Managing COVID: Tools and Tips for Practices

COVID-19 presents unique challenges for healthcare service around the globe.  Whilst the situation is constantly evolving, healthcare providers are facing several common scenarios:

• Patients are in self or forced isolation and unable to attend healthcare facilities;
• Practitioners are well, but are in self or forced isolation so they cannot provide healthcare services to patients in the usual manner;
• Practice Support Personnel (i.e. Administrative Team members) are in self or forced isolation and unable to physically attend the health practice to perform their normal duties

Power Diary contains a number of tools that can help mitigate some of these challenges. 

Storing and Processing Credit Cards Online

Power Diary integrates with Stripe, one of the world largest online credit card processing providers. By linking your Power Diary account with Stripe you are able to securely store and process patient credit cards. This significantly reduces the time taken to process payments, and helps prevent multiple patients waiting in confined reception spaces. If your practice also uses the Client Portal you can set this up so that patients are required to pay at the time of booking.

Setting up a Stripe account and integrating it with Power Diary only takes a few minutes.  There are instructions on how to do this here.

Using the Client Portal to allow Patients to Book and Pay for Appointments

All Power Diary accounts include a free Client Portal.  Based on your preferences, the Client Portal can enable patients to book, view, pay or cancel appointments 24/7. This significantly reduces the administrative resources required to manage your practice.  

There is more information on how to setup and use your Client Portal here.

Communication Tools

Editing SMS / Email Reminder Messages: 

If you need to update your SMS and email reminder templates to include any additional information relating to COVID-19 the quickest way to do this is go to Setup > Configuration > Reminders and click on the pencil icon next to the template you'd like to edit.

Additional SMS / Email Reminders: 

You are able to configure your account to enable multiple SMS or email appointment reminders to be sent, up to 7 days prior to an appointment. This can be helpful to provide patients with additional COVID-19 related information ahead of their appointment. For example; if you currently send appointment reminders 1 day before an appointment, it may be useful to send an additional message 3 days prior to appointments advising patients to contact your practice before attending if they have any symptoms indicative of COVID-19.  

Additional reminders can be either SMS (normal SMS charges apply) or Email (free).  You can create new reminder templates by going to Tools > Communication > Templates. And you can quickly configure the timing of your Reminders on an account-wide level by going to Setup > Configuration > Reminders.

Sending Bulk SMS or Email Messages:

You can send bulk SMS and email messages to patients to advise of changes to your practice operations, communicate COVID-19 precautions or convey any other important information.  There are instructions on how you can quickly and easily do this here.

Telehealth

We have launched Telehealth functionality to Power Diary.  It's free, secure, encrypted, peer-to-peer and compliant with health privacy regulations.  Learn more here.