PRACTICE MANAGEMENT CARDIOLOGY
Your Practice
Needs a Client Communication Co-ordinator
By Kyle Palmer , CVT
Who has time to send smartphone texts , send and receive medical records , manage online appointments and send patient updates and cute pics to information-hungry pet owners ? Here ' s why I think everyone needs this new client-facing team member in their veterinary practice .
One new change at our practice that is 100 percent client-centric is the addition of a Client Communication Coordinator . If you ' re like us , you ' ve noticed an explosion of requests for electronic communication , especially for medical record records from clients , referral practices , veterinarians who share a " mutual client " and , of course , taking in all of those records coming back into your practice from those other locations . But before we officially set up this new position , we talked through about some steps that needed to happen first :
You need to get rid of all those paper records and do it now . On top of all of the other reasons electronic records are superior ( storage , access , security , long-term protection ), they are also a lot easier to send and receive .
You need a consistent email address or several . And , remember , while it ' s nice to have email addresses associated with your website address : office @ progressiveanimalclinic . com it works just as well to get a simple Gmail account . It takes about 45 seconds and it ' s free . I cringe whenever I ask for a clinic ' s email address only to hear they don ' t have one . Really ? Give your doctors their own emails so they can communicate with clients that is , If you want to employ doctors under the age of 40 .
Get rid of your fax machine . Replace it with an eFax account and encourage anyone who wants to fax you something to send it by email instead . When someone sends a fax to your eFax account , they don ' t need to know you don ' t have a real fax machine . What they send is converted into an email for you . You ' ll take back counter space from your old machine , stop spending money on print cartridges , eliminate the need for a dedicated phone line , and , best of all , if you ' re keeping electronic records , the faxed messages are already electronic .
The Patient Revolution gives way to the Client Revolution The past five to 10 years of veterinary medicine could easily be called the Patient Revolution , with an era of sweeping improvements in the tools available to us as we make daily decisions for our patients . Think of it all : better anesthetics .. widespread adoption of digital radiographs and dental radiography ... better pain medications for dogs ( and the existence of pain medications for cats )... next-generation flea and tick products ... amazing pharmaceutical advances ... and the list goes on .
While those advances will no doubt continue , we are now entering a period that will be known as the Client Revolution , a time when successful practices explore ways to be more client-driven while holding onto those advances we ' ve made in patient care . It may be the natural evolution of competitive business or it may be the result of a " not that long ago " economic downturn that put consumers in the driver ' s seat , choosing to do business with whichever practices responded best to their needs .
A common thread among many of these Client Revolution opportunities I ' ve written about at-home euthanasias , comfort rooms for quiet procedures and outdoor exam spaces is that , on the surface , they ' re all about the patient . There ' s no arguing that providing a vet360
Issue 06 | FEBRUARY 2017 | 4