Why Practice Management Software Is Essential in Difficult Times

‍During tough times you need to be across every client interaction, bill, and payment in your private practice. 

Last Sunday, it only took me 4 hours to update my client records, write my progress notes, create invoices, and process payments for the week. The crazy thing is this was a bit of a win for me. Sometimes I spend more than 5 hours a week doing this work.

The worst part of all is I couldn't stop wondering what I had missed?

1. Who had I forgotten to invoice?
2. Had I classified my progress notes correctly?
3. Did I miss something?
4. Would I get paid this week?
5. Did I save my reports in the correct client folder?

Now, I get it: Small private practice owners should closely manage their costs and subscriptions under challenging times. But during these times, you need the right software to help you manage your clinical workload while tracking every invoice and payment closely. Practice Management software is the most necessary subscription to keep.

Practice Software: An Essential, Particularly in Difficult Times

During tough times like these, you need to maximize your productivity to get the work done. Investing in the best software tools is the smart thing to do.

There are so many aspects to managing a healthcare practice: client management, clinical assessments, and even referrals from other healthcare providers.

Many Practitioners feel using word or excel can do the job of Practice management software, right? Well, as I have found, that's not exactly right.

Word And Excel Have A Big Downside

By only using Word and Excel for your private practice, you're not making your work any more straightforward.

You know what I am saying if you have ever found yourself in this situation:

1. Getting to the end of the week and struggling to remember which clients have paid and you need those you need to follow up.
2. Forgetting where you have saved a client's medical history or referral letter.
3. Sifting through loads of folders to find an old client's health record.
4. Scrambling to find all the information you need to complete an intake assessment or invoice your healthcare clients takes up loads of your time.

If you're using Word and Excel to track your clinical work, you may forget to charge for some of your work. Here are some reasons why investing in cloud practice management software saves you time and money.

4 Reasons to Invest In Your Practice Solution

1. YOU'LL HAVE MORE TIME TO DO BILLABLE WORK

Every hour you spend managing your business is one less you can pay with a client. Spending more time with clients helps to increase your billable hours for the week. Think about it for a second. If you can make this work, your practice will be more profitable, and you will help more clients!

The first thing you need to do is understand where you are spending your non-billable time. Keep a time tracker for a couple of weeks to objectively capture this information.

Most practitioners find they are spending more time than they realize on:

1. On the scheduling merry-go-round - Booking, rescheduling, canceling. You know the game.
2. Creating invoices for your services
3. Processing payments and send receipts
4. Write progress notes or reports.
   

Once you have this data, you can begin automating or optimizing your workflow.

Start with scheduling because this is easy to solve. Use our shared practice calendar with automated client reminders. This will help you schedule an appointment in 3 secs and send a notification to the client with all of the essential details. The client will receive an automated reminder 48 hours before their day and time.

Invoices are unnecessarily complex and time-consuming. You need to prioritize automating this task. Carepatron will automatically generate invoices for the client appointments you complete. It will help you to review these to ensure they are accurate quickly. It will also help you manage all of the invoices across your practice to follow up with overdue invoices with confidence.

Online payments are one of the best practice management hacks going around. It's a more enjoyable experience for your clients and a considerable time saving your team. When we enroll a client in your practice, we capture their preferred payment details. Then once you have completed your service, you process the payment with one click. It's done in the session, before or after. Remove those uncomfortable moments when you need to ask a client for their credit card at the end of a clinical session.

Capturing your clinical notes is essential but sometimes takes more energy than it should. By using a time-saving template or voice transcription, you can speed up this process. It also helps you to capture higher quality information more consistently through this standardization. Once clinical notes have been completed, they can be securely stored in an electronic patient records system.

Other time-saving features include:

1. Set up recurring appointments and invoices for those clients you see regularly. 
2. Invite clients into a shared workspace so you can collaborate and interact in real-time.
3. Organize and conduct telehealth sessions from within the single platform—no more extra costs or swapping tools.
   

These time-saving features create more time to focus on billable work, growing your referral network, hiring more staff, or just going home on time.

It's cruel that we train so many years to become healthcare professionals. We then spend so much of our time doing business stuff we are not interested in or trained in. Ironically, we often spend more time on this work because we hate it so much we don't invest time setting it upright. So, invest money in Practice Management right now, and you'll enjoy the benefits later.

2. YOU WON'T FORGET TO BILL FOR SERVICES 💰

As healthcare professionals, we sometimes get to the end of the week or month and have forgotten to record some of the billable work we have done. It's a real pain to find and bill for what you have missed, most of the time, we don't bother.

Not billing for your time makes it very difficult to grow a great business. It's also unfair; why do some clients pay and others get it for free (sometimes)?

This issue is entirely solvable. You need to manage your work, create invoices, and process payments in one single platform. This end-to-end medical billing software capability ensures you don't leave money on the table in your practice.

When you schedule a client appointment in Carepatron, you will capture the service and price. We then automatically generate an invoice for the session. When you are ready, you review the invoice, directly processing payment if the client's payment details are stored or send to the client for payment.

If you were to calculate how much money you haven't billed at the end of the tax year? I guess that it is probably a lot more than you can afford.

3. SIMPLE ONLINE PAYMENTS

Have you ever found yourself struggling to process a client's payment at the end of an appointment? I have experienced this, and it's a common problem for many small practice owners.

Invariably, you're left scrambling to reset the credit card terminal. It's awkward, feels unprofessional, and outdated. For the most lovable products we use, we pay online. Your clients are the same, and this is the seamless experience they expect.

Online payments don't just save you time. They save you money, which is essential right now! When you add up the cost of your credit card terminal, bank fees, card fee, processing fees, payments can be expensive.

Carepatron has a built-in payment processor powered by Stripe, the world's most secure payment provider. Our platform brings your payments online, creating a one-click payment journey.

Within the platform, you can create your custom services, with prices and taxes included. This helps streamline your practice management and create a simple, standardized price list for every service you provide.

For example, we have set up a simple list of services: Initial assessment, standard appointment, and final appointment. This helps to make sure we process the payment correctly each time.

Telehealth payments can be a real pain. We often had clients do bank transfers or pay later. This is hard to reconcile and keep track of overtime. Online telehealth payments give you a simple way to charge during the session and confirm payment.

Regardless of your healthcare professional, a practical solution will help. Our healthcare payment software enables you to track bills and payments in one app. Word and Excel cannot help you in this way.

• See where your payment progress
• See what invoices are outstanding
• Automatic payment reminders for late payers
• Clients can pay you online via credit card (yes, you get the money fast, no waiting for a check to be processed or handling cash)
  

4. FEEL PROUD THAT YOU'RE DOING IT RIGHT

Difficult times create unique opportunities for your business to adapt. Investing in software to help you automate aspects of your business is a winning strategy. If you build the foundation for this now, you can optimize further over time.

Cloud Practice Management software gives you the ability to work from anywhere, on any device. Money spent on cloud accounting ensures that you can do more of the work you love. Why? Because you have the best tools to grow your private practice without hacking together, a solution costs you time and money while also causing stress.

It's rewarding to know you haven't taken shortcuts to grow your practice. This work will have a compounding effect over time, helping to make any growth more manageable as Carepatron grows with you. 

And in the end, there's a lot to like a professional healthcare business owner. Because let's be honest, how can you expect clients to see you that way if you don't provide the right experience?

The Bottom Line

Practice management software is part and parcel of running a successful health practice. Don't make your life more difficult but using outdated solutions like word and excel. 

Instead, spend a small amount of money on cloud practice software that will:

1. Do more billable work
2. Automating your invoicing
3. Make online payments
4. Get your job done, and go home on time!
   

Carepatron makes running your small business easy by ensuring you spend less time managing your practice. More time doing the work you love. Sign up for free today.