I am writing this hunched up in a waiting room, watching the hands of the wall clock move inexorably onwards as I wait for my dentist appointment. It was scheduled to have started 18 minutes ago, and there are still three people ahead of me.
Talk to any dental patient, and he or she will agree that less time spent in the waiting room is a good thing. In fact, a Software Advice survey of 5,000 patients in the U.S. found that 97 percent of respondents felt frustrated by waiting times.
Although the waiting room experience has already become far more accommodating and efficient, with advances such as online check-ins and text confirmations, the process will continue to become more and more efficient in the future, until waiting rooms disappear.
Inevitably, much more will be done electronically for patients entering consulting rooms, including a welcome video and a tour of the office. Patients can also expect an introduction to the personnel that will deal with them and a clear review of financial protocols and policies, including credit card registration or clicking Amazon Pay or PayPal.
All patient forms – health history, consent forms, HIPPA, etc. – and any related issues will be dealt with via pre-visit electronic interchange. With all scheduling and financial transactions happening outside the office, and all forms being completed online, what do you need a waiting room for?
And dismissing a patient and scheduling their next appointment can also happen without a waiting room. Everything but dentistry will be handled outside the office. And don’t forget your chat room, where patients can ask their RDA or hygienist any questions related to their particular dental issues.
The net effect of this electronic process is that the patient’s time in the operatory will be occupied solely by the patient’s current dental issue, greatly speeding up the timing of appointments and reducing—or even eliminating—the need for waiting times.
The dental office will give patients their smartphone application that will alert the dentist’s office to their presence when they’re in the parking lot, or have just entered the building. This could further eliminate the need for waiting times. Dental staff will be able to anticipate the patient’s arrival, meet them at the door, and take them right back to an operatory.
Other advances will include electronic patient healthcare records, previous dental history, the patient’s likes and dislikes, credit status, insurance category, copay determinant, and chief complaint before they step in the door. If you want more information about the patient, you can use any one of many tools to access more psychographic information.
On top of this, AI (artificial intelligence) will be harnessed to significantly speed up the process. It won’t be long before formal waiting rooms will be relegated to the dungeons of history; you’ll walk into the dental office where a greeter will meet you and take you back to your operatory with your name digitally displayed above the door.
Patients will select their dentist based on other patients’ ratings, the dentist’s location, his/her relationship with the patient’s insurance company, and how the dentist ranks in terms of quality and value compared to other dentists. These selection criteria, as well as information relating to the patient’s usual cost and co-pay, will all be delivered electronically.
Millennials are your future patients. They are by far the largest generation in the U.S., numbering 92 million and counting. They are digital natives. And the generation coming right behind them, Generation Z, is even more digitally “wired.” The dental enterprise that can figure out how to eliminate the waiting room as a strategic goal, can powerfully market to millennials and Generation Zeros. Zero wait time is a pretty attractive feature. Why do you think Amazon is putting everyone else out of business? People want it now, at their convenience, from professionals who match their needs and wants.
By the way, I’m still waiting in the waiting room.
