One thing many dental professionals see but often don’t like to speak about is how ineffective referrals can be with a traditional business card hand-off. Once the dentist refers a patient, the responsibility is then dropped into the patient’s lap and they must now make an appointment with the specialist, often delaying or losing the referral form. This ends up with no winners—patients and providers need a better way to fill the gaps. With a teledentistry solution like TeleDent by MouthWatch, that hand-off can be much more seamless and successful.
Seamless Sharing
With a secure and password-protected teledentistry platform, dental teams can efficiently keep everyone in the loop on patient care. Patient records are safely stored in the cloud and can be shared with outside providers and specialists. They can then be immediately accessed, meaning no waiting on documents to be delivered, no loss of documentation in email chains and no worrying about keeping referring dentists in the loop.
Enhanced Workflow
Specialists and referring dentists can work together to generate a stream of no-drop referral by taking that burden off the patient, sharing data and images. Often times, when a dentist refers a patient, they hand them a business card and send them on their way, expecting the patient to follow through—when in reality, most times, the patient puts it aside or loses it all together resulting in a missed opportunity for care. With a platform like TeleDent by MouthWatch, you are able to connect with specialists outside your practice and set up that appointment for the patient. Sharing patient records is easy and safe with a HIPAA-compliant platform.
Introductions Made Easy
Almost 50% of patients don’t follow through with traditional business card method of referral—but if the dentist is making that connection for the patient, successful referrals are more likely. In fact, if you refer an a patient and they do not follow through you may still be held liable for the non-action of the patient. It is actually possible for patients to make a face-to-face introduction with their specialist before they even leave the referring dentist’s chair! With a quick video call, the dentist can introduce the patient and specialist “face-to-face”, have a conversation about the issue and even schedule follow-up care before the call is over.
Teledentistry makes workflows and collaborations more efficient which, in the end, is a win for everyone.