Throughout this year, your practice has had to respond to unprecedented changes with patience, excellent customer service, and ingenuity. However, we know it hasn't been easy to adapt your well-rehearsed practices and change your protocols without prior notice. Some optometrists have been aided with loans or even had to furlough staff, but it's now time to start implementing long-term changes to keep your practice thriving through 2021.
We've rounded up the 3 top ways ODs are preparing their practice for another year of uncertainty surrounding closures and social distancing protocols.
Reducing Admin & Stress in Your Eyecare Practice
Cloud-based Software & Storage
The most important change you can make is getting rid of your onsite servers and going to cloud-based EHR software and data storage. Not only do you save on costs by only paying a monthly fee and no maintenance fees, but you gain the flexibility of accessing your patient data outside of the practice. We don't know what 2021 will bring, but mobility will be highly valuable. No matter where you are, you can access Uprise EHR using a tablet and save your custom treatment codes to accomplish exams more quickly and with fewer clicks.
Patient Tools
We've made it abundantly clear that the patient experience has become more important, even with social distancing and sanitation measures in place. For the short time that your patients are in your practice, you have to complete a comprehensive exam, make their next appointment, send diagnosis or prescription information, and hand-off to your optician for any product purchases. There are a lot of steps that could be made more efficient and painless in that process. That's why your online patient portal would benefit from contactless check in, questionnaires that can be sent before the appointment, and automated patient recall. With Weave software integrated with Uprise EHR & PM, you can receive appointment confirmation quickly and send patient communication without requiring extra work from your staff. With automation, you just have to set it and forget it, but you can tweak the messaging for special hours or events.
Keeping Expenses & Admin Low
In-house billing is time consuming and frustrating for staff members with no previous experience with eyecare claims. If you remove the burden from your staff, they'll be able to spend their time assisting patients and catching errors in other parts of your workflow. 2021 could be the year that you outsource the billing of your growing practice to a team of experts. Furthermore, you'll save on the cost of hiring a full-time in-house biller because services like our Revenue Cycle Management team only get paid for the claims they process.
Watch a conversation with Dr. Nafey and Dr. Glazier on what else they learned from the pandemic.
