Posts Tagged ‘Office Software’

Why Should My Office Use Patient Scheduling Software?

Scheduling can be one of the most complex administrative tasks that a medical office performs. In offices with multiple medical facilities, keeping track of recalls, finding open times, and being able to remind patients of outstanding amounts, can be very challenging. Fortunately, software manufacturers have recognized the stress of keeping track of all this data and created applications that can efficiently and effectively create schedules for patients and doctors. Known as “patient scheduling software”, these programs are vital for the success of any medical office.

While it is clear that some software is required to schedule appointments, it may not be altogether clear why specific patient scheduling software is required? Why not just simply use an Excel spreadsheet to keep track of the days? Then, when a patient is scheduled in, you could simply just highlight the date and time. The answer is that this causes a great deal of inefficiency and doesn’t really keep track of much other than the appointments. Good patient scheduling software can not only keep track of the visits, but also find the next available appointment quickly (something that you’d have to keep scrolling for in an Excel spreadsheet). A well-written application can even remind administrators of additional details, such as co-payment amounts, alerts for outstanding balances, or referral information. Having these reminders appear on-screen translates into better service for the patients and easier payment collection for the office.

Some offices may be hesitant to implement such a system because they’ve heard of all the IT costs that are associated with having patient scheduling software. For example, offices may be against the application on the grounds that it will require servers, a lot of setup work, daily backups, and so forth. Then, even after it’s set up, there are likely to be support costs that may outweigh the benefits described above. Fortunately, medical developers are aware of this and have started to create a class of applications that fall under “SaaS” (software-as-a-service). These applications are designed to store all of their data securely online. Consequently, you don’t need any servers in your office and you can access the patient records and schedules from anywhere in the world, provided that you have internet access. If you’re sitting at home at 10pm wondering who you have scheduled for tomorrow, simply open your computer, load the software, and find the info you want. No hassles on the backend – just simple and easy-to-use.

All in all, there are very few reasons not to use patient scheduling software. Especially, in a multiple physician office, there’s truly no other effective way of maintaining your appointment book. Between the block times, appointment types, necessity to know co-payment amounts, recall information, and so on, managing appointments without this software would be horrendous. The best part is that getting all these aspects completely automated comes at no extra IT expense. Simply pay for the software (either one-time or monthly fee) and there are no extra costs above and beyond that basic payment.

Medical Office Management Software with Low IT Costs

One of the traditional drawbacks of purchasing medical office management software has been the costs traditionally associated with running it. Oftentimes, implementing the system entailed very high startup costs. An office would have to purchase the required hardware, such as servers and the like, then they’d have to buy or license the software. On top of all those initial expenditures, there’s the time and money spent to maintain the  servers and troubleshoot any ensuing difficulties. However, a new software paradigm, SaaS (or software as a service), has emerged that has removed much of these costs.

Medical office management software that operates under this genre of applications is typically licensed to practices in comparatively small yearly or monthly fees. Most of these applications are structured in such a way that none of the data is stored locally in the office, but is instead stored securely online. As such, these types of applications are tremendously easy to setup and incur little to none maintenance costs. Simply install the program on your computer, connect it to the internet, and it’s fully functioning. There are no backups that need to be made, VPNs that need to be created, or any other costs associated with having your own server. In addition, your data is accessible by you, 24/7, from any computer that has the manufacturer’s software and an internet connection.

IT costs have typically been a large burden on practices (especially those that have many portable devices, computers, logins, etc.). However, with the invention of the SaaS model, medical office management software is incredibly easy to implement and requires little to no maintenance costs. This enables everyone on staff to focus on more important tasks such as patient care. By simply paying the monthly or yearly fee, you can streamline your practice in ways you never thought possible.