The dental intake process is one aspect of the industry to embrace digital platforms as a way to enhance efficiency and overcome remote work challenges. While moving from a paper to a digital workflow can seem complex, the long-term benefits make it a positive change.
Take for example the intake process for dental clinics, tedious paperwork for both patient and practitioner can cause longer wait times, organizational complications and overall inconvenience. One step to take to improve this process is by transitioning to digital forms that are HIPAA-Compliant. While moving forms online saves time, eliminates tedious tasks and improves accuracy, the transition process can be challenging, especially for small practices that do not have a dedicated IT department. Here are some tips to combat the roadblocks that may arise from going digital:
Start small. It is not necessary to fully digitalize every part of your practice. Start with the form that you use most often, such as a dental intake form, extraction referral form.
Ask a professional. You can always ask your developer to assist with moving your paper forms online and they will help you to find an efficient solution that best suits the needs of your practice. If you don’t have a developer, there are services online that offer dental form templates or help to convert your existing forms. It is essential to remember when moving your forms online, they need to remain HIPAA-Compliant and follow all security and privacy regulations.
Integrate your team. The biggest roadblock of changing how something is done can be internal communication. When the staff is trained and can see the clear benefits to learning a new process, it will make the transition easier and lead to better results.
Test it out. Test any new solution internally with your colleagues before using it with your patients.
Review the submission with your dentist. Remember, at the end of the day, the way the data is presented to the dentist is most important. If you are making any changes to the format, make sure to run them by the dentist!
Once you have seen the results of moving forms online, you can then branch out to adding additional features to your forms such as integrating with your EMR and collecting payments
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