With full adoption of paperless processes, Practice-Web dentists save around 700 trees each year—that’s no small feat! One major component of this is paperless patient forms.
We often think of them in terms of new patient packets—the full health history, practice policies, insurance billing agreements, financial policies, and so forth. But, you probably use even more forms when you consider things like health history updates, treatment consent, and payment arrangements.
That’s a whole lot of paper, which is why making the switch to paperless patient forms can make a huge difference for your practice’s efficiency and profit. Let’s take a look at some of the key benefits.
1. They’re FREE
While there are paid third-party services that can provide your practice with paperless patient forms, Practice-Web’s forms are totally free for offices with paid Support. There’s no cost to use them and you can customize them to suit your practice.
2. You Eliminate Manual Entry
With Practice-Web’s paperless forms, you can easily import a patient’s form in just a few clicks and eliminate manual entry. Again, this isn’t necessarily true with all third-party tools, but it’s a huge help when you have an integrated tool.
3. You Reduce Liability
Where there’s manual entry, there will be errors. Nearly 90 percent of spreadsheets have “significant” errors per Forbes research. And while the outlet uses extreme examples where companies have lost millions of dollars due to errors as a cautionary tale, errors made by dental teams can be every bit as harrowing. The dentist is liable for mistakes that cause a patient harm, so if things like medical conditions, weight, and medications don’t make it into the chart correctly, the practice could face serious consequences. With paperless forms that are automatically imported, the patient is responsible for accuracy.
4. Intake and Check-Ins Are Streamlined
Let’s say you run a smaller practice that sees two new patients and eight hygiene patients per day. Being conservative, it takes the front office five minutes to enter new patient data and two to enter the updates. That’s 26 minutes of data entry in a single day.
When a patient completes their forms at home or wherever it’s most convenient for them, and you can import the data directly into your software, that’s all time your practice gets back. In the above example, it’s more than 110 hours per year. Chances are your practice will save considerably more time.
That also means patients reach the back office much sooner, so your day doesn’t get derailed by paperwork or patients digging for insurance cards.
5. Your Practice Saves Money
Dental assistants earn $19.80 per hour according to BLS data and administrative assistants are about the same, which means your practice is literally paying a minimum of $2,230.80 each year just to enter patient form data into the computer. That’s eliminated with the form import feature. You’ll also save money when it comes to office expenses like paper and toner.
6. Patient Satisfaction Gets a Boost
Being able to complete paperwork at home and on mobile devices makes the process easier and more convenient for patients and, when there’s less waiting in the office, they’re much happier too. There’s also a global trend toward sustainability. Not only do consumers feel better about working with companies that have sustainable practices, but they’re often willing to pay more for their products and services too. This is seen across the board but is even more noticeable in younger demographics.
Make the Transition to Paperless Patient Forms with Practice-Web
Using paperless patient forms doesn’t have to be a complicated or expensive process. Practice-Web includes a variety of ready-made forms that you can customize to suit your needs.
- Don’t have Practice-Web? Start with a complimentary demo and we’ll show you around.
- Don’t have Support? Click here to renew Support and unlock paperless forms free.
- Have Support but need help with your forms? Click here to connect with our Support team.