Dental Sesame Patient Pages
Newly released patient portal helps practices build patient loyalty
A loyal patient community is vital to your dental practice’s success. Loyal patients are more likely to keep their appointments, pay their balances on time, refer their friends and family to the practice, and engage in other core behaviors that help drive increased production and profitability for your practice.
With more than 95% of 18- to 49-year-olds now using the Internet, your practice must deliver a positive, engaging online experience to build loyalty among today’s patients. In fact, 74% of patients state that being able to access information online anytime makes them more likely to stay with their doctor (Sesame Communications Member study, 2013). Not only do patients want to access information online 24 hours a day, they want to do it using their chosen Internet connected device.
The next generation of the Dental Sesame patient pages accessible through the online patient portal provides dental patients with comprehensive, 24/7 access on their preferred device to almost every aspect of their dental care provider relationship. By enabling practices to provide the same outstanding experience online that patients receive in the office, patient pages helps enhance loyalty and facilitate communication between practice and patient.
Freedom and Flexibility
Patient pages gives patients the freedom and flexibility they need to manage their dental care experience by allowing them to:
• View, schedule and confirm appointments. 97% of dental patients prefer to click rather than call the practice for information (Sesame Member survey, 2010). Patient pages provides an easy way to make and confirm appointments online, the way many of your patients prefer.
• Pay bills online. Online bill pay is advantageous for both practices and patients. Many of your patients prefer to pay bills online—almost 75% of regular Internet users pay at least one bill online a month (Sesame Communications internal data, 2010). Additionally, online bill pay is proven to lead to faster payment for dental practice—66% of dentists surveyed by Sesame stated that on average, patients pay online faster than those who pay via check.2
• Refer friends. Online referrals are highly valuable sources of new patient opportunities—71% of consumers are more likely to buy based on referrals from social media (Sesame Member survey, 2010). Patient pages offers a simple, intuitive way for patients to refer family and friends to the practice via email and social media channels.
• Access and customize vital patient information. Patient pages allows patients with multiple family members at the same practice to easily customize notification options, billing information, and treatment progress for each person. Patients can also access financial information, view images and treatment suggestions, and more.
Optimal Patient Access and Usability
Today’s patients have moved beyond desktop computers—mobile devices account for nearly 25% of overall web traffic3—and they expect their dental practice to plug into this world as well. Patient pages ensures your patients can connect and interact with your practice on their schedule with the Internet-connected device they choose. Patient pages’ mobile-optimized interface delivers an optimized viewing and navigation experience for patients on smartphones, tablets, and devices no matter the screen size and resolution, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
A System to Improve Patient Loyalty and Satisfaction
Patient pages is an integrated component of Dental Sesame, Sesame’s online patient engagement management system. Your practice can leverage the Dental Sesame system with patient pages to:
• Reduce no-shows. Dental Sesame allows practices to schedule and send automated appointment reminders by text, email, or voice message. This system is proven to help practices reduce no-show rates. Sesame Communications recently conducted a comprehensive study that found that after one year of using Dental Sesame with automated reminders practices with no previous system reduced no show rates by 19.58%!
• Improve financial performance. Dental Sesame also includes past due e-reminders, print-ready insurance forms, FSA balances, and online bill payment. These combine to not only significantly reduce administrative tasks but positively impact collections and reduce account receivables. For example, 50% of all patients who received a past due electronic financial reminder pay their bill online within the first 48 hours (Sesame Member survey, 2010).
• Valuable patient feedback. Dental Sesame enables a practice to conduct ongoing post-appointment surveys to ensure patient satisfaction and quickly identify issues and areas of improvement.
• Ensure brand consistency. Patient pages’ fully customizable user interface ensures patients are always interacting with their practice’s familiar brand.
A Comprehensive Platform to Strengthen Relationships
Long-term dental care relationships are rooted in a very personal connection between doctor and patient. Dental Sesame patient pages is designed to ensure the connection made in the office extends to the online world as much as possible. With patient pages, your practice can transform your patient experience to help build patient loyalty and establish profitable, sustainable patient relationships.
References
1. Internet User Demographics. Pew Research Internet Project website. www.pewinternet.org/data-trend/internet-use/latest-stats. Accessed February 24, 2013.
2. Consumer Bill Payment Practices Linked to Internet Usage, Mobile Bill Payment Growing, Shows Fiserv Survey. Fiserv website. https://newsroom.fiserv.com/releasedetail.cfm?ReleaseID=735230. January 23, 2013. Accessed February 24, 2013.
3. Nearly a quarter of web traffic is mobile. Internet Retailer website. January 9, 2013. www.internetretailer.com/2013/01/09/nearly-quarter-web-traffic-mobile. Accessed February 24, 2013.
