The Best Medical Appointment Scheduling Software

Patient scheduling is essential for medical practices that want to avoid overbooking, excessive walk-ins, or instances of inconveniencing patients. For facilities that are in high demand, scheduling appointments is one of the essential administrative tasks for the front of the office to keep your flow organized, estimate monthly revenue accurately, and ensure all those that walk into your business will be served. 

So what are some of the best medical appointment scheduling software? One is Calysta, where patients can quickly book appointments through their mobile devices, and medical facilities can easily coordinate with patients and organize patient appointments. Meanwhile, here are some of the best medical appointment scheduling software that we recommend.

Best Medical Appointment Scheduling Software

Calysta

Calysta is an electronic medical record system that caters to aesthetic physicians and dermatologists. It’s more than just a medical scheduling software: healthcare centers can access patient medical records, download customizable templates, communicate with their patients through text or teleconferencing, and collect touchless payments. It’s an all-in-one software that ensures a private practice’s patient information is found within one secure software. 

Pros

Cons

All-in-one EMR. Patient records, payment information, and contact information are all in one software. Note templates catered to aesthetic and dermatological practices. This saves doctors and practitioners time with documentation and ensures all patient records are uniform. Automated backups. Data is backed up in the cloud every day for  secure storage and easy retrieval. Partners with clinics. Calysta’s development team ensures the software evolves with the business’ needs. Supports touchless payments. This is the safer and more sanitary option as new normal calls for  reduced contact.

Exclusive to aesthetic clinics. This is to avoid unnecessary feature bloat and provide clinics with features specifically catered to their niche.

PracticeSuite

PracticeSuite is a medical practice management software that provides end-to-end patient care. Under one secure cloud, medical facilities can connect, collaborate, and care for their patients with efficiency under one platform.

Pros	Cons
“Anywhere access” to patient care. Medical professionals can securely access PracticeSuite with any device.  “First-Available Scheduling”. Patients in a rush can easily find the next available appointment slot. Lite program offers appointment scheduling. PracticeSuite’s multiple features come in tiered packages with different pricing. Businesses can  opt for the lite package..	Designed for low-volume users. PracticeSuite can support practices of all sizes, but can only accommodate businesses with up to a hundred users. Not suitable for larger practices like hospitals. Difficult adjustment period. PracticeSuite reports some customers complaining about adjusting to the scheduling system and overcoming the learning curve of app navigation .

SimplyBook.me

SimplyBook.me is an online booking system for all industries. Getting an account is free, though there are other tiered packages available at other prices. Its customers in the medical industry will find that it’s  customizable to their needs and can easily be integrated to their existing website. 

Pros

Cons

Up to 500 bookings per month. Its reasonable price and booking limit makes it the cost-effective choice for small practices. Integrate with your website, social media accounts, and your app. SimplyBook.me is mobile-optimized and can be integrated with your existing website. It can also accept bookings from Facebook, Instagram, Google, or from your own clinic’s app. Additional custom features. Improve client engagement with features like coupons, giftcards, packages, related sources, and more.

Free version is not HIPAA-compliant. Clinics will have to purchase the standard package to receive HIPAA-approved security. Not a complete electronic medical record tool. SimplyBook.me is limited to medical appointment booking and online payments.

NephroChoice

NephroChoice provides EMR and practice management software solutions for dialysis centers, private practices for nephrologists, and other medical practices in the nephrology niche. 

Pros	Cons
Easily view trends from lab results. NephroChoice can track patient trends through graphs. Advanced dialysis management. The software alerts the facility if there are patients who have not met the four-visit threshold and can help your team provide patients with the right resources to meet their dialysis appointments.	Limited to medical facilities under the nephrology specialization. Other niches may find the software lacking the EMR and practice management features they need to operate.

Acuity Scheduling

Acuity Scheduling provides appointment scheduling to all industries, including medical and healthcare. The cloud-based software mainly caters to startups, individual practices, and small to medium businesses. 

Pros

Cons

Sync timezones. The calendar that users see is automatically adjusted to fit their timezone. Useful for patients attending teleconferencing appointments with their doctor. Real-time availability. Patients have access to the clinic’s real-time availability and can schedule their own appointments based on their availability. Clients fill up information at booking. Information taken from the intake form can be transferred to your clinic’s EMR, providing you with what you need to know in one place.

Only most expensive pricing package is HIPAA-compliant. Acuity Scheduling is also not exclusive to the medical and healthcare industry.

SimplePractice

SimplePractice caters to private practices by providing an all-in-one practice management system. It simplifies the task of creating a website and connecting client portal platforms, allowing medical facilities to get this part of their operations done efficiently so that they can focus on the real operations of their practice. 

NextGen Office

Created from a company founded by two doctors in 1998, NextGen Healthcare is an electronic health record software made to help private practices with an all-in-one practice management solution. The award-winning EHR offers a variety of smart tools - including EHR, a patient portal, a revenue-cycle management, and more -  to help private practices provide higher quality care for their patients. 

Pros	Cons
Verifies patient eligibility to reduce rejections and denials. The software’s easy-to-navigate system and patient portal benefits both healthcare providers and patients. Improve patient engagement. NextGen Office’s patient portal allows patients to schedule appointments face-to-face or through teleconferencing, make online payments and other billing services, and request for medication refills.	Can be prone to downtime. User reviews claim that when upgrades and maintenance is done to the software over the weekend, there are noticeable bugs and problems in the user interface afterwards.

athenaOne

Rated the number one electronic health record app on the App Store, athenaOne is an all-in-one app for the medical industry.

Pros

Cons

Manageable user interface. User reviews commend the app’s friendly user interface during the setup. Patients can book appointments through the patient portal. They can also use the patient portal to review their history, download and sign forms, and transfer wireless payment. EMR connected with 160,000 providers. This provides medical practitioners with a larger network to consolidate patient information.

Going overboard with patient communications. User reviews report that, by default, patients are reminded of their appointments through all lines of communication, which can be annoying for some. Can be difficult to use for follow-up visits. These are subject to user errors and may require the clinic to constantly review appointment bookings.

Benefits of Digitizing Appointment Scheduling

Having medical scheduling software provides more advantages over your usual pen-and-paper appointment setting. Some of these benefits include: 

Reduce Overbooking and No-Shows

Overbooking means scheduling in more appointments than healthcare providers can take in, and this can lead to reduced customer satisfaction when your business can’t  accommodate the extra patients during their allotted schedule. Patient scheduling software can close off time slots that are fully booked to prevent additional patients from booking a certain period. Both  patients and staff can see which times are available for booking.

And while overbooking can be bad for business, so do no-shows. It’s a waste of time and money when patients do not show up for their scheduled appointment because that time slot could have been given to someone else who would have shown up. Electronic scheduling can not only remind patients of their appointments, but can also track appointment history and see late arrivals and no-show trends to see which patients have a habit of not showing up for their appointment.

Reduce Wait-Times for Patients

With so many available patient scheduling software platforms available online, more patients are willing to book an appointment rather than come in as a walk-in patient if it means reducing their time spent in the waiting room. 

In the past when the first-come, first-serve basis was practiced in clinics, patients waited for their names to be called without any assurance how long that would take. With a booked appointment, they can simply arrive a few minutes before their scheduled appointment and expect to be called into their medical appointment on time. This can help improve overall patient experience and reduce the inconvenience of waiting. 

Provide Patient Reminders

Patients have a number of reasons for forgetting their medical appointments and are either late to their upcoming appointments or don’t show up at all. Unfortunately for healthcare providers, this is time and resources wasted for what could have been a revenue-earning appointment. 

Prior to electronic patient scheduling software, it was not feasible for practice staff to remind all its patients of their upcoming appointment. With software, patients can receive reminders through text messages and emails. This makes them more likely to show up on time for their scheduled appointment. 

Effective and Fast Scheduling

Prior to online appointment scheduling, the most convenient appointment setting method was through email or calling medical offices to find an available time. This could result in an annoying back and forth correspondence as both medical staff and the patient try to find available times that could fit the patient’s schedule during the business’ operating hours. 

Today, scheduling software and apps can easily show patients all the available times. Fully-booked time slots are closed off and they see the facility’s calendar of appointments, giving them a quick view of when the next available schedule is. 

Schedule Your Clinic’s Appointments with Calysta

Medical appointment scheduling software provides cost-efficient web-based solutions for processing and organizing your patients’ appointments. With all the many available software products available, there’s no reason to keep inconveniencing your staff and your patients. Find the right software to match your needs. 

For aesthetic and dermatological clinics looking for software that’s specifically catered to their niche, Calysta does more than just appointment setting. Calysta is an all-in-one EMR that gathers all your patients’ data into one convenient software. Contact us today for a free one-month trial.