in a queue. Secondly is it easy to use? If the patients will need to take some learning curve in order to grasp how the system works, many of them will simply give up and look for another service. Of course, you do not need to be told that such a step will be a blow to your business.

 Here is a check-list for a scheduler friendly for patients.

1) Is it easier to login? (i.e. the more access info it requires, the harder to perform login. is userid easy to remember by patient? Are they gonna forget about their login very soon?)

2) Does scheduler support automated new patient signup?

3) Is the scheduler easy to navagate? Patients will pickup their appointment slots easily?

4) How much info a patient has to fill in before an appointment is booked? i.e. Is there auto-search, auto-complete feature so booking an appointment should be point-and-click?

5) Is user instruction or alert message clear to users?

Your office also needs to have an easy time when using the online scheduler. In addition to the various features that enable the scheduler to synchronize with a variety of devices and applications, its interface should be intutive. If your medical staff will need to use a user manual in order to be able to operate your office automation system, then you need to think twice!

You should therefore ensure that you use a program that combines useful features with a easy to use modern Graphical User Interface (GUI). The user interface should have an aesthetic appeal,  it should be quick and easy for staff to access info they are looking.  Here is a check-list for a friendly scheduler for your staff.

1) Is the scheduler easily accessible? (can it be use it from home? on handheld device such as smartphones, blackberry, iphone?) Does it sync with Google Calendar?

2) Can your schedule be easily modified? (open or block your working time, modify schedule)

3) Does the scheduler includes office friendly features such as To-Do-list management, office messenger, auto-login to support desk?

4)  Can you make recurrent and emergency appointments easily?

5) Can you customize your appointments? (define name, duration, on what weekday it is available?, wether or not restriction applies to patient, wether or not it requires to be pre-paid on appointment booking?)

5) Can a shared practice with multiple doctor schedulers be managed using single login?

6) Can your scheduler make automated telephone reminder call to patients?

7) Can your scheduler act also as your virtual receptionist? i.e. taking phone call from your patients, engage in natural language dialog with them, booking appointment or dispatch them to emergency contact?

Believe or not, schedulers that meet this tall order do exist! Once you find one that meet this check list and your practice need, you will not look back again.

Patient Scheduler Online –Making appointment scheduling easier

Dr. Maulik December 26th, 2009

Advancement in medical informatics has gifted us with powerful medical office automation software. maiking the entire medical management easier than before. 

Good example of such automation is automated virtual receptionist that can book patient appointment over natural language dialog. Tuned with sweet friendly voice, a virtual medical receptionist can not only fixes up patients’ appointments without any error but it can also make automated reminder calls to patients in their preferred language through its multilingual option (such as Spanish, English and French).

If you have patients who love to surf Internet. Such system also provide doctor appointment online scheduler with user friendly modern visual design. Patient self-service scheduling is not only convenience to your patients, but also cost-saving to your medical practice.

Look for a system that can automatically sync patient appointments to Google Calendar so that you can manage business scheduling from any handheld devices such as Smartphone, iPhone and Blackberry.

If your suffer revenu loss because of patient no-shows, you can also use your virtual medical receptionist to make telephone reminder calls. Patient reminder calls can also be tailored as per health care provider’s requirements. For instance, it can be fitted with customized regimen and medical advices.

HIPPA compliant system that has strict norms about security and privacy protection, patient scheduler online is a perfect tool for smooth medical management for all health care providers.

To summarize what a modern office automation system (service) can do for you

  1. It is 24/7, serving calls with reliability and consistency. Patients can contact health care center at anytime they want
  2. Software will never gets tired as people do! There is no option for apathies and laziness in performing virtual medical assistant job. They are simply more dependable, more reliable than live agents.
  3. Automation allows your office staff  to focus their time and attention on other more important jobs. i.e. Your office should see revenu up by keeping your patients happier and by improving medical billing.
  4. Patient reminder calls can develop good relationship between customers and health care provider – cutting down no-shows as well as patient service satisfaction will be key to improved practice income.
  5. Two-way sync Google Calendar system enables health care providers to check, cancel or reschedule appointments when they are away from office.

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