Enabling your patients to schedule appointments online improves their satisfaction and makes the work easier. Contrary to any claims that you may have been made aware of, online scheduling has far more advantages in offering patients the most convenient and efficient way of making appointments.Â
In this article, you will learn the most important benefits of adopting online scheduling in your dental website, and how it will give you an edge.
1. Enhanced Patient Convenience
Online scheduling can allow patients to schedule at any time without having to make a call during office hours, for instance, during the evening when they have come back from work. This also serves to align the expectations to contemporary patient standards and enhance the usability of your website.
- Appointment booking is always open on the website.
- Eliminates the need to be on the line to wait or try to schedule through calendars on the phone
- Enables patients to select a time that they would like to be seen and schedule themselves.
- It is also possible to reschedule or cancel an appointment through the website alone.
- It does not leave the patients in suspense for long, by immediately affirming their appointments.
2. Improved Practice Efficiency
Scheduling appointments on your website can save a lot of time for your workers provided that the task is automated. This increase in efficiency not only decreases the chances of mistakes but also helps you organise your appointment calendar in the best possible way.
- Employees do not need to spend much time answering phone calls and manually scheduling appointments.
- Eliminates overlapping of bookings and scheduling, through the automated check.
- Efficient in managing large volumes of work, so that congested time is well handled.
- Reduces the possibility of human factors such as mistakes in scheduling and wrong input of data.
The concept of real-time updating and the integration with practice management solutions improve collaboration.
3. Reduced No-Shows
Follow-up messages are another critical aspect that helps to reduce no-shows, thus maintaining a good schedule. Including these features in your dental website makes the patients constantly informed, thus minimising the cases of cancellation or failure to turn up.
- Free email and SMS reminders of the show can be sent directly from the website.
- Patients get appointment confirmation immediately after they make the appointment.
- Capability to send follow-up reminders in the run-up to the date of the appointment.
- Feature for patients to be able to easily confirm or cancel an appointment with the doctor.
- Less paperwork is to be done by the staff to manage the practice, which translates to better practice management.
4. Enhanced Patient Engagement
Having a patient portal alongside online scheduling on the dental site improves the interaction and makes the patient more engaged. This not only makes communication a lot easier but also puts more responsibility on the patients as far as their dental health is concerned.
- Schedules for future appointments and past appointments can be easily viewed.
- Patients may use the website to send and receive secure messages to and from dental staff members.
- Opportunity to receive individual programs of behaviour correction and receive additional information.
- Notifications and subsequent messages to patients to maintain their interest.
- Places where the patient can contribute and give his/her feedback and evaluation on his/her experiences.
5. Better Data Management
Integrated patient data means that patient information can be easily incorporated with your online schedule system to make handling of patients’ records easier. It enhances the value of your dental practice website both for the patients and for the functionality of your practice.
- Patient information is protected and can be accessed using the website by authorised personnel.
- Eliminates possibilities of developing errors by automating the input and changing of data.
- Simplifies the scheduling of patients’ appointments, histories and/or their treatment plans.
- Aids in improving the flow of up-to-date information between the dental practice and the patients.
- It helps in compliance with healthcare regulations through proper documentation and record keeping.
6. Increased Patient Satisfaction
Online scheduling also increases patient satisfaction since the process is more updated with the modern world and easier to navigate. Making the appointment process easy, makes your dental practice viewed positively.
- User-friendly scheduling interface conveniently located on the site.
- Easy and fast procedure of making an appointment.
- Reduces patient frustration by removing the time-wasting procedural steps and delays.
- Provides visibility with the availability of rooms and bookings in real-time and with instant booking confirmation.
- Available for use on any device so that all patients can easily use the application.
Conclusion
Implementing online scheduling to your dental website has many benefits that will boost your practice’s patient satisfaction as well as streamline the practice. With a convenient way of booking an appointment and from the patient’s perspective, you not only improve efficiency but minimise no-show rates. This digital transformation makes your practice relevant in a fast-growing tech industry so that you can meet the needs of your patients.Â
Here at 21 Webs, we are proud of our ability to offer state-of-the-art dental websites that integrate online scheduling into your practice to bring your practice into the new age.
