Better Patient Flow: The Power of the Digital Front Desk

It’s beneficial for chiropractors to learn how their practice can run when they take control of their patient flow. This guide explains what that means and how running chiropractic practices can change with a digital front desk system.

With over 70,000 chiropractors working in the United States treating over 35 million Americans annually, it’s no wonder taking control of patient flow is a priority when running practices. Patients visit chiropractors for low back pain, neck pain, headaches, whiplash, sacroiliac pain, shoulder pain, and knee pain, among other reasons. The last thing that they want to do is spend time checking in and waiting for treatment.

Take Control of Your Patient Flow

A chiropractic practice’s patient flow refers to the movement, or “flow,” of patients in and out of the office. Patient flows include scheduling appointments and organizing them so every patient has efficient access to the treatments that they need. Chiropractors benefit from taking control of their patient flow. Let’s look at how to accomplish this and what it means.

How Chiropractors Can Do This

Eliminate the manual check-in process

Eliminating manual check-ins means that patients can enter their information into software explicitly designed for chiropractic offices for current and future visits, including:

• Acknowledgments
• Additional Intake
• Allergies
• Complaints
• Demographics
• Emergency Contact
• Employment Info
• Family History
• Medications
• Outcome Assessments
• Personal Info
• Problems
• Review of Systems
• Smoking Status

Improve patient relations by reducing how much staff members must juggle phone calls, records, and other tasks

Staff morale and patient satisfaction drop when there’s too much to manage at the front desk. For example, you might notice a drop in productivity when staff must juggle phone calls, records, and other tasks. The solution? ChiroSpring’s front desk.

Suppose that one of your staff members is in the middle of scheduling a patient, and the phone rings. The front desk feature enables staff to “dock” the calendar and return to the front desk. This way, they can handle the phone and go back to the calendar to finish wherever they left off.

Implement a digital front desk system

A digital front desk enables chiropractic practices to track and manage every patient throughout their visit. Features and benefits of implementing a digital front desk system include:

• Moving patients into rooms to make it easier for staff identification
• Color-coding visit types to make treatments identifiable at a glance
• Automatically moving patients to the “missed” column if they fail to show up for an appointment
• Easily accessing popular apps, including billing, cash register, claims, and reports

What Taking Control Means

A digital front desk system enables patients to use the software to schedule appointments or check-ins and become more engaged with their treatment. The patient flow feature on ChiroSpring’s front desk also means staff members can move patients into rooms specifically designated for their treatments.

Taking control of the patient flow process means you can:

• Customize rooms in the settings app
• Have complete control when viewing the patient’s dashboard
• Start the edit SOAP process
• Move patients seamlessly to the “awaiting check out” status to ensure that staff members know that they’re ready to complete their visit

How a Digital Front Desk System Can Change Your Practice

Chiropractic offices depend on efficiency when checking patients in, having them seen by a chiropractor, and checking them out. ChiroSpring’s unique patient flow software enables practices to incorporate a digital front desk system to ensure that patients and chiropractors make the most of their time.

Establish Patient Flow Goals for Your Practice

Patient flow goals mean you’re putting their treatments first and using a system to accommodate that. In other words, chiropractic practices are thinking beyond what happens during treatments and considering what patients experience beforehand.

An example of patient flow goals is turning waiting rooms into relaxation areas. Patients can come into the waiting area and settle their bodies in the middle of their busy schedules. Accounting for this goal helps patients prepare their bodies for the treatment that they’re about to receive.

Prioritize Time Management

Time management is critical when managing a front desk. Using a digital front desk streamlines the patient flow by eliminating the need to track down missing documents or hunt for blank sign-in sheets.

For example, suppose that there’s a line of patients waiting to check in, but the sign-in book is out of blank sheets. What are they supposed to do? In most circumstances, if the front desk staff members are busy, they have to scramble to find blank sheets. That’s a hassle for them and those waiting in line.

Improve Patient Communication

The front desk is a hub for patient information and resources. So, when a patient comes up to ask questions, the last thing that they want to do is wait for someone who still has to check in.

For example, suppose that a patient has an insurance issue that someone from the front desk needs to address. If they sign in on a paper sheet, there’s no discussion about this issue. Instead, the patient might only become aware of it after it’s too late (like when they receive a bill that they can’t afford to pay).

Minimize Front Desk Traffic

Patients are busy and want to get in and out of appointments quickly. If the traffic is too heavy at the front desk, they’ll rush through the process.

For example, suppose that a patient comes up to a busy front desk. They see the sign-in sheet and fill it out. Since the staff members are busy working with other patients at the desk, they overlook that sign-in. This results in the patient feeling like the staff members are ignoring them and could also result in a longer waiting time.

ChiroSpring is an all-in-one practice management and EHR system built specifically for chiropractors to help them regain face-time with patients, spend less time on back-office tasks, maintain a limited staff, and save operational costs.

To see how ChiroSpring can help you simplify how you manage your practice, reach out to one of our specialists today!