Teledentistry has seen a steady rise in demand in the face of the pandemic. As people couldn’t step out of their homes, they relied on virtual appointments with their dentists to ensure better oral health and hygiene. And given the convenience that the patients received due to this factor, it’s certain that they are going to rely on teledentistry more often now.
In such a scenario, the responsibility lies on your practice to ensure that the patient experience is not affected due to a virtual set-up. If at all, they should get the same seamless, high-quality care that is expected at a clinic. With that being said, here’s how you can use teledentistry to ensure an improved patient experience.
Table of Contents
How Does Teledentistry Benefit the Patients?
If leveraged the right way, teledentistry has all the elements necessary to enhance patient experience. For instance, when met with an emergency, patients can immediately contact a dentist from their location. The ability to connect swiftly ensures a more accurate assessment of the problem by the dentist. You can suggest medication, save the patient’s time, and save them from waiting to make a trip to your clinic. Eliminating the need to travel and reducing the waiting time are both crucial aspects in enhancing patient experience.
Moreover, teledentistry comes with a lower cost, while the quality of care remains unaffected. Also, patients do not have to limit their choice of dentist based on the distance of their home from the clinic. Thus, they can easily get a second opinion from an expert who might be staying farther away from them geographically. There is also no denying the fact that it helps dental practices to expand their patient base.
How To Offer Better Patient Experience Through Teledentistry
One of the benefits of teledentistry is that you can use it in more ways than one to enhance patient experience and increase patient inflow. Here’s suggesting a couple of ways:
Connecting to Different Communities
A practice that does not shy away from its social responsibilities receives more appreciation from the patients. Through teledentistry, connecting to different schools, clinics, and communities for mobile programs becomes easier. You can take a look at the snapshots and x-rays sent by nurses to point out the problems more efficiently.
Better Integration Between Departments
At times, better patient experience also requires effective communication between dental and medical departments. As you embrace teledentistry, you are in a position to offer patients well-rounded care that can also involve other healthcare experts, as required.
Also, you will not have to redirect a client to another specialist and wait for their diagnosis before you give your suggestions. Improved dental-medical integration eliminates the necessity of guesswork because you can quickly consult another medical expert on a patient’s case.
The Use of an Effective Dental Software
When you want to manage both teledentistry and in-office visits efficiently, you need practice management software. After all, the patient experience is just as important for your office as it is for your virtual sessions.
If your teledentistry patients have to wait to long just to schedule their appointments, their experience suffers. At the same time, they would look for other teledentists if your waiting time is too long. After all, convenience is one of the reasons why they started looking for a specialist online in the first place.
The Endnote
Once you get finer nuances of teledentistry right, you are going to deliver an enhanced patient experience. With sustained efforts in this direction, your patient inflow will increase even for your virtual clinic. So, the question is: are you ready to make the necessary changes?