6 Benefits of Online Scheduling for Healthcare Practices

Covid has made us find ways to use technology at its fullest.

Healthcare industry was extremely overwhelmed with the number of patients they were receiving in a day.

The staff had to work overtime to cope with the requirements. They were trying to automate as many processes as possible.

One such process is online appointment scheduling. If this process goes online, it will save many hours of the stuff.

Here are some benefits of online scheduling:

• Convenience

One of the most important factors to attract new patients or even hold the old ones is offering convenient services.

There are different types of patients. Some patients might feel shy while sharing their issue on a call to someone unknown. So if your practice takes appointments over calls only, you just lost a customer.

Appointment scheduling is the first step when a patient interacts with you. If they find it difficult to book an appointment, they might have second thoughts about actually visiting the practice.

Appointment scheduling software is the best when it comes to healthcare appointments. It is easy to use and gives customers a choice to select their preferred time.

• 24*7 Availability

If we see the traditional appointment booking in practice, they usually take appointments between 9 to 5 or some have slots like 9 to 10, 2 to 3 and so on. For someone who will be in office during this time, it is difficult to find time to call.

If the patient was busy during these hours, they won’t be able to book an appointment. This is not a very pleasant situation in a world that has technically advanced so much. Some of our old techniques need a little level up.

Appointment scheduling software is exactly what a healthcare practice needs. Sharing an open booking link on websites, and social media platforms or printing a QR code that takes them to the link. 

Patients can select the time and date of the appointment and as they submit the request, email will be sent giving details of your bookings. They can book appointments at any time and from anywhere.

• Fill the Gap

In traditional booking, patients don’t have visibility of what time is booked and what is available. Even if there are last minute cancellations, that time is wasted.

But if you use an online appointment booking tool, everyone has a clear visibility. A patient while booking sees that a 12 to 12:30 slot is empty, they can book it for themselves.

Doctors’ valuable time will be saved and more patients who actually want a slot will get it. Online booking is not only convenient for patients but is also for healthcare staff as it helps them utilize their time to the fullest.

• Reduce Administrative Tasks for Staff

Covid pandemic brought a lot of change in behavior and processes. The processes got so complicated that staff had to overwork. 

We can not reduce the work, but we can definitely change the administrative tasks so that they can focus on work that compulsorily requires human involvement.

Online appointment takes away the tedious and time consuming process of booking appointments over calls which takes away so many hours of their day. Back and forth of calls, misunderstandings, and last minute no show ups that wastes the slots, all can be eliminated with an online appointment booking.

• Offer Better Experience

You don’t want your patient to be frustrated by just scheduling an appointment. They have to dial multiple times during peak hours. It is not a very pleasing experience. 

But if you have an open booking link added to your website, customers will visit the booking page, choose their preferred date, choose preferred time, and choose the service. 

Once all the fields are selected they can confirm the booking and their appointment will be booked.

• Proper Database Management

If you keep a register to note down appointments or a spreadsheet, these get difficult when the number of patients increases. The chances of human errors are much higher in this. 

But if you use a plugin like Calendar 365 which is already integrated with the CRM, you don’t have to worry about database management. In future if you want to see patient history, you will have every detail starting from when the first appointment booking with the doctor. 

Calendar 365 – An Online Appointment Scheduling Tool

Calendar 365 is a Dynamics 365 plugin for appointment scheduling, resources and activity management and much more.

This plugin simplifies the online booking process by automizing it. You get all the appointment details on the calendar and reminder before the meeting starts. 

The calendar is so customizable that you can change the working hours for each day, keep buffer time, restrict the number of bookings and much more.

You can have different types of services that you offer for customers to choose from.

Apart from online appointment scheduling, the calendar has so many other features like resource and activity management. It helps the admin have a clarity on which staff memeber is working on what, whether they are available for new tasks, how long they are working on a certain task, the status of that task and much more.

Calendar 365 gives you full access to choose any CRM entity to filter the calendar details. 

The booking form is customizable and you can change it as per your CRM entities. You can add your brand theme, logo, etc. to resemble your website. 

Conclusion

The Healthcare industry has gone through a lot in the past few years. It is high time we digitize it as much as possible so that the healthcare staff don’t have the burden of work that can be automated.

Calendar 365 is a perfect example of appointment scheduling for Dynamics 365 users. If you are a Dynamics 365 user and wish to automate your bookings, Dynamics 365 Calendar would be your ideal choice.

The tool is affordable, easy to use and specially designed for Dynamics 365 users so that they can make the best use of their CRM data.

The post 6 Benefits of Online Scheduling for Healthcare Practices appeared first on CRM Software Blog | Dynamics 365.