Do you have thousands of questions flooding through your mind about physician scheduling software? Rightfully so. Managing appointments and bookings is an essential part of giving patients the best care and service possible.
What do you need or what are the important features of a physician scheduling software solution for you? And how can you make the best decision for your organization and your patients?
Research is a huge part of making the best software selection to suit your needs. But you also need to reflect and ask some important questions.
We’ve put together a list of nine vital questions that you absolutely have to ask yourself before choosing a solution.
Nine Questions To Ask Yourself Before Buying Physician Scheduling Software
1. If I Buy This Physician Scheduling Software, Will It Optimize My Processes?
Technophobia, believe it or not, is becoming less of a thing. More and more individuals and businesses are embracing technological and digital solutions to ease their lives. Use this to your advantage by giving your patients a platform that improves their medical experience.
To do this, you need to understand what your business needs to improve. Do you want to make it easier for customers to book appointments? Is the aim of using scheduling software to improve internal operations and rostering?
Knowing your needs will help you identify what features you need in your solution. For example, if you want to optimize customer bookings, you should look for a platform that offers many accessible ways for patients to book. This includes booking pages, calendar links, and more.
Once you know the features your organization needs, you can evaluate each solution, asking if it has those features to optimize your processes.
2. Does It Reduce Labor Expenses?
At the end of the day, medical businesses are, well, businesses. So you have to think about costs and expenses. How can the platform you choose help you optimize not just your processes, but your expenditure too?
Smarter bookings management can help you schedule your physicians better. You can also use a scheduling platform with a booking form to help you gather information about the reasons for patient visits in advance. That way, you can allocate the best physicians, thereby reducing the need for overstaffing.
This also helps you gain greater visibility of each physician’s time so you can give them adequate breaks and make sure that they don’t feel overworked.
Not only can scheduling software improve rostering processes, but it can also improve the quality of care physicians provide. Through automation and with the data they can track by looking at patients’ appointment history, they can feel better supported to perform their duties.
And having happy and supported workers means you have lower turnover rates, so less spending on recruitment!
3. Is The Software Easy To Access?
The last thing you need is another app that’s not going to give you what you need at your fingertips. It needs to be readily available as you’re running from one appointment to the next.
You and your physicians should be able to instantly access information on the patient, the reason for the appointment, and more. As such, you should check to see if the software allows for multi-device access (i.e.: smartphones, laptops, pagers, etc.).
4. Is It Customizable?
The tools here need to cater to the specific needs of your organization, including those of your patients, different departments, physicians, and more. Evaluate the scheduling software to see if you can customize bookings as you may need to.
5. Does It Have Automation Capabilities?
One of the main points of using this kind of scheduling software is to minimize manual labor. It should cut back on the amount of time you spend assigning physicians, managing bookings, making notes on appointments, and more.
With automated calendar updates, physicians and patients should gain visibility into each other’s availability. That way, they can schedule appointments that suit their time. You also gain insight into your physician’s availability, making it easier to allocate appointments.
Automation features should also automate appointment reminders, booking reports, meeting notes, cancellation and rescheduling notifications, and more.
6. Is There An Option To Track?
Does the software allow you to track appointments and patients? In other words, can it help you record a patient’s booking history, making it easier to monitor their medical history?
Look for features like data reporting, analytics, booking stats, and more to evaluate whether the solution can help you in this way.
7. Will It Send Me Reminders?
We’d hope so! Physician scheduling software is about keeping everyone that matters in the know. This means keeping patients and physicians informed about any new changes to the calendar that affect them.
Look for a solution that sends reminders for upcoming appointments and notifications about changes in an appointment. This includes cancellation notifications, postponement notifications, and more.
8. Does It Work With My Other Systems?
Medical institutions are huge networks with multiple departments working together to ultimately assist patients. Thus, there are many processes that your solution needs to encompass or collaborate with. This includes administration, accounting, human resources, and more.
If you have platforms that form a vital foundation for the functioning of your practice, then you must evaluate whether the software works with them. For example, if you’d like to streamline your bookings payments, you should consider a solution that has payment integrations like Stripe, PayPal, and Square.
9. Is It HIPAA compliant?
Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA) protects patient information and privacy. It prevents health practitioners and organizations from disclosing or sharing patients’ health information without their consent.
It’s important that the physician scheduling software you choose is HIPAA compliant. This ensures that you can protect your patients’ private information that you collect from appointments and bookings.
Time To Make A Decision!
Now that’s a lot to think about, isn’t it? Take a bit more time to research and compare platforms, using these nine evaluation points as a checklist.
The right software for you is the one that ticks all these boxes, is HIPAA compliant, and meets your physician scheduling needs. Looking for a good option that has all the characteristics above? Check us out today!
