How to Select a CRM for Your Healthcare Practice

Creating Better Patient Relationships with Digital Tools

No matter which industry your business serves, your customers and the staff you hire are the keys to your success. The healthcare industry is no exception to this standard, regardless of the size of the practice. Nowadays, patients can research providers beforehand and can be more choosy in their selection of dentists, optometrists, physicians, and veterinarians. For this reason, healthcare providers should view their patients as customers to successfully grow their business.

Relationships between patients and their healthcare providers are some of the most delicate and critical to maintaining. This is because patients are looking for solutions to medical issues which may be private and sensitive. Integrating your practice with the right software is an essential way to maintain these relationships and improve customer satisfaction.

What is a CRM?

You might have heard the term “CRM” before, but wonder what it can provide and if it can benefit your healthcare practice. CRM is often used as an all-encompassing term that typically includes benefits like customer profiles, marketing content, pipeline management, sales automation, and reporting/analytics.

CRM stands for “customer relationship management” and is used as a tool to host all interactions between a business and its customers. This essential tool is used as an organized approach to develop, manage and maintain a profitable relationship with customers.

The issue with many CRMs is they can be inflexible and a one-size-fits-all solution, even though no two businesses are alike. When large CRM systems try and understand the specific needs of a small office, they fall short. One of the main issues for small practices is the expensive upfront cost and annual billing contract. Small practices need a monthly plan where they can evaluate the ROI per month and decide if they want to continue using it.

For example, the specific needs of a small optometry practice are much different than a large eyeglass company with hundreds of offices. That’s why it’s great to utilize a crm system that offers different templates for all the use cases you can think of. Features like eyewear reminders, birthday messages, or patient recall provide warm, personal touches for your patients and will help your practice with repeat business. These are just a few of the personalized tools a CRM designed for small healthcare practices can offer. 

Is Your Practice Management System a CRM?

A PMS, or practice management system, is synonymous with multiple efficient automated systems that organize and track patient information, diagnoses, prescriptions, and interactions with healthcare organizations like hospitals or medical practices.

To grow your healthcare practice, find new business, and enhance patient engagement you need a wide variety of tools, and a practice management system or election health record (EHR) is certainly one of them.

A PMS is limited by how it manages patient communication and engagement. While it can help with scheduling and managing HIPAA-protected data, most offices look to a patient engagement tool or CRM software for the task automation and communication functionality they need.

Choose a CRM system that can integrate with your current software to leverage patient data and communication. This way, preexisting patient information won’t get lost and the two systems can communicate with one another.

Automate Processes Faster with Patient Engagement Software

If your healthcare practice already has a PMS, you might wonder if you need a healthcare CRM. As mentioned earlier, all businesses, regardless of industry need CRM software that can help automate processes and manage every phase of the patient lifecycle. The trick to this is finding software that can not only integrate with your existing PMS but have the industry-specific tools you need from CRM software.

Although Weave has many components of a traditional CRM software system, it is not a CRM. Weave’s unique product offering is what is called a PES or patient engagement system. Weave’s communication and engagement platform is uniquely positioned to piece together the core tools and components of a healthcare CRM software that are most beneficial and integrate them with your existing PMS.

Because Weave was designed for the dental, optometric, veterinary, and medical industries specifically, it can integrate with most PMS systems. To dissect this even further; your PMS will still manage all of your patient information. Weave will pull that information into the application so it can successfully communicate with your patients. This relationship between your PMS and Weave gives you a comprehensive, 360-degree view of your patients on a single, unified platform.

Weave’s All-in-One Communication & Engagement Platform

Some of the best features of Weave for healthcare practices include:

Simplifies navigation

Weave phones are designed to help you know more when your patients call. Whether it’s a new or current patient, Weave Phones will display their information so your team can be prepared. Weave Phones also provide essential analytics so your practice can keep track of heavy call times, missed calls, and voicemails. Your staff and patients will also enjoy the ease of use with Weave and how simple it is to navigate.

Creates personalized interactions

Delight your patients with call pop-up profiles and vital information at your fingertips. Before a patient begins speaking, front office staff have access to essential information like a patient’s name, insurance, address, phone number, visit history, and emergency contact information. This accessibility creates a personalized interaction and relationship between staff and patients that are indispensable.

Automates repetitive, administrative tasks

With automated, repetitive tasks being taken care of like scheduling and appointment reminders, your team has more time to focus on other daily operations. Whether you’re in the office or on vacation, you can have peace of mind knowing your business is growing and processes are automated.

Retains patients with an engagement strategy

With an engagement strategy, your patients are looked at as more than just a number. Weave creates engaging relationships with patients through a variety of tools. Not only do you have patient data and metrics at your fingertips but you have automated tasks that make patient interactions feel more personal.

Part of a powerful engagement strategy includes how your patients are taken care of when they make an appointment. With Digital Forms, patients can fill out the required information before they even step foot in your practice. Weave makes it easy to access pre-existing digital forms or create your own to give your patients the best experience possible.

Offers a convenient, cloud-based system

Weave’s cloud-based software is designed to increase accessibility and give your team access while they’re on the go. You can view schedules and manage day-to-day operations from multiple devices whether in the office or not.

Utilizes multi-channel marketing

We know you didn’t go to medical school to learn about marketing, so Weave does it for you! Weave includes multi-channel marketing like email, SMS, and social that are essential to growing your practice. Not sure where to start? Weave takes the headache out of creating a marketing strategy and will automate these processes to make marketing to your patients simple.

Improves new patient acquisition rate

Patient acquisition refers to a business’s strategies and tactics to obtain new patients. Weave is a patient engagement system which means it is designed to attract, engage and retain your patients. Weave’s software will not only attract new patients to your practice but it will create a better overall experience that is personalized and efficient.

Gets your practice paid faster

Gone are the days of waiting for a statement in the mail or wondering how much your medical bill is. Weave creates cost transparency for your practice and offers a variety of convenient payment methods including Apple Pay, Google Pay, Text-to-Pay, and more. With contactless payments, your practice can get paid faster and patients can manage their bills more conveniently.

Offers no long-term contracts

Many CRMs will bill annually and the upfront cost can be pricey. The best option for small healthcare practices is a month-to-month contract. The benefit of this is you can cancel any time, hassle-free if you don’t like the product. Software platforms that offer monthly billing cycles, like Weave, are a great solution for small businesses that want to test out the product but can’t invest a large amount at the start.

Common FAQ’s

Is an ERM a CRM?

An ERM or electronic record management system is a type of system of records (SOR) tool. This tool allows you to store patient information and electronic documents in one central space so they can be organized and housed together.

Instead of simply storing information, healthcare CRM software allows you to take action and use it as a tool to engage your patients and attract new ones.

What is the best CRM for the healthcare industry?

Although there are many options, the best CRM for the healthcare industry will be able to automate daily processes and create a better patient experience.

What is the best HIPAA CRM for Compliance?

Staying HIPAA compliant is key for every business within the medical industry that deals with sensitive, patient information. Some CRM software systems are designed to be used in multiple industries and HIPAA compliance isn’t included in the normal product offering.

The best HIPAA CRM for compliance will be specifically designed for the medical industry, like Weave. Weave offers team chat for collaboration and communication that supports HIPAA compliant communications and protects private, patient information.

Transform Patient Engagement on One Platform

Although Weave has many of the same tools and functionality as a CRM, it is not a CRM. Weave is better described as a patient engagement system or PES. With tools like digital forms, appointment reminders, convenient payments, and more, your business can deliver a more impressive patient experience and is set up for success.

Within the healthcare industry, it can be easy to overlook the fact that your practice is a business because there is less emphasis on sales. Like any business, you need the right tools to attract, engage and retain customers and increase profitability. Weave gives you all of the tools of a CRM that are most beneficial for a small healthcare practice without the long-term commitment or one-size-fits-all CRM approach.

Weave gives you everything you need in a single, unified platform to empower healthcare practices to flourish and improve patient satisfaction. To see Weave in action or for a demo, click here. Contact us today to see how Weave can enhance patient engagement and office communications for your healthcare practice.