The Value of Patient Onboarding & Intake Forms

You're listening to Podiatry Marketing, conversations on building a successful podiatry practice with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDannald.

So welcome back to Podiatry Marketing. With me is the one, the only big Jim McDannald. How are doing today, Jim?

Tyson, I'm doing well. I'm doing well. Thanks as always for that original intro. It makes me feel my chest pops pops up a little bit every time I I hear big Jim Mcdonald's

I was talking to someone yesterday and they said they'd been listening to the podcast and they said they crack up laughing at my introductions. They said you always they said you always just change the introduction a little bit and you can tell when you'll say something different that Jim wasn't expecting. So

Well, I've gotta get back at you one of these days. I need to I don't know. I got like tiny Tyson or something. I I gotta get back at you one of these days.

Yeah. Yeah. I'll be like, oh, damn. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Fat boy. Fat boy Tyson.

Oh, I'm not gonna go there.

So, Jim, what are we talking about today?

Yeah. So today, we're gonna talk about patient onboarding, patient forms, just kind of like that, You know, I think there's kind of this notion that, like, when you wanna have a great patient experience, you're talking about, like, once they're inside your clinic. But, really, when you step back and think about it, there's so much more there. Whether it's their their marking that they see from you, that's one thing. But today, we're really gonna talk about someone's made an appointment.

They wanna come see you. Like, how what are those kind of steps before they come into your clinic that you should be kind of laser focused on? Because that's gonna have a huge impact on how they already kind of preconditioned or how they perceive the experience they're gonna have. So how can you make that a great experience as they're kinda like working their way towards that clinic and appointment visit?

Okay. So they've gone through all the other stuff through your marketing, your websites, maybe social media pages, and they decided you are the person I wanna see. They phoned up. They've made the appointment. Your receptionist has been awesome.

Now what? That's what you're talking about.

Yeah. So obviously, the the next step is like, you know, in the I could once say the olden days, but maybe in the the pre COVID or even up to five years ago, you know, we all had paper and we had clipboards. Right? So you go into a medical office or a dental office, and you get the clipboard. You know, you're probably running five minutes late.

Maybe you're dragging a kid with you to the to the the medical office. You're trying to, like, write down your life's history, you know, and these, like, three to five pages of documents. Like, to be honest, not a great kind of patient or user experience. So, you know, now to nowadays, ways of trying to make things more simple, you know, once they do to make that appointment, providing them a link or a way to fill out an online patient form. So that's the patient history.

In the in The US, that's gonna be your HIPAA documentation and maybe a pay a payment, policy that your clinic has. So if someone can do that, you know, when their kids go to bed or the time that's convenient for them leading up to the appointment and then send it back to you, not only is that great for the patient, because they're kinda done with that, and you and you have that documentation now. But if that ties into your EMR or if you have a good system in place to kind of, like, tee up that patient, you know, you're saving yourself and the patient time once they get there to focus on them and the patients in your practice for a great clinical experience as opposed to, like, chasing papers, making copies, trying to get it in the chart. It just leads to kind of a chaotic scene. And if you can avoid all that through online forms or some different ways of doing things online, it can be a real beneficial aspect of of kind of improving and making that patient experience better.

I can totally relate to that. I had an MRI done, well, maybe three months ago. And when I went in there, yeah, walked in, and next thing they said, oh, here, fill in these forms. Gave me the folder and a pen, and I said, is that pen clean? Because, yeah, didn't want a COVID pen.

I sat there. It was there were three forms that I had to go through and and all that. And I could just imagine having, like, a a three year old with me, yeah, if I was a younger parent. Yeah. Not now.

It would be it actually be my grand grandchild. But I can picture having my grandchild with me and trying to complete those forms. At the same time, I would just be going because the forms were annoying. I would have rather them sent them to me beforehand. Can you complete all this?

And I have been to a surgery where they did do that. Sent me all the forms beforehand, completed everything, sent it all in, and as soon as I walked in, what was funny is they ran on time. The other place that made me fill in all the forms, they were running about twenty five minutes late.

Yeah. I mean, just being kind of like being good stewards of your time and once people other care care about your time, it's a huge signal that this this clinic is, you know, cares about me as a patient and a person, and that just speaks volumes for sure. I think one thing you touched on that's interesting as well is that kind of during, you know, COVID times and people not wanting to be in, you know, sitting in waiting rooms filling out forms is that not only are people, like, sitting in in waiting rooms and filling out forms, but during COVID times, you're having to get there even earlier to maybe sit in the parking lot in your car Yeah. And fill out forms. So then you have staff running outside to go give a form or a clipboard to a patient that's not even in your clinic yet.

So if you can cut all that stuff out and make it super convenient and easy for for patients, they'll be very thankful, that you're, like you said, being a good steward of their time and really respecting them as both a person and a patient.

So what's the best way to deliver or to get them to complete these documents? Because you could send a PDF, you could send a Word document that they've got download, so what's the best way of doing it?

Yeah. So there's definitely this range and you touched on a couple of them. You know, there's kind of the spectrum from, you know, clipboard paper to like everything on an online form. Yeah. And when I say online form, this is, know, they're they're typing in either on their phone or on their desktop computer, and then that information is sent to you.

Not something that they have to, like, download, losing their downloads folder, try to find a PDF reader or something like I imagine my parents or my grandparents trying to fill out, like, a Word document or a PDF that requires a special piece of software to actually save it and then email it back. It just, it's just like an extra, like, four or five steps, which is basically means they're gonna basically fill it in, at the clinic because they're gonna forget it. It's not gonna be right. It's just not a good user experience. But if you can have and I I'm a big proponent of the online form that is sent to the clinic, maybe ties into an EMR.

There are, you know, the kind of the two big ones these days, and you'll see different providers and different systems and different EMR companies using them, but it's kind of these online forms versus patient portals.

Yeah.

And that's the kind of the main ways that the things are done these days.

And I know it's gonna it's gonna vary from country to country as well, like America because of your HIPAA compliance and also your the way your insurance works. Probably a little bit more complicated than it is, say, in Australia or maybe New Zealand and The United Kingdom.

Yeah. For sure. You know, with with insurance companies and the things they require as far as coding and reporting specific types of care, it can be a little bit more onerous as far as the type of paperwork, the information you have to gather. Obviously, you have to make sure it's safe, it has to be HIPAA compliant. And that's that's good.

The kind of there's some different trade offs if you wanna go with more like an online forms way of doing things. Obviously, there has to be HIPAA compliance both of that and the patient portal, but there's there's some trade offs we can get into a little bit about those differences that are needed if you kind of go one way or the other.

But so what's your preferred method?

Yeah. So usually, I'm I'm a bigger fan of, like, the kind of online forms. So obviously, you have to make sure that whoever you're working with has this HIPAA compliance. But the nice thing about these online forms is number one, that, usually, it's a little I would say it's kind of more lightweight, meaning that, like, if you have a link on your clinic's website, you can usually just have, you know, new patient form and a link. They click through it.

They can just type in on their their phone or on their desktop, keyboard and, you know, basically send that directly to you right there. Generally, that's not gonna require any kind of login and password. Yeah. That's probably one of the biggest downfalls to me of these patient portals, along with just kind of being like something I think people are pretty used to kind of online forms, you know, like, fill out these things and hit submit. But if you have to do another step where it's like, okay.

Now you need to, like, get a new login and a new password for this online portal. I've seen some of these. They look like they're from, like, you know, 1993. Like, you know, the colors, they're like it's just kind of wonky and kind of janky looking. It it doesn't it looks, you know, it looks separate from the website.

So sometimes people a little bit older think that they got sent somewhere else, and now they're asking for all this personal information on something that doesn't look like your website or doesn't look like, you know, Tyson Franklin podiatrist. Like, what is this? You know, they don't know the name of your EMR, so sometimes the name of the EMR is there. So, like, it can feel like they're jumping through a hoop that they don't necessarily trust, and now they're giving away some very important personal information. So that though, you know, the the the trade off there, though, is, like, you have to make sure you use an online form that can tie into that EMR.

You know, a lot of the EMRs that that use patient portals, that's the benefit is that they that they they will tie into an EMR, but it just like I said, there can be a little bit of trust issues there as well. With online forms, sometimes, I would say also, you know, you need to know what you're getting yourself into because sometimes you'll see these, like, all in one solutions, so they're trying to sell you, like, 15 different things and online patient, you know, history forms is one of those 15 things. So, you know, if you have a good provider and and if you see some of those other things as useful, that that's a good thing. But I like to usually try to keep it simple initially for most of the clients I work with.

Yeah. Because I I have experienced some bad ones where you go to complete someone, it says, oh, we need your email address. You need to set up an account. And go, I don't wanna set up an but I can't do it otherwise. And then now create a unique password.

So you'll go, if I don't wanna create a unique password, I type unique password. And and then I go, oh, no. It needs a capital. Okay. I'll put a capital.

My unique password. Oh, it needs a number. Oh, bloody hell. Okay. I'll I'll add a number here.

Oh, it needs a special character. Oh, come on. Like, it's not that important. And but it's every time you have to go through one of those steps, and that little bit of frustration builds up a little bit of anxiety before you even walk into the clinic or the business.

Yeah. It's about it's you're trying to like you said, you're trying to build, like, a positive relationship with the patient. And if you're, like, already asking them to, like, you know, make a unique password, make a username, then they forget the password when they try to re log in to check-in when their appointment is. You know, it just, they're already coming into your clinic maybe a little not mad at you, but it's already kind of, like, a little frustrated with the user experience. And, like, the whole reason to try to get these forms in the first place is to try to make it as convenient as possible for the patient and to really build that rapport and really kind of, like we talked about bridge that patient experience from the time that they see your marketing.

They think you're the right person to see. It was great to make the appointment. But then when they have that appointment, how do they get from there into your clinic as smooth and as easy as possible so they can then have that great kind of face to face experience with you. But that those gaps or that bridge is is super important. And if you don't if you don't pay attention to it, like, if you're if you have four different patients who are all filling out new patient paperwork in your office, and then that puts you back, like you said, behind 30 because it took, you know, the little old lady down the street, you know, forty five minutes to be able to to fill out the paperwork, which is you know, that that's a stuff sometimes happens in practice.

And

so, you know, if you even if the thing with the online forms too is that if the patient does have trouble filling it out, maybe it's something that somebody on your staff can do even beforehand to walk them through over the phone. So there are ways to try to make that inpatient experience just more convenient and timely to respect people's time and and to really kind of build that out. It shouldn't be overlooked.

Do you think they can be they can ask for too much information? Can you get too detailed? Or or is there is there a happy medium on what information you should get beforehand and what information you should ask in the room?

Yeah. I mean, I think you don't have to have, like, every specific detail. Like, obviously, every podiatrist that's listening to this podcast is gonna obviously provide you know, double check that history or a member of their staff will check that history. But I think it is important to try to have things that are relevant, you know, to the you know, so that that that that visit if they do wanna add more, they didn't feel comfortable filling out the form. That's why we double check those things.

But, yeah, the more information, the better. Just kinda gives you a general idea of what you might experience during that that that clinic visit. But we do have a HIPAA compliant, provider, you know, whether it's insurance is obviously I probably stuff like financial information, I would say, like credit cards and things like that, should be done in some secure manner that it has more than just, like, a HIPAA compliance. There's definitely there's different types of security that can be embedded in some of these different types of form to make sure that, it's legitimate. But like I said, if it's somehow tied to your website and has similar brand to you, that's a huge component kind of maintaining that trust, to make sure they don't feel like it's some strange handoff to the name of an EMR that they've never heard of before.

Now they're, like you said, giving away sensitive information they feel uncomfortable about.

Yeah. I think it was good what you said too about just checking the information they fill in. Because if these people are filling in forms for different businesses, they're comparing you to other businesses. So I think if you can get some feedback from them, it could be really helpful.

No. And I think I think that's a great point because, you know, these online forms are probably not gonna work for, you know, a % of your patient population. Right? I think, you know, people my grandparents' age, you know, they're probably just gonna show up for the appointment and have to do it with some help from the staff. But, you know and getting that feedback does help you make sure that you're asking, like, good questions and and and and a kind of a way that, people find it useful.

Right? Because I think the real goal of, you know, doing these online forums is, like I thought well, like I talked about, making this convenient as possible for the patient. But then it kinda all you know, it unburdens your staff, or at least part of the time, should should unburden your staff so they can really pay attention to the patient and provide that great, inpatient experience and that clinic experience so that the patient really feels like they were listened to. They're not, you know, having to, like, run around from patient to patient helping fill out paperwork. They can really focus on, you know, moving them from the waiting room or where they're at into the room, asking them questions.

But all that kind of baseline work and that busy work has been taken care of beforehand so they can really, you know, build that reputation if you're practicing your clinic that you are a clinic that listens, that is very attentive to the needs of their patients. Because that's kind of stuff that will separate you from everybody else. You know, every podiatrist at least in The US, not every, but but a lot of people are similarly trained

Yeah.

Have similar set of skills. So it's these small differentiators, the type of, you know, patient experience you provide, listening to your patients that really will set you apart and help kind of that positive either verbal or digital word-of-mouth spread the good news about the the great work that you're doing.

Yeah. Well, the easiest thing I can equate it to is even like during COVID and I've stayed at a few motels and hotels is sometimes you can have a seamless transition from arriving to the motel to making into your room. And then you can have other times where it is just so clunky that you you walk in and the person, I think, is is handing you an old fashioned form to to fill in, and then they want they wanna see your your credit card, and they're they're writing details down on a sheet, and and then they give you a key, you know, that's got a big plastic thing with the number of your room on there, and a big old metal key that says the name of the motel in it. You think, well, if I lose this thing, at least they know where to come and bring my key back to compared to something that's more modern and up. And there's podiatry clinics that are like that, that you go to these old motels and you might stay.

Of course, it was convenient. It was the only motel in the small little town you happen to be in. But you go through that, and they're thinking, well, they don't need to change, but there's some podiatry clinics that are like that. They don't think they need to change and and update their onboarding process, and then there's other podiatry clinics that I know that are just like great motels you go to, and it's a seamless process to get into your room. And which ones do you talk about and tell your friends to stay at?

You don't say stay at the clunky one.

That's a great point. And like you said, if if you do practice in a in an area that has, you know, a younger subset, young professionals, you know, gen z, folks like that that don't like to talk on the telephone, you know, each generation is a little bit different. You know, maybe at some point in time, you know, you'll just there'll almost be no, like, human interaction, and that's what they want. Yeah. Like, you check-in for your appointment by, you know, using your iPhone kinda like you do with Apple Pay or something.

You go sit, you wait for your notification on your phone within the clinic. There's different ways that, you know, that that that's done, whether it be in the hospitality industry. I think we talked about that on a previous podcast. But there's these different things that I wouldn't say they dehumanize them, but people just wanna, like, have a repeatable, positive experience. They wanna make sure that their time is valued, by the people that they're making appointments with.

And if there's ways to evolve, and kind of meet those needs and and make it both a positive, efficient, manner of, you know, running a practice, I think patients will definitely, be happy. You know, some will be more happy than others, but I think, you know, depending on where you practice at, you'd always have to be learning and evolving, the ways that you can provide a great experience for your patients.

So you got anything else to wrap up on this or you're done?

No. I think that's good. I think that touches on the, you know, the patient portal, the the online forms, and just the the importance of providing that great experience from the time they make an appointment until they show up to your clinic and seated in that appointment area in your in your clinic chair. So no. I think we we talked to touched on some really good topics tonight.

And no. I appreciate it, Tyson.

Okay. It's great. Talk to you next week.

Sounds great.

Okay. Bye. Bye.

Thanks for listening to Podiatry Marketing with Tyson Franklin and Jim McDaniel. Subscribe and learn more at Podiatry Marketing. That's the website address, podiatry.marketing.