Relationship management is the lifeblood of healthcare clinics.
First, building and maintaining strong connections with a network of referring physicians is the best way to ensure a steady stream of patient referrals.
Once the patient referrals start rolling in, ensuring prospective patients show up for their first appointment is critical.
After that, thoughtful follow-up communications can be the differentiator that helps patients see their treatment through to the end and return for further assistance.
This makes CRM as vital a tool for a clinic or healthcare provider as it is for sales and marketing teams.
In this article, we will explore the challenges that healthcare organizations like clinics face when trying to improve patient engagement and nurture strong relationships with their referring physicians. We’ll also provide insights into how a modern CRM platform can help.
What is CRM?
A CRM system (customer relationship management) is a software toolset that assists businesses with the day-to-day management of their people (customers and employees), work processes, products, and projects.
Once thought of primarily as a sales tool, CRM technology has evolved to address the needs of many different business aspects, including marketing, customer service, and HR.
Through the use of advanced automations tools and data centralization, CRM software can help businesses improve communication (both internal and external), work more efficiently, and track performance.
The challenges of referring physician relationship management for clinics
Managing relationships with referring physicians is crucial for clinics, as this is the primary avenue for attracting new patients to these facilities.
Clinics face all the same challenges as any business does when it comes to managing relationships, plus some issues that are unique to the healthcare industry.
- Communication preferences- Different referring physicians may have different communication preferences. Some may prefer email while others may prefer phone calls. Some may like to speak often while others may not want to talk much at all.
Effective communication between a clinic and its referring physicians requires an understanding of the preferences of each physician as well as a strategy on how to appease them.
- Coordination with other healthcare organizations- A seamless handoff between a referring physician and a receiving practitioner can go a long way to ensuring future referrals. That said, there are many factors that can make this challenging.
The timely booking of appointments and the transfer of patient information and insurance data are two such challenges. Another is ensuring that the incoming patient is properly informed about what to expect.
- Security and compliance- Staying compliant with local healthcare industry regulations adds another layer of complexity to healthcare organization relationships.
For example, compliance standards like those imposed by HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act — in the US) and GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation — in Europe) require that digital patient data be handled in a very particular way.
Not only does this require more training and stricter operational processes to achieve, but it also makes finding software tools that handle patient data harder, as many of these vendors don’t consider the needs of a healthcare provider when designing their toolsets.
For more information on finding a HIPAA-compliant CRM solution, check out our HIPAA-Compliant CRM Software Guide.
- Referral tracking- Keeping track of referrals can be challenging because of the lack of standardized referral processes and documentation across the healthcare industry.
This can lead to patient no-shows, incomplete and inaccurate patient information, referral leakage, and poor referral attribution.
- Technology integration- Integrating technologies to help streamline referring physician management can be technically challenging.
Issues with data compatibility, security and compliance, and technical standards can take many of the most popular software solutions off the table.
Cost is another challenge for many clinics and investing in several different software tools may not be an option.
The challenges of patient relationship management for clinics
Establishing and maintaining a strong relationship with patients is key to ensuring the long-term success of a clinic.
While the ultimate goal of a healthcare professional is to help a patient get to a place where they don’t require continued treatment, good patient relationships can keep the clinic top of mind when needs do arise.
Clinics face all the same challenges as any organization does when it comes to managing relationships, plus some issues that are unique to the healthcare industry.
- Patient engagement- Good patient communication can be difficult for many reasons. First, patients can have wildly varying degrees of access to different communication channels.
While some might use email regularly, others may not use it all. Likewise, some patients may be comfortable with video conferencing while others may not.
Meeting patients “where they are” requires administrators and healthcare practitioners to use various avenues of communication depending on the patient and the circumstances.
When you factor in language and cultural barriers, this challenge can become even more daunting.
- Appointments and scheduling- Managing patient appointments can be a persistent challenge for clinic administrators.
On one hand, long wait times and limited availability can be a big deterrent for patients. On the other hand, leaving room for walk-in appointments and emergencies builds trust and reinforces reliability. Finding the right balance is tough.
Added to this mix are issues with no-shows and last-minute cancellations that can create a lot of extra work (and headaches) for admins.
- Patient education- Educating patients about their conditions, treatment options, and preventive care can be difficult, as patients have varying levels of health literacy.
Cultural sensitivity is also an issue as recognizing and respecting cultural differences can be challenging when delivering patient education because cultural norms and beliefs may influence health practices and decision-making.
When you factor in different learning styles, emotional reactions, and the potential for data overload — there is a lot to consider.
CRM for clinics: Physician relationship management
CRM software can address the many challenges of physician relationship management and turn areas of weakness into points of differentiation through:
- CRM automation- A CRM system can enable clinics to automate their physician outreach and response communications. This provides several benefits including:
- Timely delivery of communications- Automated follow-up messages can be sent after a patient referral, acknowledging the referring physician for the referral and initiating patient care.
- Consistent messaging- CRM automation can make use of messaging templates to improve messaging consistency.
CRM automation can also speed up referral processing and improve referral tracking and attribution.
All of this adds up to produce some pretty significant time savings for administrative teams while allowing them to establish standardized processes based on proven best practices.
- Personalization- A modern CRM platform can integrate with a variety of communication channels to allow clinics to communicate with a healthcare professional according to their individual preferences including email, text, or phone.
With automation, messages can also be set up to go out at the times most preferred by individual referring physicians, improving deliverability.
Additionally, a CRM gives teams the ability to create customized message templates that address each physician by name and provide content tailored to their individual specialty, interests, and cases.
- Segmentation- A CRM can segment referring physicians based on specific criteria, such as specialty, patient volume, communication preference, and location.
This enables more targeted messaging for promotions and patient recruitment efforts and can lead to better retention and loyalty overall.
This also ensures that the content shared with referring physicians is highly relevant to their speciality and interests.
- Integration- A CRM platform can integrate with scheduling software, EHR (electronic health records) systems, and a variety of communication tools to create a centralized digital workspace for clinics.
This centralization consolidates data on referring physicians including their referral history, patient outcomes, and all prior communications, ensuring that all clinic staff have access to accurate and up-to-date information.
Integration can also simplify day-to-day operations for clinic administrators as they don’t need to learn how to use a bunch of different software tools in order to perform their various duties.
CRM for clinics: Patient relationship management
A CRM solution can help clinics drive patient engagement which can lead to increased attendance, improved outcomes, and higher patient satisfaction rates through:
- Automated appointment reminders- Automated reminders can be sent out before an upcoming appointment. These reminders can be set up with triggers like “one day before an appointment” or “one hour before an appointment”, or they can be set up as as an ongoing cadence.
When used via text message or SMS, automated reminders are very effective at improving appointment attendance rates.
Additionally, when integrated with a scheduling tool, automated reminders can enable patients to reschedule appointments themselves, saving time for admins and increasing the chances of future attendance.
- Automated follow-ups- A CRM can automate follow-up cadences that provide patients with important information including:
- Appointment summaries
- Findings and diagnosis
- Emergency contacts
- Satisfaction surveys
- Prescription details
- Treatment plans
A post-appointment follow-up cadence is a valuable communication tool that helps patients better understand their patient care plan and can lead to improved outcomes and a better patient experience.
- Patient portal integration- By integrating with patient portal software, a CRM can enable patients to easily and securely access their digital health records, test results, and treatment plans.
This also allows clinics to provide patients with real-time updates, share billing and insurance information, and request and collect feedback.
Patient portal integration can also improve patient onboarding processes as new patients can use the portal to complete registration forms, review privacy policies, and provide consent electronically.
FreeAgent CRM is the best healthcare CRM software for clinics
FreeAgent CRM is a modern work management platform that provides top-of-field software tools for healthcare organizations of all sizes and technical proficiency.
FreeAgent is the best healthcare CRM software for clinics because it is:
- Easy to use- FreeAgent’s modern user interface is quick to learn and easy to use, encouraging teams to work within the platform, driving up adoption and aligning your work processes.
- User-configurable- With FreeAgent, the power is in your hands. You can customize and personalize FreeAgent to fit the specific needs of your business and teams without external support.
- HIPAA-compliant- To demonstrate our commitment to ensuring all data captured and contained within the FreeAgent platform is safe and secure, FreeAgent CRM maintains HIPAA-compliance.
To learn more, see our article, FreeAgent Announces HIPAA-Compliance.
Plus, FreeAgent offers:
- Robust integration- FreeAgent’s flexible toolset and extensive integration library supports teams and businesses of all types and structures.
- Generative AI- Uplift your work with Generative AI-powered features. With FreeAgent, you can access AI across any app, allowing you to get the information you need faster.
With FreeAgent, it’s really that simple.
To see FreeAgent in action, get a demo, and discover for yourself how we are leading the way to a better workday.
