In a recent post, we discussed using technology to assist staff in being more productive and more accurate. Here are some specifics on how to accomplish that. We’ve already talked about using some free software tools for training and basic camera technology to make sure that owners can keep in touch with everything happening in the office.
Now, we discuss some additional areas of backlog where technology can assist you in keeping the number of staff and hours down while enhancing the happiness of your patient base:
Forms
The number of forms required for patient intake, risk management, insurance processing and the like have grown over the years. Fortunately, the number of tools to ease forms entry have grown substantially as well. You can keep things simple by using the forms provided by Google Docs or a semi-free tool like Wufoo or FormStack. Of course, you can add more features (and cost) if you see fit. For most of these, you do not much technical skill or background. The point here is that when someone comes to the front desk looking to get started, you can give a very friendly greeting and then text a link to the form or send the person over to a small kiosk with a couple of iPads to enter their basic information.
Not only can a person enter information on the device of their choosing, but you can also eliminate duplicate fields on the forms. Remember the days of entering your name at the top of every page? No more of that. Every necessary field gets populated with a single entry.
Payment processing
If someone wants to give you money, you need to make that as easy as possible. Difficulty and cost related to payment processing tools – checks, credit cards, EFTs – have come down significantly over the years. Avail yourself of the latest technology in this area. Not only does your cost and processing time decrease, but your patients also get to make payments and get on with their day a lot more quickly. This enhances the patient experience and frees up time for your staff to focus on non-administrative activities.
If you find yourself entering credit card numbers or launching software to process a credit card payment, look into services like Square or PayPal Here to make your life a lot easier.
Alerts
If business is particularly brisk or particularly slow, you can know in real time what is happening. For example, say that no activity has been entered into your practice management system for 2 hours. You would receive a text message about the slow speed. You can then reassign staff accordingly. On the other hand, if things are very busy, the message can fire so that you can move people up to the front for a short period of time. This allows you to have staff move back and forth (or go home early) without requiring you to have someone on hand at all times or investing in a camera that might make some folks uncomfortable.
A good alert may require some programming skill, but from a programming perspective, it is not a complicated process if the programmer can properly access the necessary data. Generally, this would involve an application regularly checking the data and if a threshold is exceeded on the high or low side, you and your team are notified accordingly.
Of course, this merely scratches the surface of the possibilities with current and evolving technology. Quite a number of options exist – in many cases, with minimal or no cost.
Have questions about these or using technology to improve productivity in your office? Send us an e-mail at bpalmisano2@gmail.com. We are here to help.
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