Supporting Your Medical Practice with Digital Solutions
Improve your practice’s processes with technology
Building a medical practice means staying up to date on the latest technologies and digital solutions for your practice as well as your patients. When was the last time you did a full audit of all the technological solutions your business is running? Everything from your digital patient intake forms to your electronic communication methods counts as a part of your tech stack, so that list may be long.
Large medical networks and organizations have the benefit of dedicated IT teams to build out their infrastructure and medical data, but what about smaller practices or home healthcare businesses? While the investment of building out a HIPAA-secure tech stack may be daunting, the benefits can far outweigh the initial investment. With many systems running as a plug-and-play solution that easily integrates with others, you can be on your way to automating your mid-size practice in no time. Here are great ways you can enhance your medical practice with easy-to-implement digital solutions.
Automate Your Appointment Process
A great place to start is where your clients and patients start: scheduling the appointment. While it may not seem like a big deal, research indicates that patients are 80% more likely to select a physician if they offer online scheduling. The same study also indicated that nearly 60% of all appointments are made after office hours, so if you have the capacity to offer appointments for your clients who typically work during the day, you’ll also likely expand your practice.
“80% of patients prefer a physician who offers online scheduling, for both primary care and specialists.”
While you’re working on an online appointment scheduler, try to find one that also offers automated reminders. Automated reminders provide an appointment reminder to your patients and clients in advance without requiring the use of your staff. They vary from text messages to emails or even automated phone calls. In some cases, reminder systems also allow people to cancel or reschedule their appointments without having to call into your office, saving time for your personnel and recouping lost revenue from missed appointments. This also keeps your calendar updated in case a last-minute appointment request arises.
An MGMA Stat poll in 2019 found that 88% of healthcare organizations are using automated appointment reminders. This is great not just for larger organizations, but smaller practices too, as more options are becoming available. With more platforms and services available to use, you can find one that’s not only HIPAA compliant, but fits the needs of your staff and your patients.
Streamline Medical Intake Forms
Once you’ve digitized your process for scheduling appointments, keep the process easy on your patients and clients with an electronic sign-in process. There are a few options to choose from, depending on your budget and the size of your practice, but in general, a great place to start is with a digital medical intake form. These forms can easily be sent out to your patients or clients ahead of time for them to fill out on their own devices, or you can keep them in-house on a designated tablet or computer. Keep in mind you’ll want to work with HIPAA-secure platforms, and depending on the information you gather, there may be some restrictions on what forms can be filled out on personal devices.
While your check-in forms are important, keep in mind there may be other forms that need to be filled out as well. The best digital form solutions won’t limit you to a single form, and you’ll be able to gather everything you need. This can be clinic-specific information (such as which physician or provider they’re seeing) or even insurance information. Digital forms that can also accept images of insurance cards are a great way to save time, and keep your staff from having to make copies or scans. You can also use a digital form solution to build a medical history form template and get all the background information of your patients while remaining HIPAA-secure. Look for digital form providers that offer integrations, or an open API, to guarantee you can immediately port all the form data over to your other platforms, like billing or medical records, without the need for manual data entry.
Another option to explore is a kiosk for easy check-in, which allows your clients and patients to check themselves in. This can be set up to meet your space and your needs, but it lets people self-serve and doesn’t require your staff support to get people checked in for their appointments. Kiosks can use the same digital form technology, but provide a single location that your patients learn to visit upon entering your office for the first time. Bid farewell to the clipboards, chained pens, and paper stacks of the past, and embrace a streamlined digital experience for your practice’s forms.
“A New Jersey surgical clinic switched to digital forms and iPad check-ins, with a pre-registration option to fill out forms at home before the visit started. Within six months, 75% of patients preregistered online, creating more complete forms and allowing the practice to incorporate electronic billing, saving time and money.”
Simplify Charts with Electronic Health Records
No matter the size of your practice or services, investing in Electronic Health Records (EHR) is a fantastic choice. These offer a variety of benefits, and there are so many options available to find the system that will fit your needs best. Because these are built specifically for the healthcare industry, many are HIPAA compliant and the companies have a deep understanding of HIPAA security and risk management. Just be sure to always do your research and ask the platform provider detailed questions, and know that the best ones will offer support for getting started using their platform.
According to the CDC, 78% of office-based physicians use at least some form of certified EHR, and there’s little question as to why offices are making the switch. EHR mean that all patient information is immediately available to the physician during the patient’s visit, cutting down on diagnosis and analysis time. Some platforms also offer a patient portal view, which means that patients also have instant access to this information. While in some cases that can also tie into digitizing the scheduling process, it means that patients and clients have more ways to communicate with their providers. Overall this has been shown to lead to a better patient experience and improved levels of care.
“In just 11 years, the use of any type of EHR system has grown from 18% to 78%.”
Expand Access with Telemedicine
Telehealth and telemedicine have, understandably, expanded and grown during the last few years. They’ve allowed more people access to visits during unprecedented times, but it appears that the impacts are only just beginning. Depending on the nature of your practice, some things will always be better in person, but telemedicine provides more options. In many cases, this isn’t just for the benefit of the patients: it can also help expand your practice.
Many potential patients in rural areas don’t have the same access to healthcare as those in more urban areas, and their selection of physicians is limited. Especially if your practice offers specialty services, this can be a completely untapped market that you can now reach. It can also help free up the time of your staff, especially for follow-up visits or visits intended to be simple discussions of lab or imaging results. In these cases it not only frees up time for your physicians, it eases the transportation burdens of your patients as well, making their availability for the visit more likely. When 60% of all workers in the U.S. feel uncomfortable about leaving work for a preventative care appointment, limiting the burden of your patients can make them more likely to seek the care they need.
“A typical patient spends two hours on a doctor visit, including 37 minutes of travel, 64 minutes at the facility, 20 minutes with the doctor.”
Technology is improving lives in many ways, and if your practice isn’t already considering ways to start implementing new technologies, you’ll be missing out on new opportunities. Keep in mind that while these suggestions are some of the most common uses of technology in medical practices, your specific needs may vary. The best solutions for your practice will be the ones that address the biggest challenges for your staff and your patients.
About GoFormz
GoFormz is a digital forms solution that helps bring your data into a single, actionable place. We believe that everyone should be able to fill out their forms online and deliver products and services that redefine how people and businesses collect and process information. No matter what your medical practice needs, GoFormz is ready to bring your processes to the digital realm. Complete with an open API and multiple native integrations, you can rest assured that your data is always ready, whenever you need it.
