The pandemic may be over, but its impact will last for years to come. It has revolutionized the way we work, the way we celebrate, the way we socialize, and the way we complete our day-to-day tasks. From the worldwide adoption of remote work to the boost in e-commerce; the world now believes in digital supremacy.

The industry that has been the most affected is the healthcare industry. From mRNA vaccines to testing kits, the healthcare industry has seen uncountable new trends that set the path for the future. Every day, we see a new healthcare mobile app or startup popping up in the market.

While all the industries are shifting online due to the social distancing measures, the healthcare industry still follows manual procedures for tasks that should have been automated way earlier. One such procedure is patient appointments. Due to patient privacy and HIPAA regulations, the healthcare industry has not been significantly successful in automating these tasks. There are some software companies and apps that offer patient appointment scheduling services/solutions, but still, the industry has not matured yet.

There are numerous advantages to the adoption of patient appointment scheduling software. Hospitals and healthcare professionals can ramp up their productivity and efficiency, along with saving their costs. Patients and clients also get the benefit of ease of appointment scheduling, which otherwise proves to be a big headache.

In this guide, we will educate you about the benefits and potential flaws of patient appointment scheduling software.

What is patient scheduling software?

Patient scheduling software, or more commonly known as patient ‘appointment’ scheduling software are tools that aid healthcare professionals and their clients to schedule appointments online. Instead of physically visiting the clinic, you just open up an app and book an appointment just like an Uber.

But, this is not as simple as booking an Uber. There are regulations involved. There are certain regulatory bodies that you need to get approval from in order to launch a business like this one. That is the reason why we do not see such apps.

Nevertheless, there are still some apps out there in the market that provide appointment scheduling services, both to doctors and patients. Examples include 10to8, Picktime, Sagenda, and Setmore.

These companies provide services like appointment scheduling to patients that helps them book appointment with their doctors without physically visiting the clinic. They also provide services to doctors as well, giving them the liberty to deal with the patients directly. In short, they provide a platform for Doctors and Patients to interact and book appointments seamlessly.

6 Benefits of Appointment Scheduling Software

Here are the top 6 benefits of using appointment scheduling software:

1. Time-Saving

The biggest benefit that you receive after the use of appointment scheduling software is that you save time. Instead of visiting a clinic, or having to call people to schedule appointments, you just log on to an app and pick from a list of available schedules.

Ideally, that app will be having a list of available time slots for each one of the doctors. You can choose the time slot that best suits your needs, and just visit the doctor directly after that. As a doctor, you don’t need to hire a customer support employee or communicate your availability repetitively. The app will do that for you. It will save a ton of your time, and also prevent overbooking or cross-booking.

2. Increase In New Patients

In a normal setting, the patient needs to make a phone call to the doctor to fix an appointment. There are some people who are introverts and avoid making phone calls. It becomes difficult for them to communicate, especially when the issue they are facing is psychiatric/psychological. But, if you introduce an app, there will be a greater chance of such people fixing the appointment because of the ease the app will provide. This way, doctors will get to treat and help more customers that were not making the phone call because of hesitation or whatsoever.

In addition, there are some people who face issues such as depression or social anxiety. The last thing these patients would do is to make a phone call to talk to a customer service representative. Having an app that helps them schedule an appointment seamlessly, without having to talk to anyone would make a great deal for them. Also, online scheduling helps people to reach out quickly to healthcare providers.

Healthcare providers can help a lot more people if they introduce such appointment scheduling software.

3. 24-Hour Availability

What if there’s a sense of emergency to schedule a therapy session? What if a person realizes that they need psychiatric help only during a certain time and can’t find any hospital’s number open?

Appointment scheduling software erases all such hurdles. The software will be available and will accept new appointments 24×7. This way, patients can schedule their appointments anytime they want.

4. More Effective Information Management

Managing the information of patients is the most difficult task of a doctor’s job. The history and profile of every patient are different, there are privacy laws, there are regulatory bodies, and there are other issues. Handling all of this information manually by maintaining a paper file will definitely not be enough.

Recording, presenting, analyzing, and monitoring the patient data needs a lot of hard work. You need to take care of the patient’s previous history and check-ups. You also need to assess the medical tests and reports data.

All of this can be automated. The process will become seamless with no or very few complications. The appointment scheduling software companies can also help other doctors. For example, if the data of a customer is stored on a dentist’s database, and the patient wants to see a dermatologist; both the doctors can share the information with each other (after the consent of the patient), and the treatment can become more precise. Since the doctor knows about the patients’ previous history, they will treat the customer more precisely.

5. Increased Opportunities for E-marketing

There are certain campaigns that require data. Hospitals and healthcare providers launch campaigns such as blood test packages, free check-ups, or other healthcare packages. If you collect the contact information of your customers and ask them permission to contact them later for future announcements, you can decrease a lot of expenditure on your e-marketing efforts and make these campaigns more efficient. Using this appointment scheduling software will help you increase e-marketing opportunities to a greater extent.

6. Online Payment

Another benefit of using the appointment scheduling software for healthcare providers is that they can easily receive payments from their clients. They normally hire a whole finance department in hospitals to maintain the financial record and transactions. But, using software for this purpose will help them automate the whole department. Even though they will need one or two finance experts to analyze their financial position and performance, the healthcare providers will definitely not have to hire a full-fledged finance team just to maintain and handle the financial transactions.

For patients, this means eases of payment. You don’t need to carry cash or worry about other banking problems. If payment services like PayPal/Stripe are integrated into the software, just log in and pay online, as simple as that! Various software companies and apps offer patient appointment scheduling services, but the industry hasn’t fully matured. Integrating Hospital Management Software could enhance healthcare operations and contribute to its evolution

Weaknesses of Appointment Scheduling Software

Enough of the advantages, let’s talk about some of the weaknesses of the appointment scheduling software. Here’s the list of the top 3 weaknesses of appointment scheduling software:

1. Internet Connection

The first weakness is, that in developing countries like India, Bangladesh, and other African countries, a lot of people do not have access to internet connectivity. It leads to a massive chunk of customers not being able to take any advantage of the service/technology.

So, if you want to launch a business that revolves around appointment scheduling software, conduct your research on the availability of internet connectivity in your region. It will play a huge role in the success of your appointment scheduling software business.

2. High Demand

Another weakness of such a system is that the high demand. Healthcare service providers will have to face a huge demand for such services, and this high demand will bring more challenges. The scalability and sustainability of the technology will be a big question mark. As there are data and privacy laws, it will become difficult to maintain the increasing amount of customers’ data with each passing day.

Not only this, there will be much more issues with the security of the software. And, as there are very few alternatives or industry use-cases available, solving these issues will be much harder for the technical staff.

3. Uncertainty

Another drawback of using such technology for appointment scheduling is that it may create uncertainty for both the patients and healthcare service providers.

If the expectations of any side don’t fulfill after the session/check-up, the blame will be on the software. The customer experience will be worse, ultimately creating uncertainty among the patients for the software.

Outro

Using appointment scheduling software can revolutionize the whole healthcare industry. But, we need to take care of the regulatory requirements and provide services that do not harm the privacy or security of the customers. Since this industry is a highly sensitive one, we need to take care of patients’ data and all the concerns. Operating in this industry is rewarding as well as difficult at the same time.