There are more communication tools available for the Dental Industry than ever before. Besides the telephone there are now email applications, text message services, and others.

All of these tools are very helpful but can sometimes be hard to manage because there are just so many of them. It can be very difficult to stay on top of all the communications tools when they are all separate applications.

Here is a quick example of how a typical dental office works and some of the problems they often run into. Although not all offices are the same, I’m guessing that this situation I’m about to give holds true for most offices.

Julie makes a phone call to an overdue patient who has an appointment for the following week. The patient has just switched their insurance provider and Julie wants to remind them to bring their new insurance card when they come in for their visit.

Unfortunately the patient doesn’t answer the call so Julie leaves a message to call her back at their earliest convenience. Julie continues with her tasks for the day and leaves for a few minutes to pick her kids up from school.

While Julie is out of the office the patient she had tried to call earlier gets her message and calls into the office to return her phone call. The office assistant, Sallie, answers the patient’s phone call.

The patient tells Sallie that she received a phone call from the office earlier that day and was just calling them back. Sallie isn’t aware that Julie needs the patient to bring in their insurance card so Sallie simply reminds the patient of their upcoming appointment and thanks them for being such a great patient.

The next week, when the patient comes in for their appointment, they don’t bring their insurance card because they didn’t know the office needed it. Without the insurance card the office staff has some trouble with checking the patient in and it takes an extra 20 minutes with the patient before their treatment starts.