Best healthcare CRM to manage patient relationships

What is a healthcare CRM?

Healthcare CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a powerful tool for managing patient relationships in a rapidly evolving industry. As technology transforms healthcare with advances like AI diagnosis and robotic surgery, CRM helps healthcare providers track patient information in one place, making it easier to personalize care and improve the overall patient experience.

With automation features like appointment scheduling and follow-ups, healthcare CRM takes the hassle out of managing appointments. It can send timely reminders to patients, reducing no-shows and ensuring they stay informed. 

Healthcare CRMs often integrate with EHR (Electronic Health Records), also known as EMRs, providing a comprehensive view of medical records.

Additionally, CRM software streamlines communication across channels such as phone, email, SMS, and more, ensuring that healthcare professionals don’t spend crucial time searching. It even allows for targeted marketing campaigns and outreach efforts to enhance patient acquisition.

Benefits of using a CRM for healthcare providers

Implementing CRM software in a healthcare business can bring about numerous benefits. 

Better patient relationship management: A healthcare CRM platform centralizes patient information, including medical history, communication preferences, and appointment records. This empowers healthcare providers to deliver personalized communication and care that builds trust and improves patient engagement.

Boost productivity with automation: A healthcare CRM eliminates time-consuming administrative tasks with automated tasks and follow-ups. This frees up valuable time for healthcare workers to focus on direct patient care.

Optimize appointment scheduling: Streamline the entire appointment process and manage referrals with online booking options and automated reminders. Reduce no-shows, optimize doctor availability, and improve overall patient satisfaction.

How to choose the right CRM

While selecting a medical CRM, ensure that the features align with the needs of the healthcare industry and your particular institution. Here are a few key aspects to evaluate:

1. Centralized platform  

Efficient healthcare CRM software should enable a 360-degree view of patient information. This means a platform to capture new patient data, medical history, appointment details, and other interactions. The ability to update and access this information ensures a holistic view of each patient's journey with your healthcare institution.

2. Multichannel communication 

The software should make it easy for the patient to reach out to the healthcare institution. This means having communication channels such as phone, email, chat, and SMS, all within the CRM. 

3. Analytics 

A user-friendly analytics dashboard allows healthcare professionals to monitor patient demographics, treatment outcomes, and operational efficiency. It should enable real-time tracking of key performance indicators and the identification of trends.

4. Automation of tasks

CRM should allow the institution to automate appointment reminders, prescription refill notifications, and task management. This frees up time for other crucial tasks and reduces the burden on the administration.

5. Data security measures

Data security is paramount in healthcare CRM systems. The software should adhere to industry standards and regulations for safeguarding patient records. This includes features such as encrypted data transmission, access controls, audit logs, and regular security updates to protect sensitive healthcare data from unauthorized access or breaches.

6. Data-driven insights

Healthcare CRM systems often include analytics tools to provide valuable insights into patient demographics, treatment outcomes, and operational performance. This data empowers healthcare providers to make informed decisions for improved patient care and better resource allocation.

7. Scalability

As your practice expands, a well-designed healthcare CRM scales effortlessly to handle increased patient volumes and changing needs. Its adaptable features and customizable workflows ensure continued efficiency and effectiveness.

Why Freshsales is the best CRM for your healthcare institution

1. Faster access to information with a centralized view

Freshsales unifies every record across a patient's medical history in one place by

• Giving a complete view of every patient’s contact details, the doctor assigned, and medical bills

• Syncing with calendar to schedule and view upcoming appointments with the doctor

• Pulling together every conversation via phone, email, chat, and SMS.

• Increase productivity with a customized view of contacts. With a modern CRM like Freshsales, healthcare providers can customize the way your team views contacts—either in a list, table or Kanban view.

2. Faster workflow with pipeline visibility

Easily create dedicated pipelines to manage billing processes across different departments (e.g., cardiology, physiotherapy, etc.). Freshsales helps accurately calculate commissions for doctors and healthcare providers based on their performed treatments, streamlining the deal management process for improved efficiency and accuracy. With Freshsales’ CPQ module, you can also configure pricing for various outpatient procedures, surgeries, or consultations.

Read more on pipelines

3. Automation: Never miss out on anything

Help your staff hold the day together by automating everyday mundane tasks. Intelligent workflows in a healthcare CRM like Freshsales boost productivity by automating:

• Repetitive tasks such as sending appointment confirmation emails, invoice generation

• Appointment reminders to patients and doctors

• Patient management tasks such as notifying the doctor with the patient details and timings as soon as an appointment is booked.

A healthcare CRM like Freshsales also offers pre-designed workflow templates that can help your staff automate routine tasks that eat into their time. To understand how these systems work, check out a detailed CRM explained guide.

Check out what else you can automate with workflows

4. Make data-driven decisions with reports

With a medical CRM, cut through the noise and understand precisely:

• Which branch or clinic has the most number of patient visits

• Which department brings you the most revenue, and which ones need more push

• The performance of your doctors and the revenue each of them generates.

You can create reports and export them as CSV or PDF, create a dashboard to gain instant visibility on the overall performance, and even schedule these reports to be mailed to you at regular intervals.

Freshsales also provides out-of-the-box reports and dashboards that can help you stay on top of key metrics. You can also navigate between reports to get context and track team performance. Reports can be shared automatically on a monthly or periodic basis. 

More about reports