5 Ways Medical Practices Can Benefit From an Advanced CRM

Medical practices face the unique challenge of balancing effective administrative oversight against a focus on patient care. Many providers have turned to healthcare customer relationship management (CRM) solutions to address this issue.

A CRM system is software that enhances your ability to connect with your patients and increases your practice’s efficiency. It automates basic tasks and allows you to securely share information with authorized personnel. The system can also use insights from existing electronic medical records (EMR) and practice management software to improve patient relationship management, optimize workflows and boost profits.

Curious about whether your medical practice could benefit from a CRM? This article examines five ways an advanced CRM system could change your facility’s operations.

1. Simplify Scheduling 

The best CRMs integrate practice management software with user-friendly scheduling tools, allowing medical practices to simplify every aspect of the process. This feature enhances the patient experience by sending reminders to patients and minimizing the risk of no-shows.

Patients can receive these reminders through email or text messaging. Confirmation indicators can alert you when patients confirm their appointment, further streamlining patient relationship management and scheduling. Because this system is fully automated, it can free your staff to focus on other activities.

This also makes it easier for your medical staff to perform and manage scheduling tasks, including:

• Reserving equipment
• Managing waitlists
• Reserving rooms
• Block scheduling

These scheduling tasks can be easily managed through a shared calendar, while appointment types are identified for easy reference. Your staff can even use these features to manage the schedules of individual providers, making it easier for medical practices to handle equipment and personnel.

Leveraging insights from integrated practice management software and EMR systems, CRM solutions can improve staff productivity and optimize workflows. Automated scheduling has several other benefits, including:

• Improved efficiency: Advanced CRM for medical practices facilitates effective communication between staff and patients, streamlining processes while saving time.
• Enhanced patient experience: Online appointment scheduling is convenient, saving patients time and effort. They can book outside office hours using various channels, such as their mobile phone or computer, and choose flexible appointment options, such as telehealth or in-person visits. Patients who receive automated reminders may also be more likely to attend appointments, enhancing their experience. 
• Improved resource management: An efficient CRM can examine appointment scheduling patterns and help allocate staff for optimal coverage. Since scheduling information is available in real time, this prevents over- or double-booking.
• Enhanced compliance: Automated scheduling updates systems with accurate patient information, ensuring compliance with HIPAA and other privacy regulations by protecting patient data.

2. Increase Staff Efficiency

Automated features decrease the workload on your administrative staff, allowing your team to keep their focus where it belongs — delivering top-quality patient care. Your team can also use digital systems to manage work-related tasks, streamlining operations.

Digital document storage eliminates the need for cumbersome filing systems, where patient data can become lost. A centralized data storage system gives authorized personnel access to patient records without compromising patient confidentiality or data security.

If you manage a medical practice, the data insights from integrated EMR and practice management software solutions can be leveraged to increase your team’s productivity and optimize workflows. 

Some advantages of increasing staff efficiency are listed below.

Reduced administrative tasks: Manual data entry is time-consuming. A CRM eliminates this through automated scheduling to increase staff efficiency. 

Improved communication: A CRM is a collaboration tool that promotes communication between staff by offering access to centralized patient data. Each staff member has real time access to updated information and can take prompt action accordingly.

Improved patient care: Staff can view consolidated patient information to provide personalized care. Efficient staff respond to patients fast with an effective CRM’s help, as they can access data quickly.

3. Stay on Top of Prescriptions and Lab Results

Today’s patients expect rapid results. Your medical practice can produce these results by integrating your medical CRM with EMR systems, providing a central location for tracking information such as prescriptions and lab results.

Direct, digital integration with these solutions will increase efficiency among your staff and offer several ancillary benefits, including:

• Seamless data transfer: Experience increased data accuracy and consistency and reduced manual data entry errors.
• Improved workflow efficiency: Automated workflows speed up processes, decreasing turnaround times.
• Increased patient satisfaction: The patient experience is enhanced, as results are received timeously.

Your team can safely and securely store these lab results in the patient’s digital record, eliminating the need for excess documents and paperwork while prioritizing access to information across your organization. These digital records are stored securely, protecting patients’ privacy and confidentiality.

Prescription Handling Advantages

The use of a digital platform improves prescription handling. Pharmacists will no longer have to decode physicians’ scribbled prescriptions.

Today’s software platforms allow healthcare providers to quickly select medications, cross-check them for adverse drug interactions and digitally transmit these prescriptions to the patient’s pharmacy.

This automation can save time, as pharmacies and medical practices can communicate directly and pharmacy staff will no longer need to call your office for clarification. As a secure communications channel, this technology also meets the privacy and safety requirements of Medicare and the DEA.

4. Increase Patient Retention

How do you keep your patients coming back for additional appointments? This consideration is particularly important for medical practices encouraging routine visits or annual checkups. Getting your patients to return may be a recurring challenge for specialty practices and medical spas.

Automated reminders and email marketing tools can turn first-time patients into regular visitors. The marketing tools built into modern CRM software allow you to connect with patients and provide a “next steps” guide or promotional materials that encourage a follow-up visit.

Automated scheduling software integrations also ensure patients are prompted to make additional appointments, fostering further commitment to your practice. Cosmetic practices and medical spas may promote add-on services, increasing practice revenue.

5. Manage Reviews

You can use CRM tools to invite patients to leave an online review. The best CRM software does this automatically after a patient’s appointment, allowing them to leave a note about their visit. Other benefits of managing reviews with a CRM include:

• Positive review analysis: You can then analyze and respond to these reviews before they appear on sites like Google or Yelp. The best reviews can easily be published anonymously on your website or social media page to showcase your practice’s stellar reputation. Some patients may even allow you to publish their comments with their names attached, giving your medical practice an edge of personal credibility for others researching medical spas or treatment centers.
• Reacting to negative reviews: Negative reviews allow you to address problems as they arise and contact your patient before their feedback becomes public. Quickly resolving the issue can help you retain the patient and minimize any damage caused by a negative online review.

Put Your Patients First With PatientNow

PatientNow offers all of these benefits and more. Our digital solutions can maximize your efficiency, improve patient retention rates and help you track your revenue flow. 

Our advanced marketing tools make it easy to follow up on new patient leads and promote your medical services to strengthen your presence in your local community.

Sign up today for a free demo of our all-in-one software solution for medical practices. See these great features in action and learn how PatientNow can help you put your patients first.