Why Patients don’t Return
There could be a plethora of reasons patients don’t come back for their next visit. We’ll pinpoint some of the top reasons below:- Feeling treated like a number instead of a person
- Incompetent office staff, too many errors
- Lack of remote self-service options
- Tedious paperwork and long wait times
- Slow insurance verification, with unexpected bills
5 Ways To Keep Patients Coming Back
Patient experience speaks volumes about the practice's communication, quality of services, and understanding of what patients are looking for. Let’s go over 5 key factors that will help your practice prevent any more lost customers.1. Put an end to Paper Forms
Expecting patients to complete stacks of paper forms when they arrive is communicating that your office is out of tune with what patients are looking for in the intake process. In this era of advanced technology, dental software provides online forms that can be completed from home. This in-demand feature has won over patients in regards to convenience, saving time, and showing patients how much your office values convenience. Paperless forms create a smoother flow of operations for your front office staff, eliminating the need for clipboards, printing, scanning, and human errors that come along with entering data from the forms manually into the system. Streamlining with dental software’s digital forms allows for direct integration of completed forms into your dental practice management software (Open Dental, Dentrix, Eaglesoft, and Dolphin), and cuts down an estimated 35% of documentation time, which means less time on administrative work, and more time attending to the needs of patients.2. Self-Serve with Online Appointment Scheduling
Being placed on hold, or having to play phone tag to book an appointment puts patients off. With so many dental practices offering self-serve options of 24/7 online patient scheduling, it would be a no-brainer to offer that convenience to patients as well. Not a single phone call would be needed, and patients can access your online scheduling platform from their smartphone or any device, on their own time. You’ll find your patient base growing rapidly as patients feel empowered when they can take care of booking when it suits them, instead of only when the front office is available. Upgrade your dental practice with online scheduling for better patient growth.3. Open Communication Channel
A major complaint from patients about their experience with some dental practices is a lack of open, and easy communication. This is a sad reality that many practices might be oblivious to. The problem with relying solely on traditional phone call communication is the common issues of inconvenience, long wait times, playing phone tag, and not being up to par with cutting edge technology. Bringing instant 2-way SMS into your practice as a mode of patient-office connection meets patients where they’re already at in terms of smartphone technology and their routine way of correspondence. 2-Way SMS gives patients and staff the platform for staying on the same page in regards to:- Rescheduling of appointments
- Important visit information
- Medication and post-visit communication
- Educational Material
- And much more