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How to Keep Your Schedule Full with YAPI

by | Jan 28, 2021 | Product Updates

This past year has presented significant challenges and obstacles to the dental community. From operating under stringent CDC guidelines to adjusting to new systems and office protocols, it seems that for many of us in dentistry, the underlying themes of 2020 were “change” and “modification.”

While it’s safe to assume that those themes will carry into this new year, you should do all you can as practice owners to shift your focus towards a new and better theme, “growth”.

Add Automation to Your Day

When confirming appointments, some practices still rely on older confirmation methods, wasting time and money. Before you task your front office with more phone calls, you may want to consider these facts.

  • A recent study by Patterson Dental ranked phone calls second to last when it came to a dental patient’s preferred method of communication with their practice. (Direct mail and postcards came in the last place.) Texting was the most preferred method, followed by email.
  • A broader study, conducted by Harris Poll, an American market research and analytics company, showed that 64% of people prefer text over phone as a customer service channel.

So, if your office is still only calling to confirm appointments, the chances may be high that your patients, if given the opportunity, would rather confirm their appointment through text or email.

With an automated appointment confirmation system in place like YAPI, your front office will spend significantly less time manually confirming appointments and more time reactivating past-due patients and filling your schedule.

YAPI allows your practice to send personalized, automated appointment reminders to your patients via text or email. With the simple click of a button or a text reply of “C” to confirm their appointment, YAPI automatically updates the patient’s appointment status in your practice management software. It’s a guarantee that you’ll increase your confirmation rate, all while reducing your no-shows and last minute appointment cancellations! It’s a big win for your practice.

Use the YAPI Recall Manager

Speaking of saving your office time, your team will now have more time to focus on its recall and reactivation efforts with YAPI’s Recall Manager.

In an article on Dental Recall from Dentistry IQ, it’s stated that anywhere from 40% to 85% of clinical production comes directly from hygiene or recall appointments. So, it’s safe to say that recall should be a big focus in your practice!

The YAPI Recall Manager gives your front office and hygiene teams a quick overview of who’s due and past due for hygiene. You can easily filter past due patients by date of appointment reminder received, due date, recall type, or last name.

Make your practice work smarter, not harder, by assigning these patients to the front office or hygienist and have them reach out through a personal follow up via a phone call. With the Recall Manager in front of them on their desktop, they can toggle through each patient’s appointment history and family file information, receiving accessible and actionable information for each follow-up call.

Sneak Peek of What’s to Come: Automated Recall Scheduling

Soon, you’ll be able to go even further and automate these efforts by sending recall patients a special link via text to schedule their next appointment with our new online scheduling system, Smart Scheduling! All your recall patients will need to do upon receiving their text is to confirm their date of birth. From there, they can pick a date and time for their next appointment. It’s that simple!

 

Cast A Wide Net: Send eBlasts and Personalized Emails

Email is still proven to be an effective form of communication. YAPI offers your practice the ability to send marketing and communication-based emails to your patients, through a few simple steps.

You can choose from a wide variety of prebuilt eBlast templates, or create and craft your own using our online portal, YAPI POP. One of our favorite features is the ability to filter and segment your email recipients based on age, gender, outstanding balance, last appointment date, and others.

Take a Step Further: Demo YAPI

Now is the time to shift the focus back to growing your practice and to sustain that goal by reducing busywork and adding more automation to your day! YAPI will help you to not only fill your schedule but to keep it full.

Good patient dental automation software will only enhance the way you do dentistry. See what YAPI has to offer you by scheduling a demo today.