What can we do to play our part for the environment? For food companies its reducing the amount of meat with their plant based alternatives, for car manufacturers its moving onto electric vehicles, for us as dental professionals we must look down other paths.
Why not start with going paperless? With the technological advancements the last decade has seen there is almost no task that doesn't require a plug socket or AA battery and let's be honest, its much easier with today's tech. Lots of you may already be paperless through the use of Practice management systems, the rest are left wondering "But what about my beloved appointment book?".
So the first step to going paperless is your appointment book. If your not going to go down the practice management system route, with Google Calendar you can easily manage your day to day schedule and share it with everyone else in your team, with notifications from your phone to remind you when you have an appointment if you have the app. No more running to reception to remind yourself of your next patient!
For many of you there will be a Facebook page created for your practice where you may occasionally post a silly dental related video, but did you know you can actually allow your patients to book themselves in through it?
With just the click of a few buttons patients can book themselves into an available slot with the correct service which is then synced with your google calendar (optional). When a patient books an appointment your notified to confirm. Patients are also notified of their appointment to reduce no-shows.
This not only reduces the amount of no-shows but also means less phone calls for the receptionist. This in turn will allow them to spend more time with the patients in practice, providing a better service and in turn creating a more positive experience for everyone!
To set up appointments on Facebook all you simply need to do is hover over the button below the page's cover image on the right hand side of the page, and select the edit button function. From there you can choose the "Make a booking with you" option and follow the simple step by step process.
The option to sync your Facebook appointments with your google calendar appears during the set up process, this is something I would highly recommend if you are not using a practice management system, as once you have done this your appointment schedule can easily be shared with other members of the team (providing they have Gmail accounts).
For practices that are implementing a practice management system, you can redirect patients to your appointment booking portal.
And there you have it, you've not only done your bit for the environment by reducing your paper, but you've also streamlined a process to make more time for providing a better service to your patients!
