The benefits of using a diary-centered practice management system

Many of us trust our diaries or calendars to help us be as productive as possible. Time management has become a way of life as we balance work responsibilities and personal obligations. Evolving from diaries to Filofaxes and now online calendars that synchronise across multiple devices and users, individuals rely on planners to run their lives.

Your medical practice should not be any different. In fact, we have seen a great increase in productivity in practices that use the diary function built into MedeMass’s products.

A diary-centered practice management system offers a number of benefits, including: 

• Allowing you to create your own appointment categories, and perform common tasks like managing accounts, posting transactions and printing statements.

• Enabling you to control your accounts. The diary flags outstanding balances and can confirm a patient’s medical aid membership by doing a membership status validation (MSV). Using the benefit check function, you can also determine whether the patient has benefits available before he or she arrives for treatment.

• Increasing efficiency and lightening the administrative burden. It provides an overview of the status of your appointments, and appointment or payment reminders can be sent to patients via SMS. This saves time and limits the number of no-shows and their impact on your revenue and workflow.

• Allowing patients to book appointments when and where they want to. Research has shown that people get sick or feel worse at night – when they normally cannot make an appointment. This changes with an online booking functionality. An online diary automatically synchronises with your practice diary, hence there is no risk of double bookings or missed appointments. As soon as you log in at the start of the day, all after-hours diary activity will appear in the day’s schedule, allowing you to balance your patient load. Patients will love you for the convenience, and by making your services more accessible you are guaranteed to see increasing traffic through your doors.

Your practice should trust technology to save time and increase productivity. Therefore, before investing in a practice management system make sure that it offers features, such as an integrated diary, that deliver benefits to patients that extend beyond excellent medical care.