When Sonai Roy started as a patient coordinator at John Powers, DMD, in 2017, she quickly recognized the untapped potential of the practice’s patient engagement software. The dental practice had implemented RevenueWell but wasn’t in a rush to use all of its digital and touch-free features.
Many of the practice’s patients – with an average age of 65 – weren’t hungry for portals, texts or emails. And the small, privately owned practice stayed true to its focus on close-knit patient relationships and the connection between oral health and overall well-being.
“Our patients love us,” Roy says. “Everybody’s really friendly and genuinely cares about what’s going on in patients’ lives because what’s happening in their outside life can affect their health and oral health.”
COVID-19 as a catalyst
It wasn’t until COVID-19 hit that the need to more fully apply RevenueWell’s features came into sharp focus.
“Once it became very clear that we wanted to do as much touchless communication as possible, it went from being something ‘We would like to do,’ to ‘This needs to happen,’” Roy says.
Because she previously worked with similar software, Roy was ready to dive in. The practice went from using the solution for just appointments and confirmations to employing it for more communications, online forms, marketing campaigns, patient appointment requests and an e-newsletter to announce reopening after the shutdown.
“It’s been a life saver. I can imagine trying to communicate with patients without RevenueWell during COVID, and it’s scary,” Roy says humorously. “RevenueWell is just so much more efficient and professional.”
A measurable difference in a short time
Roy spends a lot of time engaging with patients, conducting work ranging from scheduling appointments to helping with insurance to offering emotional support. “I do everything that doesn’t require me to put my hands in someone’s mouth,” she says, laughing.
She estimates that RevenueWell saves her two to two-and-a-half hours of work a day. With the ability to schedule out emails and use online questionnaires, she spends a lot less time making calls and playing phone tag.
“I help maintain a full schedule with appointment-request features, two-way texting and the ability to track ‘sooner-if-possible’ patients efficiently.”
Sonai Roy
Two-way texting and email campaigns are also big timesavers that allow Roy to multitask, she says. “I can shoot out a couple of texts and campaigns, and go back to doing the other aspects of my job while I’m waiting on those responses.”
Roy says, “I also help maintain a full schedule with appointment-request features, two-way texting and the ability to track ‘sooner-if-possible’ patients efficiently. I know more quickly when people have to cancel, so I can move things around and fill holes in the schedule.”
Perks for patients and the clinical team
It didn’t take long for patients and the clinical team to see RevenueWell’s benefits.
A favorite feature for patients is online payments, allowing them to pay bills after hours and at their convenience, Roy says. “Even the people that were so resistant to RevenueWell a year ago love the forms. Before, we’d send an email with links to images that they had to print. Then they had to scan them and send them back. Most people don’t have that capability at home.”
The clinical team also loves the forms because everything is automatically put into a chart, they don’t have to decipher handwriting, and questionnaires can be updated easily. “The practice has updated its COVID forms three times with new questions. I can change it and everyone coming in after that has the updated form. It’s very efficient,” she says.
Enhanced engagement
Roy reports that now at least 70 percent of the practice’s patients use RevenueWell in some fashion. That’s up from 10 to 15 percent when she started just a few years ago. She has taken time to educate patients who prefer phone calls and reminder cards about how RevenueWell can make their lives easier.
Still, the practice retains its high-touch feel even as more communications happen electronically. “Part of the reason patients love us is because they don’t feel like a number, they feel like family,” she says. “Because there are so many ways to engage with them, that hasn’t been a problem at all.”
Curious to see how RevenueWell can help your practice? Visit pattersondental.com to learn more about RevenueWell or call 800.294.8504 to talk with an eServices sales specialist.
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