It’s not easy to become a dentist. It takes years of school and training, and dentists don’t begin their careers in earnest until long after many of their peers have been in the working world. And the training isn’t even over – dentists, oral surgeons, and other dental professionals have to keep up with the latest and greatest developments in their fields, so that they can always provide the very best in care.
So it’s probably no wonder that dental professionals – like their similarly educated peers in the law and medical fields – feel a little worn out by the time they get around to dealing with technology. After keeping up with dental technology, it’s hard to find the energy to deal with the transition to digital records and other new concepts.
The bad news is that technology is changing the way dental offices are being run, whether you like it or not. The good news is that technology will make your job easier, not harder.
Technology and patient choice
Dental offices need to attract patients, just as any business needs to attract customers. And in the modern world, that takes a bit more than just referrals and a sign shaped like a tooth out front. Most dentists aren’t the only ones in their profession working in some small town – instead, they make offices in cities and suburbs, competing with other professionals the next town over or one exit down the highway. When customers search for a dentist on Google or consult a list on their insurance website, they’re not always going to recognize the name of the dentist their family has used for generations. They’re going to use other methods to decide.
That’s why modern dental professionals need a digital footprint. web design, a social media presence, and good search engine optimization (“SEO” – the art of making your web presence easier to find on Google) are must-haves for modern businesses.
Technology and the patient experience
Then there are all the old administrative tasks associated with a dental office: making appointments, sending reminders, billing customers, and so on. These are all done with technology now, of course, but there’s good news: technology makes these processes less labor-intensive and more foolproof, saving your staff effort while ensuring a more reliably pleasant patient experience.
That’s why it’s important to invest in a software solution like SolutionReach’s dental management product. Managing a dental office shouldn’t be a herculean task, and a good software system will make it a whole lot easier to handle a modern office. High patient volumes, new patients from out of town, and reminders for busy patients who might miss appointments are all things that the small-town dental offices of centuries gone by didn’t have to deal with. But you have to deal with them now, and technology can make them easier. So invest in technology, because it’s a part of the modern dental business, and that’s not changing anytime soon!