Lets face it, managing a dental practice business is not just about your dental expertise, it involves a lot more than you are trained for, at a dental school. At dental school, no one is trained on basic business aspects like appointment scheduling, accounting, insurances, marketing, customer relationship and privacy laws. All of this can feel like big distractions from your patients’ oral health-care needs (and this is what you went to dental school for). Well, which is why there are softwares to ease the problem and help your focus on your key skills, while these softwares handle all operational aspects of your dental practice.
With so many choices in the market, choosing the right software can sometimes get daunting. At Emitrr, we have put together things to keep in mind while selecting software for your dental software.
What is the goal are you trying to achieve?
Dental software can come plugged with plenty of capabilities and it’s easy to lose focus and that’s why it’s recommended to have your goal defined well in advance. Below is a list of capabilities you might want to consider.
- Appointment scheduling and reminders
- Document management
- Clinical applications
- Patient engagement management – SMS, Email
- Insurance and government coverage support
- Reporting and analytics
- Marketing automation
- Managing missed calls
Each dental software system offers different features. Assessing your practice’s needs is the first step toward choosing the software that can best improve patient experience and business growth.
Ease of use?
Remember, the end of the software is either you or your front desk and you want to ensure the software is increasing productivity and not reducing it. Hence while making a buying decision of a software that you need to be using everyday, ensure:
- All stakeholders take part in a demo/decision making. Listen to everyone’s opinions on whether they had an enjoyable experience using the software. If all stakeholders had a find the software easy to use, its less likely you’d need additional help to make the software a success for your dental practice.
- Push for a free trial. Some things are not very obvious at first and you want to take your time into making the right decision.
Budget
When it comes to investing in new software, one of the most important factors is the budget. Many factors can affect the cost of dental solutions, its functionality, its updates and scalability, the security, and whether or not it offers continued support.
When determining how much you’re willing to spend on a new platform, consider what value this product will bring to your practice. Spending more on a high-quality platform might boost income and reduce loss, which will improve your overall return on investment.
Do note and make sure you are well aware of all conditions in the pricing. At times there are a lot of hidden/variable costs which may just not make business sense in the future even if you love the product. It is best to have a yearly forecast of how much you are okay to spend even if the cost goes up.
Support
As a dental practitioner you didn’t go to dental school to learn how to use information technology product. Dental practices solutions can offer many advanced features that can help you grow your practice, but only if you know how to use them.
Many modern dental systems are software as a service (SaaS) products. When you pay for a SaaS product, your customer experience does not end when you install the software. You can expect continued support, training, and consultation on how to best use the software for your business.
Reviews
The most proven way to select a trustworthy software is to look at their online reviews on sites like Capterra, G2 etc. Reading reviews will provide you with insights on what a product does, and what are the things users like/dislike.
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