Empower Your Practice

Journal for Practice Managers

How to Choose Medical Practice Management Software for Your Clinic

When selecting a practice management software, it’s very easy to get carried away by all the bells and whistles that are on offer. However, choosing the right system is much like learning how to practice medicine in a number of ways. Most particularly, it’s vital that you study the fundamentals and make sure you can get the basics right before you progress to greater things.

Guide to practice management software

No matter how big or small your clinic is, finding the best practice management software for your needs is essential

Here are the software features you should look for:

  1. Easy-to-use not only for you but also for your colleagues
  2. Make sure that customer support is free and accessible
  3. Ascertain how to transfer all your data to the new system
  4. Make sure you can add all your patient records
  5. Ensure you have a chance to ask questions at any time
  6. Check your chosen system is secure enough to handle confidential data

For more tools, check out our list of essential software solutions every clinic needs.

Where to Find Practice Management Software

There are all kinds of ways to help you understand which practice management software will be the right one for your clinic. A wealth of information is available online if you know where to look. Practice managers in the UK typically use a range of different methods to learn more about software tools for clinic management.Try using the following methods to find practice management software:

  1. Search on Google
  2. Look for online reviews on websites like Capterra
  3. Online and offline recommendations from peers

How Do I Know This Practice Management Software Will Suit My Clinic Well?

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To understand whether a particular system is suitable for use in your clinic, it’s a good idea to see whether a given software developer offers advisory sessions with consultants. It’s even better if you are able to speak to consultants who have experience of both healthcare management and clinical practice so that the solution you choose is perfectly suited to your needs.

During your advisory session, make sure the chosen system:

  1. Tells you which data you need to prepare for migration and in which format

  2. Shows you the most sought-after features coming up this year and next

    Find Out More About the Top 10 Practice Management Software Features You Need to Be Looking for in 2024

What Mistakes Do Practice Managers Usually Make When Choosing Practice Management Software?

In our experience, even when practice managers and other decision-makers are acutely aware of the challenges they are facing in their work, it can often be difficult to understand what the exact solution to a given problem might be. This is true to such an extent that we see the same errors occurring time and time again. Make sure you don’t join the ranks of those who’ve chosen the wrong system for what they think are the right reasons.

Find Out How to Avoid the Top 5 Mistakes Practice Managers Make When Choosing a PMS

What You Should Definitely Pay Attention to When Choosing a Practice Management Software

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When selecting a PMS, there are several different aspects involved in the decision-making process. While it’s vital that you consider how your chosen system will help you to render services and provide top-class clinical care, there are other matters that you should also think about. In terms of fundamental business features, a practice management software should enable you to:

  1. Select and perfect your patient acquisition channels

  2. Make cost-effective marketing decisions

    • Learn when a channel is costing you more than it generates in revenue
    • Find out how different patient subgroups react to various marketing approaches

Medesk individually configured reports make it clear which advertising campaigns are most effective and which services should be offered.

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Read Case Study: How Practice Management Software Creates a Healthy, Transparent and Dynamic Culture in Our Clinic

  1. Provide an excellent patient experience

  2. Retain patients and grow your practice

    Read: How to Attract More Patients to Your Clinic

  3. Store your confidential data securely

Read: What Is Medical Practice Management Software (PMS)? [2024]

How to Get Your Practice Prepared to Use a Practice Management Software

Whether you are switching from another system or it’s your first time managing a clinic with the help of digital, how you approach this change is what makes all the difference. Ultimately, it’s all about involving your colleagues insofar as they are able to comment based on their specific role within the clinic. After all, a receptionist is typically going to be far more aware of what scheduling features would help them in their daily work whereas a clinician would be much more able to say what kind of automated note-taking features would be the best for their workflow.

Read: A Review of the Medesk Onboarding Process

Give yourself the best opportunity to adapt the practice management software to your needs by doing the following:

  1. Make a genuine attempt to understand your current workflow
  2. Involve your colleagues in the decision-making process
  3. Check you can generate documents specially for your clinic, e.g. custom prescriptions

Read: Even More Advantages of Digitising Your Clinic

How to Train Your Staff to Use a Practice Management Software

The tools we use are only ever as good as how we use them. This is true of digital tools like practice management systems too. To ensure that your practice gets the most out of a PMS, you’ll need to train your colleagues in how to adapt their workflow to the digital world. Fortunately, this is exceptionally easy when you take advantage of on-screen training options provided directly by the software developers.

Read: The Best Ways to Train Receptionists

What if I’m Going to Switch Over to a New Practice Management Software

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Transferring from one practice management system to another can be fraught with troubles if you don’t use the right methods. Different platforms offer varying features, some of which may not have an analogue in your newly chosen system. Follow a systematic approach to staff training and workflow adaptation so you won’t have to worry about your new platform putting a spanner in the works.

Ensure that your transition to a new practice management software goes ahead with a hitch by:

  1. Compare the features offered by your previous and current PMS
  2. Take the opportunity to examine your current workflow and improve it
  3. Seek as much support as you need from your new PMS account manager

How to Improve (and not ruin) Your Patient Relationships with Practice Management Software

Patients notice very quickly when your clinic has adopted a new PMS without taking the time to get to grips with it. Likewise, starting work with a new practice management software can open up a world of opportunities to improve and not ruin your patient relationships.

Take your chance to use a medical practice management software to improve your relationship with patients by:

  1. Allow transparent online booking options for use with services and practitioners
  2. Link chosen services with patient subgroups to learn what different patients expect
  3. Make note-taking quicker to facilitate better patient-doctor rapport

Read: Patients as Customers: A More Effective Approach to Medical Practice Management

What Should I Do If I Am a Solo Practitioner?

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Maintaining a private practice as a solo practitioner is full of challenges that can only be overcome with the proper tools at hand. For example, you might be working at varying locations on different days of the week and you certainly don’t want to book a patient in at the wrong location. You need a tool that can prevent this from happening.

Furthermore, you will be fulfilling multiple other roles while practising medicine. You will need access to a practice management system that helps you minimise distractions and provide a top patient experience right from appointment booking all the way through to service provision and the patient’s next visit.

Read: What is the purpose of practice management software?

Solo practitioners in particular will benefit from the following key PMS features:

  1. Transparent online booking linked to your schedule by service and location
  2. Marketing reports to make your self-promotion more cost-effective
  3. Automated document generation to reduce the need for support staff

Conclusion

Choosing a practice management system is a multi-stage process which can be made much simpler when you take the right approach. The articles linked on this page will give you everything you need to understand whether a given PMS is suitable for your practice.

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