“Word on the street…” “Keeping an ear to the ground…”
Those analogies speak to your patient relationships around teledentistry.
Why teledentistry?
“Word on the street” confirms that more and more patients are at least curious about the service. We’ll get to the “why” in a moment.
Those who consult across the industry (and we who are biased about teledentistry) are discovering more about patient expectations. This is proving true in the pandemic and emerging post-pandemic eras of dentistry.
Assumptions - good and bad
Patient expectations often match consumer expectations. Each are aligned around a dominant desire for three things:
- Convenience
- Efficiency
- An overall time-sensitive experience
It’s safe to assume that most land in this category of expectations. But the assumption also holds that there’s a percentage that prefer something other what (for example) a digital experience can provide.
The goal is to find the sweet spot in the current patient experience environment. Teledentistry and the virtual care solution provide a balance you and your patients can benefit from.
The effective synergy between your patient relationships and teledentistry
Communication is a constant in our culture, no doubt. The visual aspect of how many communicate is evident in the rise of FaceTime and Zoom conversations.
Factor in how we learned to adapt during the 2020 to 2021 era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Digital communication became the norm.
Though you, and likely your patients, crave a return to more face to face encounters - digital based communication has rooted itself into our routines. Following are a few ways you can keep the synergy effective between your patient relationships and teledentistry.
Make a case for teledentistry
Keep in mind - the virtual dental care environment doesn’t take over how you do dentistry. It becomes a welcome alternative for those who are accustomed to the digital environment or who might otherwise miss out on care because of their circumstances or choices.
- Embrace your patient’s digital preferences
- Encourage your patients to include teledentistry in their care plan
- Envision opportunities where you can use teledentistry to diagnose, triage, and refer your patients
Maximize convenience using teledentistry
Insurance! That’s considered among the top reasons that patients choose (or remain with) your dental practice.
Once the insurance “hurdle” is overcome, potential patients face other deciding factors. Next to insurance is…
Convenience!
Again, this fits the consumer mindset. And you’ll more likely attract, acquire, and retain patients if you maximize their desire for convenient options.
- Give patients a virtual visit option to test their desire for convenience
- Grow your teledentistry platform one (convenient) service at a time. Start with virtual consultations for initial appointments when requested or when relevant to the patient.
Maintain ongoing patient satisfaction through teledentistry solutions
As you guide patients toward your virtual care environment measure their satisfaction (or dissatisfaction) with teledentistry. Your success can be determined by when, how often, and for what purpose a patient utilizes the service.
- Survey patients following teledentistry visits. Ask what they “liked,” “disliked,” and what could be “improved.”
- Monitor your online patient reviews for teledentisty related comments (positive and negative).
- Train your team(s) to recognize opportunities to recommend teledentistry for visits, triage, follow-up, etc.
- Set up systems/workflows to assure that you and your team are on-the-same-page prior to scheduling a teledentistry visit.
Make upgrades to your technology to accommodate teledentistry and digital solutions
The pandemic perhaps expanded your use of technology. Contactless solutions were encouraged to enhance safety protocols.
What was learned out of necessity is now opening new, more patient-centric options. And technology is at the core.
Online scheduling, automated check-ins, and a more digitized patient experience are driving innovation. It makes sense given how your patients are accustomed to all-things-online in their daily routines.
- Assess your website for its user-capabilities. Is it easy to navigate, informative, and equipped for a more digital/online experience?
- Add a secure, online patient portal to your website. Include online options for scheduling, forms access, payments, insurance confirmations and…teledentistry.
Discover more insight into teledentistry and its impact on your patient relationships:
Use Teledentistry and Virtual Dental Care to Help Reduce Dental Patient No-Shows
Optimism About Patient Perception and the Patient-Facing Benefits of Teledentistry
Refine the Patient Experience with Teledentistry
Use a dedicated, secure, and fully capable teledentistry platform
Teledentix is an innovative, turn-key teledentistry solution created by Virtual Dental Care. The all-in-one platform will enable you to adapt teledentistry to your patient care and extend your services beyond the walls of your dental practice…and improve your patient care in the process.
- Teledentix provides an easy-to-use video conferencing tool that’s secure, HIPAA compliant, and specific to dentistry.
- Teledentix Basic is a perfect starting point. Begin with a free trial and then transition to a very low monthly fee. You and your patients can join unlimited video conferences including screen-share, file-share, video-share, and real-time chat communications.
LEARN MORE about the Teledentix platform.
