How to apply Automation in Your Dental Practice – Why It’s So Important
Automation is an effective way to produce consistent and high-quality dental care at a lower cost. It can also minimize your workload and increase your efficiency. Given that everyone loves a good dentist, automation in the dental field has the potential to be a game-changer.
Reasons to automate your dental practice’s
Easily follow HIPAA standards.
As the healthcare sector grows more advanced, many individuals are starting to look out for themselves. This includes ensuring that their health information is secure and that their privacy is maintained. This means having an up-to-date privacy policy and processes to protect your clients’ information.
It also means adhering to the standards set by the healthcare industry, including the requirement that all record-keeping practices be compliant with the law.
Streamline workloads
When possible, streamline your patient interactions. This could include:
1. Using different software platforms reduces the time it takes to complete administrative tasks.
2. Using one system to track data entry and access by multiple employees.
3. Using an online bill-paying platform reduces the amount of paper trail in your office.
Automation in the dental field can help to streamline these tasks and more.
Reduce human error
Human error is a common theme in any field where technology is used. It is something that everyone has to deal with daily, whether in their profession or home life. Whether it’s a co-worker who is forgetful or a forgetful spouse, automation can help reduce this potential error source.
When designing a workflow to eliminate errors, it is essential to remember that computers are not error-free. Natural human interactions, such as speech and body language, are crucial to creating an accurate record. However, computers, humans, and machines can often make mistakes. Using automation, you can reduce the chance of errors through what is known as “controlled exception.”
When an automated process encounters a “controlled exception,” it will stop the computerized task and manually review the data to ensure it is correct. This is great for your team to avoid but can also be helpful for your patient. If you miss a filling or have accidentally left a note for a patient, you can call them and correct the mistake.
Improve customer communication
Communication in the dental field is often a challenge. This can be in misunderstandings between patients and staff, between patients and their caretakers, or between patients and their loved ones.
When communication is a challenge, you can use automation to its full potential. In one setting, you may have a complicated procedure that needs to be explained to each patient individually. With automation, this can be automated so that the same process is shared between multiple patients in a group.
Reduce administrative tasks
As your practice becomes more automated, you may find that specific administrative tasks are easier to automate. This may include hiring, scheduling, filling out insurance forms, and sending documentation to insurance companies.
These administrative tasks can often be automated by using workflow engines. These tools can help you easily create documents and assign tasks to lower-level employees. Other administrative tasks, like billing, can be manually filled out by hand. These tasks can also be automated if you use a workflow engine.
Improve patient services and cash flow
A frequent criticism of automation in the dental field is that it will increase the amount of patient service. This is primarily because more administrative tasks can be automated. However, this also means more opportunities to improve upon the patient experience. When a patient book is too cumbersome to manage manually, you can create an automated system to track patient visits and medical records quickly. This also saves you from asking each patient to sign a paper they might not fully understand.
Managing Online Reviews
Online reviews are common in business but are still relatively new, thus affecting dental marketing. While most practices have an online review platform, implementing safeguards to moderate reviews remains critical. While you should always respond to customer reviews, you should also care when moderating reviews.
This is because it is easy for owners of review platforms to remove negative reviews. It is critical to use robust encryption technology to protect your customers’ data. You can also take extra precautions by using a password manager to store complex passwords securely.
Conclusion
Automation has various advantages to offer both in and out of the dental office. It can help keep your schedule manageable, reduce mistakes and improve efficiency. Automation can also help to serve your patients with increased satisfaction better.