Investing in a healthcare or medical CRM patient solution helps you to easily locate your patient’s medical, payment and behavioral history, which you can use to personalize messaging, improve follow-up care and boost customer satisfaction and loyalty.
Focusing on patient engagement and communication is especially important in the face of ever-changing insurance coverage rules that cause unrest and confusion, not to mention the added pressure that comes from the COVID-19 pandemic.
The healthcare industry is years behind the global standard when it comes to adopting effective digital communication channels to keep up with consumer-driven demand for a better customer experience. The challenge is to use innovative technology to increase personalization through marketing automation without losing the human touch and increasing the risk to security.
With a medical CRM, you can do just that, while also streamlining your practice’s administrative tasks, optimizing patient care and patient relationship management software and improving medical sales and marketing initiatives. In this guide, we will explain exactly why a healthcare CRM can benefit your business and how to pick the right one for your needs.
What is a healthcare CRM?
A customer relationship management (CRM) system is a platform that logs and tracks your customer relationships. This includes contact information, previous interactions such as calls and emails, how much money someone has spent on your product or service and which services they prefer.
Medical CRM software does the same, keeping track of your patients’ personal and medical history, patient notes, preferences and interactions with your practice or healthcare business.
Here’s a snapshot of what a healthcare CRM patient system can log:
- Contact information
- Contact history (phone calls, emails, SMS)
- Patient forms (patient intake, content forms, etc.)
- Insurance and billing history
- History of past appointments
- Upcoming appointment reminders
- Patient notes (whitecoat syndrome, anxiety, phobia of needles, etc.)
- Pre-existing and/or chronic conditions
- Current and past medications and/or treatments
- Allergies
With a healthcare CRM, you can track and update these details for all of your patients within a single platform. This not only gives you a comprehensive view of your patients and their preferences, but also keeps you and your team from bouncing between multiple platforms to log information.
Storing information like this and being able to access it at your fingertips is critical to the patient CRM experience. In a survey conducted by Surescripts, 55% of patients reported that their medical history was incomplete or entirely missing when they visited their doctor. Patients also reported that they were spending the majority of their visit filling out paperwork and note that they feel doctors who use a digital system are 70% more organized, 40% more innovative and 33% more competent.
Beyond easy-access to patient medical histories and digital intake forms for new patients, CRMs come with communication tools like email, SMS and phone platforms that allow you to put the bulk of your medical practice’s marketing and data entry on autopilot. This gives you and your team of healthcare professionals more time to actually talk to patients and build relationships.
In fact, according to the same survey, healthcare practices that have adopted software solutions to replace manual data entry and administrative tasks such as sending emails and scheduling feel 68% more relieved, 65% more confident and 55% more comfortable in their roles.
Leslie Kelly Hall, Senior Vice President of Policy at Healthwise and the Informed Medical Decisions Foundation told Surescripts:
“It’s clear that patients are willing and able to play a more active role in managing their care, and with improved access to technology and information sharing between doctors and patients, the entire healthcare system will benefit.”
Healthcare CRM is poised to be the next big thing as providers strive to personalize care and improve how they manage and nurture patient relationships.
What exactly can a healthcare CRM software do?
Let’s examine some specific ways a CRM system can help your healthcare practice.
Follow-up with patients on appointments and future treatment
Approximately 20% of Americans haven’t been to a doctor within the past year. Meanwhile, 46% of UK patients miss at least one doctor’s appointment per year.
No-shows and missed appointments are bad news for patients and providers alike. Not only are patients potentially missing crucial care, but practices are likewise missing out on business.
By setting up reminders and notifications via a healthcare CRM, all of your patients’ future appointments are logged and scheduled. Integrating with your marketing tools, you can send regular email, phone, or SMS confirmations without having to dial out to your patients manually.
What are the big-picture benefits of implementing a healthcare CRM?
For the majority of healthcare providers, investing in CRM is a matter of when not if.
According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), the experience vs. expectation gap in the healthcare industry leaves an “opportunity sweetspot”. Survey respondents cited that a positive customer experience in the healthcare industry is more important than in any other industry mentioned. Yet, survey respondents reported a 25% difference in the customer experience they had in the healthcare industry vs. the one they hope and expect to receive.
What are the must-have features of a healthcare CRM?
There are tons of options out there in terms of CRM solutions. That said, providers and practices need to consider the specific features of a healthcare CRM before investing in a platform.