John Zinsser, MD

[case-studies]

“December through April is our busiest time of year…And as I am saying this I realize we are able to see a lot more patients this year because of patientNOW.”

Denise Tegels, Practice Manager for Zinsser Plastic Surgery in Richmond Virginia continues, “patientNOW has allowed us to grow significantly without adding additional staff. By automating a lot of the follow-up steps and streamlining consults we are able to serve more patients every day”.

It starts at check-in. Zinsser’s patients tend to be tech-savvy and appreciate the fact that they are at a modern digital office. With the new mypatientNOW patient portal there are no more paper forms or consents to complete or sign at registration. Everything is done electronically and this is what our patients expect says Denise. She states that 90% of their cosmetic patients provide their email address and most prefer electronic communications.

With the treatment pathways in patientNOW “nothing slips through the cracks. Our staff has a daily task list that provides peace of mind not having to recall what they overlooked at the end of each day”. It becomes their personal reminder system. The system can send out email appointment reminders several days before appointments and a text reminder the day of the appointment.

Denise also reports that because of patientNOW Dr. Zinsser can go home on time without taking work home with him. The staff used to block out 30 minutes of Dr. Zinsser’s time each day for dictation alone. That represents two additional consults per day. And because patientNOW auto populates clinical notes with a patient’s basic health information and standard text for the procedure, it eliminates the need for Dr. Zinsser to invest extra time in dictation. Denise says that with injectable treatments, “the RN joins Dr. Zinsser as a scribe and completes the treatment note while he is performing the procedure. That means less time taking notes, more patient time and more revenue for the practice”.

With patientNOW, their patient retention rate “has improved to 87.8%!” Rachel Simmons, RN, is responsible for contacting Botox patient’s as a reminder to schedule their follow-up treatment. Every morning she gets follow-up reminders in her task list, and when she clicks on the reminder an email template opens to remind the patient to schedule their next Botox treatment. “All I do is click on the send button and my task is done. Not only do I save a significant amount of time, I get great response from patients in booking their next appointment. It’s so easy and saves a lot of time!”

Regarding their implementation, Denise states, “I have been involved in three different practice software installations and this was the first one with remote training”. After completing each of the one hour online training modules, their trainer Haley Wierima, assigned tasks to be completed in the workbook that required practice on patientNOW. And with the patientNOW resource library their staff had access to additional training videos, webinars and help documents to guide them with the system. So on their GO LIVE day Denise says, “It was beautiful! patientNOW delivered the best implementation of all the systems I was involved with. And when new staff is hired the staff training videos will become part of our orientation”.

Zinsser requested and was approved to be one of the select beta sites. Since patientNOW provides software enhancement 2-3 times per year, beta sites provide the needed field testing and client recommendations prior to general release. “I love being on the front end of product development and working with the software developers. The patientNOW development team really listens to our recommendations when trying to improve or build new products”, affirms Denise.

patientNOW has helped Zinsser grow their practice without adding additional staff and has helped reduce the pressure at their busy office. Denise closes by saying, “I would recommend patientNOW to any aesthetic medical practice that is looking for software that will help them grow their practice”.