A truth universally accepted is that waiting an hour for a table at a crowded restaurant on a Friday night can make the experience tedious. Or even standing in a long line at a takeout establishment can make the food not quite as satisfying. One of the only positive parts of the COVID-19 pandemic is that dining establishments seem to have perfected the art of using technology to eliminate that wait.
If a wait at a nice restaurant is a negative experience, the wait and time it takes to fill out numerous forms on your first visit to a new therapy practice can be interminable and lead to very dissatisfied clients even before they enter the therapy room. Unfortunately, HIPAA compliant forms are still an extremely necessary part of the intake process, and so the accepted standard is to ask patients to come early for their first appointment so that they can trudge through the stack of forms on a clipboard.
There is an alternative to this process, new technology allows new clients to complete all necessary paperwork (including proof of identification and insurance verification) in the comfort of their own home. As a result, clients can skip the line, show up on time for their first appointment, and enter your treatment room with a positive frame of mind.
Online Patient Forms Can be Easy to Find
Forms, both new intake and periodic update forms, can be supplied to clients in a couple of different ways when they initially make their appointment.
First, forms can be linked on your website in a well-organized and easy-to-navigate format. Front office staff can help new or existing clients find a link that can lead patients to general information forms, medical history forms, insurance verification requests including picture submission of all insurance documents or cards, and personal identification verification. Once patients submit each portion of the intake process, their information is easily and seamlessly integrated into their online patient file.
Another option that many clients and front office staff like is the ability to email online forms directly to a mobile device. These forms can be fully customized to your offices specific needs, and new clients can fill them out at their convenience. Again, as soon as a form is complete and submitted, it is automatically updated in the practice system and the patient’s chart reflects all new information.
Eliminate the Wait
The front office staff of any therapy clinic or medical office will tell you that the quickest way to get off of schedule for the day is by handing over a clipboard of paperwork for a new patient to fill out. Though office scheduling staff regularly tell patients to show up for their appointment 15-30 minutes early, there are always clients who don’t abide by this suggestion. Even one patient pushing their appointment time back because they are spending time filling out forms in the waiting room means that the entire rest of the daily schedule can be disrupted.
Instead of having a frustrated office staff and a string of clients waiting for their appointments to begin long after they are scheduled, convert your practice to online patient forms. If each patient who shows up has already completed all required documents before they take a seat in your waiting area, it is much more likely that you and your staff can maintain a seamless schedule.
Your Team Can Be Much More Efficient
The amount of time that can be saved by front office staff is considerable.
Traditionally, when a new patient comes into the office, they are provided a stack of patient forms copied, sorted and prepared by front office staff. Then, once forms are completed they are entered into several different systems (such as EMR and billing) manually through data entry. Documents are physically filed in a manila folder to access as a backup to the system.
By digitizing files through the use of a therapy practice management system, data collected by online patient forms is automatically populated into all necessary fields in patient records and evaluation reports. This eliminates the man hours to prepare and file physical copies of forms, but also the time and energy wasted on data entry.
Front office staff is essential to a practice that runs smoothly and treats patients well so that they continue to return. Making their jobs easier and more efficient by utilizing available technology allows for a happier, friendlier and much more efficient work environment.
Are you Ready to Improve your Therapy Practice with Online Patient Forms?
Change can be a scary proposition, but don’t be one of the practices that is happy with the status quo. An option exists that not only makes patient experience better, but also improves efficiency of the practice as a whole.
No one wants to go back to a time of waiting in lines at restaurants for hours at a time. Provide your therapy patients with an up to date and efficient process with the most advanced patient intake form procedure on the market.
Ready to consider innovating your practice with PatientStudio’s fully automated and integrated patient intake form? You can find a sample of our fully customizable form here, so that you can get a feel of the many ways our completely secure form can innovate your practice.