Many of our clients use PatientCaptureNow to manage communication with the new patients who reach out to their practices online. It’s an excellent tool that automates much of the new patient experience through custom messages. However, there is still some human intervention required to prevent patient appointment requests from falling through the cracks. That is exactly what longtime MDA client Dr. Kazemifar discovered firsthand after she audited the scheduling process at her office. Dr. Kazemifar kindly recorded her experience for us, and you can watch her video here. Dentists who currently use PCN and those who don’t can all stand to benefit from her advice.
What Is Really Happening at the Front Desk?
Most dental practice owners prefer to spend their time working on patient cases rather than managing day-to-day administrative activities. However, as Dr. Kazemifar found out, it pays to check on the non-clinical side of the practice once in a while. She audited her scheduling process and discovered that she was missing out on a not insignificant number of opportunities to book new patients who were actively reaching out to her practice.
PatientCaptureNow is fantastic for managing online patient appointment requests coming into the practice, even providing those potential patients with an amazing new patient experience by using customized, automated responses until the new patient responds and from there the practice has an opportunity to reach them and schedule their first appointment. However, PCN only works if there is someone managing the system, checking the messages, and reaching out to the patients on the other side. Dr. Kazemifar learned that new patient opportunities were falling through the cracks.
As she says in the video, PCN provides so many communication opportunities. However, her team was not taking advantage of them. As she spent time with the program, working with her team, she quickly understood the potential benefits of PCN and decided to change her approach.
It’s Worth the Time
After the audit, Dr. Kazemifar decided to make PCN part of the daily routine for her team. Someone is responsible for checking it multiple times a day and reaching out to the patients who have requested an appointment online. What she found is that patients actually respond and schedule appointments. Since changing the routine at her practice, she has seen a notable increase in the number of quality new patients on the books each week.
With a better grasp of PCN’s capabilities and benefits and knowing how to get the most out of them going forward, Dr. Kazemifar will be able to sustain the momentum indefinitely. In the video, she is frank about how her practice was missing out on opportunities to schedule new patients because they were not fully exploiting the benefits of PCN, and she implores others to learn from her experience. Her advice is clear: make sure your practice is paying attention to the appointment requests coming in and capitalizing on all the opportunities they represent.
Our Recommendation
PCN is a tool to make handling new patient appointment requests easy and increase the number of quality new patients scheduling their first appointment. Like any tool, you need to understand how to use it properly for optimal results. While PCN automates a large portion of the workflow, it is not a completely automated solution. Your team has a part in the results you achieve.
We agree 100% with Dr. Kazemifar about assigning one or two people to manage PCN inquiries throughout the day. We’d like to take that one step further. It is important to give those people the time they need to effectively reach out to patients and handle responses. If you do not prioritize responding to inquiries over other activities for some portion of the day, quality patients will end up going to your competitors who are more responsive.
If your practice uses PCN and would like a refresher on how to get the most out of its capabilities and increase new patient appointments, we would be happy to set up a call with you to discuss it further. If your practice does not use PCN yet but could benefit from this highly effective new patient automated communication tool, please feel free to contact us for more information. We would love to help!
