How to Choose Between Healthcare CRM Options
Is your medical practice or healthcare-related business using CRM to manage customer relations? Did you know that more than 60% of the country’s hospitals and clinics now use at least one form of CRM? Do you even know what CRM is?
If you answered “no” to these three questions, then you need a primer on “Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and how this innovative software is helping the healthcare industry modernize all aspects of customer relations. In fact, healthcare CRM is becoming so ingrained in the industry that the global market is expected to triple by 2028, rising to more than $34 billion from 2020’s $10.6 billion, according to a study by Stratistics Market Research Consulting.
So, What Exactly is a CRM?
As the name implies, customer relationship management systems help businesses manage their interactions with current customers and sales prospects. Typically offered as software-as-a-service (SaaS), a CRM system can keep detailed track of whatever pertinent customer information is needed and provide a centralized, easy-to-access repository for this information.
CRM systems also include various tools and automation features to help businesses utilize customer information when needed. For example, automatic generating of email notifications or tracking leads for marketing purposes. For the healthcare industry, a CRM can help coordinate appointments with healthcare practitioner availability and generate automated appointment reminder notifications, among numerous other actions.
How CRM Helps the Healthcare Industry
CRM systems provide medical practices and related businesses with a holistic patient management system that fosters seamless interactions between healthcare providers and patients. A healthcare CRM keeps track of patient data relating to medical records, prescriptions, appointments, follow-up care, and anything else pertinent to the patient and healthcare provider’s relationship. CRM allows for the easy access and navigation of e-health records as needed and can integrate the data for use with other healthcare technology and software types, such as accounting.
Healthcare providers and related businesses can also use CRM for analytics, such as performance measurement, patient satisfaction, and other metrics crucial to the success of your operation. CRM can also be used for marketing purposes, as it can track sales initiatives and manage leads gained from all sources, whether website, social media, digital marketing outreach or referrals.
How to Choose the Right Healthcare CRM For Your Needs
Choosing the right healthcare CRM to meet your specific needs will depend upon numerous factors, including:
- Size of your healthcare-related business
- What tasks you want automated
- Integration with other tools
- Add-on features
- Learning curve needed to make CRM operational
- HIPPA compliance
- Price
To begin your search for the perfect healthcare CRM, focus on what you expect to gain from the system. Ask yourself or your management team how healthcare CRM should best optimize your interactions with existing and potential patients and streamline business operations. Consider what tasks you would like to automate and what processes you would like the CRM platform to manage. For example, do you want it to automatically add new patient data into HIPPA-compliant cloud storage, manage appointments and scheduling, and integrate with your accounting software? Speaking of integration, you will also need to determine what other information technologies would need to integrate with your CRM and make sure potential CRM platforms have the required integration capabilities.
Until you know exactly what you want to achieve with CRM, you should hold off on signing up for the service. That said, there is nothing wrong with demoing a system, but don’t let a CRM company’s sales team force your hand too early.
HIPPA compliance and other security measures also need to be assessed, as will the learning curve to ensure that your business gets the most out of your CRM system. Ideally, you would need at least one person in your company who is proficient with information technologies. This person, or your IT team, should you have one, would need to undergo a few training sessions to come up to speed with CRM mechanics and then serve as the interface between the CRM and others in your business who will use the tool and between the company and the CRM vendor. The operational mechanics of using the CRM should be easy enough for your health practitioners and others to intuitively pick up on its capabilities and begin using it without needing extensive instruction.
And, last, you’ll want to make sure that whatever CRM platform you go with, it will be capable of expanding with your business’s growth adopting new features as needed.
Learn More About CRM by Consulting with Moxxi Marketing
If you would like to learn more about how a CRM system might help enhance your patient interactions, the medical marketing experts at Moxxi Marketing can help you assess CRM options relevant to your business practices. With expertise in helping healthcare practitioners grow their businesses, consult with Moxxi Marketing by contacting us today at 239.330.6236.