Healthcare providers across all fields believe that no matter how knowledgeable or skillful the doctors might be if their communication with patients is not active, they are of no help. Studies indicate that strong interaction between the patients and clinicians results in improved patients following medical recommendations, self-management, and preventive behaviors. Let’s dig into the importance of communication in healthcare and how you can do the same dental Patient communication.

Benefits of Periodic Healthcare Communication

Medical professionals, in general, interview more than 1,50,000 patients throughout their careers, which in itself is a foremost essential to establish effective patient communication in dental practice. Other benefits include,

Easy to Implement Changes

MNCs like IBM utilize regular communication to implement changes, which some companies can struggle to adapt. Talking about healthcare, you might undergo some changes in the future, like shifting your clinic to another location, increasing your rates, or changing patient policies. Having effective periodic dental patient communication helps you facilitate these changes smoothly by making them appear less dramatic.

Easy to get Feedbacks

Consumer feedback is essential for your clinic as it enables your patients to express their views, which can provide some valuable insights into what improvements you can make. Your patients might share a common problem which you are unaware of; feedback can reveal such common feelings, which can lead to some essential modifications. Periodic communication makes your patients feel valued and will not hesitate to leave reviews and share comments.

Improvements in Services

As discussed earlier, effective patient communication in dental practice allows you to identify their problems and tailor your services according to their needs. For example, if your appointment procedure is too lengthy or clunky, your patients will inform you if you maintain a proper communication frequency. This methodology is adopted and widely utilized by leading companies across the globe, and it can be of significance to clinics as well.

Creates a Good Reputation

If you contact your consumers regularly, they will feel valued and will refer your services to their friends and family. With more than 90 percent of people trusting the word of mouth marketing, your clinic can benefit from it as much as from brochures or banner ads.

How Can You Use Text Messaging to Engage Patients

For ages, you have been using phones to communicate with your patients. But times are changing, and patients prefer dentists reaching out to them in an easy way. That’s where texting comes into the picture — the most popular and effective way to reach patients.

You may ask why?

Well, according to a survey, 95% of people find phone calls to be disruptive. At the same time, 96% of messages are read within 3 minutes and 90% within 3 seconds. So, you see, communicating with your patients through text messages is the way forward.

Now, the question is how to communicate with your patient regularly?

1.Send periodic appointment reminders

An easy way to engage with your patients is to send them text messages reminding them about their upcoming appointment. An appointment reminder text will work in favor of your practice.

How?

When your patients receive these texts, they will think that your practice is more modern. It will also help them remember their appointments and will reduce the chances of no-shows.

2. Reschedule appointments

There might come a time when the patient might not be able to make it for the appointment. So does that mean his appointment stands to cancel?

No, not at all.

You can text the patient right away to reschedule his/her appointment at any later date. In this way, you can get your patients back on to your schedule.

Similarly, there might come a time when you also have an unavoidable emergency for which you won’t be able to attend your patients. Now, what you can do is you can text your patient to reach half an hour later for their appointment. This will help you solve a scheduling problem.

3. Post appointment care text

If you ask your patients after their appointments about how they feel, don’t you think they will become more loyal towards your practice?

They will, right?

Because it will show them that you care.

Now, do you think calling them or emailing them will work in this situation?

No, it won’t.

Simply sending them a text message will be more effective. Similarly, if your patients have any doubts after their treatment, they can text you and ask you to provide them with a solution immediately.

4. Ask for feedback and reviews

You know texting is very personal. If your patients see that you are readily available for them via text, it establishes a relationship between you two and, they feel more compassionate towards your practice.

You can text them and ask them to write reviews for your practice on platforms like Google, Facebook, and Yelp. And you know what? They will happily do so.

Now, the question is whether to adopt the One-Way Texting method or the Two-Way Texting method.

But wait, what do they mean?

One-way texting allows you to send texts to patients and receive just confirmation messages. On the other hand, Two-way texting is more robust and allows your practice to have conversations with your patients.

So I think you know what’s better for your practice in the long-term.

Conclusion

It’s always important to focus on retaining existing patients rather than focusing on getting new ones. That’s why communication is the key when it comes to establishing a relationship with your patients. And as mentioned earlier, text messaging is the most effective way to communicate with your patients.

Not only does this reduces the chances of no-shows, but it also keeps down the chances of losing out on your patients. All of these benefits lead to an increase in profit and maximize the work daily. But the biggest compliment of all is that your patients get a 5-star experience from you, which helps your practice grow sustainably.

And if you think this article was of help to you, you can check out our website, as well because our all in one patient engagement platform has a feature that will help you effectively communicate with your patients.

# Patient Communication
# Dental Marketing
# Text Messaging
# PracticeDilly