Patient Now Review: Your Next EMR Software For Better Patient Engagement?

Running medical spas and other aesthetic practices is no small feat: from coordinating medical billing of different patients to checking inventory for specific injectables of an upcoming procedure, there are plenty of odds and ends to keep track of. In the fuss of micromanaging the clinic, a practice can sometimes forget the most crucial part of their operations: their patients.

So how does PatientNOW help a practice bring back the focus on their patients? By making medical information like treatment pathways have easier input and integration, it becomes easier for a clinic to keep a steady eye on the procedures that can result in improving a patient's care. It's also an excellent app that works well in areas like segment marketing and lab integration, which play well to the needs of growing aesthetic providers.

Patient Now Review

Designed as an EMR software with a particular emphasis on its drip marketing component, PatientNOW's easiest function undoubtedly lies in its capacity to carefully categorize and keep track of patient data and other crucial information needed for a patient's pathway in and out of an aesthetic practice.

The Strong Points

While the basics of an EMR system can be found in the PatientNOW software - a cloud version for easier access, gift card integration, and HIPAA compliance - it's the platform's extensive infrastructure built around patient communication that truly shines. As an extensive EMR/EHR solution, the benefits it can provide a practice looking to improve patient management go far beyond lessening the reliance on paper or word documents.

Aside from making things like appointment reminders and integrating before/after pictures with a patient's profile, the communication options offered by the platform are far superior compared to other EMR solutions. Marketing and reaching any existing patients is easy due to the dedicated marketing segmentation feature offered by the platform, which can accomplish things like mass-sending of emails to specific patients to using its electronic transcription feature to make encoding – and sending – of patient data easier.

This useful feature can admittedly overshadow the other basics of this EMR platform like inventory management and staff rotations – though these features are implemented well on the platform and don’t require much technical training to use. This makes PatientNOW an excellent choice for a practice that has gained a little more experience with the basics of EMR software and its functions in optimizing operations for a practice.

The Points That Can Use Improvement

But while PatientNOW has a firm grasp of the basics and an excellent integration of marketing in the platform, it does come at the drawback of being extremely resource-intensive without the correct hardware and requires extensive training and experience to leverage its features properly.

Since the marketing features take up more of the platform’s capabilities compared to other features, any server or hardware that isn’t optimized for the traffic and the processing power required by sending emails and other communications may risk burning out a practice’s IT systems. While the processing power required for operating PatientNOW isn’t particularly high and any setup from the past five years ago can run the software just fine, older devices may have some difficulty with running the platform. Given the extensive updates pushed by the developers every so often, practices need to check if their hardware and software are up to par to keep up with the demand of running this particular EMR system.

And while making patient communications easier is definitely a much-needed feature for improving client management, it falls on the practice itself to send out engaging communications that don’t read like generic emails. This requires additional skills in marketing and content creation that your practice may not have access to – as while the platform provides the tools necessary for the robust distribution of information to patients, it doesn’t come with the skills necessary to craft engaging content. Without proper writing or someone well-versed in email marketing, you’re not likely to get much mileage out of the marketing feature of this EMR system.

Overall, PatientNOW brings patients to the forefront of the platform, which is an aspect that some EMR systems tend to not represent that well in their infrastructures for their software. It’s able to fulfill the basics of running a clinic's operations and market well to patients, especially if the user has been given enough time and familiarity with the platform to operate it well.

The Alternative: Calysta EMR

For practices looking for an EMR solution that balances the need for patient management and provides the support necessary to keep the operations of an aesthetic clinic running, Calysta EMR has the platform, the support, and the features that can help any cosmetic practice improve its services for existing patients while also guaranteeing growth for getting new patients.

Part of this is the software's ability to automate workflows by letting the patient have more control about setting up appointments, signing consent forms, and even having a dedicated Zoom integration for easier access. This makes better patient management more feasible for even smaller practices that may not have the resources or the technical expertise needed to compete with larger clinics, as the system can successfully address a patient's concerns entirely remotely before they come in for an upcoming procedure.

Calysta EMR is also designed to be user-friendly: aside from making daily automated backups to ensure no loss of data during emergencies, the interface was designed with the specific needs of an aesthetic practice in mind. This makes keeping track of key pieces of information like the appropriate dosage of a patient's upcoming treatment with buildable reports.

Keep Electronic Medical Records Safe With A Dedicated Patient Portal

PatientNOW is an excellent program that provides quicker solutions, buildable reports, and quicker updates on all parts of your aesthetic practice - whether that's about your patient's procedure or staff management. However, this solution may not always work for a cosmetic practice with a substandard archiving system, and a clinic looking to automate workflows needs heavy investment into how the platform functions, even with the use of pre loaded templates.

With extensive experience in patient care, Calysta EMR draws on this knowledge to create a platform that can help aesthetic practices with appointment reminders for patient scheduling, encounter notes for a patient's concerns, and even assist with focused marketing efforts to both new and existing patients. Our solutions are low-cost without sacrificing quality and can be scaled to the precise needs of your medical practice. For more information about our platform and the services it provides, contact us today.

Read more: Aesthetic Pro Review: A MedSpa Software Worth The Price?