Effective patient flow is essential to an efficient and profitable dental office. The more patients you can see in a day, the larger your patient base can potentially grow. There are many changes you can make to your practice to improve patient flow, and a practice financing loan from Bankers Healthcare Group can help!
Improve Office Layout
The layout of your practice can have an enormous effect on patient flow. Whether you’re starting a practice from scratch or considering a remodel, make a patient-friendly layout a priority. Ideally, you want patients to progress through the practice in order, without having to double back. To accomplish this, make sure that your reception desk is near the entrance of the practice. The desk should be large enough to allow patients to complete paperwork right there rather than in the waiting room. From the waiting room, patients should be able to head directly to cleaning rooms, and then proceed to a separate exit.
Train Staff on Time Management
Everyone at your practice, from the receptionist to assistants and hygienists, should be trained in effective time management techniques. In any healthcare practice, a staff member may be required to juggle multiple patients, administrative work, and other tasks all at once. Give your staff the tools they need to succeed in a hectic, fast-paced environment.
Invest in Mobile Technology
Consider incorporating tablets into your patient experience. Rather than having patients fill out paperwork at reception, hand them a tablet where they can review their dental history and make any changes. Most of your patient population is likely to be significantly speedier on a tablet than with a pen and paper. You can also equip assistants and hygienists with tablets for note taking and other tasks.
Keep Patients Informed
When patients are left alone in a waiting room for an extended period of time, they are sure to get restless and build up frustration. Keep your receptionist up to date on your schedule so they can relay information to patients. If your schedule gets backed up early in the day, inform afternoon patients by text or phone call that their appointment will be delayed. If someone is able to leave work 15 minutes later because they know their appointment will be delayed by that amount of time, they are much less likely to become frustrated.
Use an EHR
An electronic health record (EHR) can help both you and your team stay on top of tasks throughout the day. These technologies make it easy to tend to record keeping, insurance checks, and other tasks throughout the day as they come up. Quickly handling these tasks when you have a minute between cleanings or seeing patients’ means they’re not all waiting for you at the end of a long day. Bankers Healthcare Group’s equipment financing loans can help with the initial investment needed to implement an EHR system.
About Bankers Healthcare Group
Bankers Healthcare Group provides innovative, hassle-free financial solutions exclusively to healthcare professionals. Since 2001, BHG has provided more than $3 billion in financial solutions to satisfied customers nationwide and worked with over 110,000 practitioners. BHG is proud to maintain partnerships with leading healthcare industry associations, and is continually recognized for innovation, continued growth and being a best place to work. BHG is partially owned by Pinnacle Financial Partners. To learn more, visit www.bankershealthcaregroup.com, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.
