How Online Patient Intake Forms Benefit Your Practice

Most every administrative process is moving digital in 2023. Some providers are conflicted as to whether or not this is the right move for their practice. They worry that going digital with many of their practice management responsibilities will leave them with cybersecurity risks and inefficiencies that harm them in the long-run. The truth about many digital processes is that they are more helpful than harmful. This is especially true when you partner with a trusted vendor of health practice technology that knows how to protect your practice data, patients, and processes, without exhausting your resources. A great example of a digital process that can improve your practice is the online patient intake form.

The online patient intake form benefits your practice in a host of ways like improving practice efficiency without risking your data. The online patient intake form can improve clinical decision making, patient satisfaction, the accuracy of patient data, and much more.

Benefits of the Online Patient Intake Form:

1) Shorter Check-in

When a patient has to fill out their forms by hand, in-office, inefficiencies take place that slow down your practice and extend wait times. For example, patients who take their time filling out their forms slow down providers, increase wait times, or do not finish their forms at all. When a patient does not finish their form it can result in a failure to have their most updated information on file and decreasing clinical decision making. By implementing an online patient intake form, providers can eliminate efficiency-eating processes and see shorter check-in times. Patients fill out their information from their home computer, prior to their visit, shortening wait times and improving your practice workflow.

2) Cut Costs

For providers all across the country looking to cut costs without sacrificing patient care, implementing the online patient intake form is a great way to accomplish your financial goals. This eliminates unwanted costs traditionally spent on printing forms with paper and ink and the cost of postage. Providers spend thousands of printing and reprinting every year. The right vendor of your health practice technology will offer an online patient intake form that costs less for your practice than printing, each year.

3) Improved PHI Accuracy

The accuracy of your Patient Health Information (PHI) is critical to clinical decision making. If a patient fails to have updated information, a provider’s ability to make a completely informed clinical decision slips away as important information is not available. Paper forms are often not entirely completed in-office, leaving information missing in a patient’s chart. Not only this, but the transcription process that has been long-associated with the paper intake form not only causes mass inefficiencies in the time of your front-line staff, but it leads to an increase in human error found in the patient’s chart. The online patient intake form eliminated the transcription process, improving PHI accuracy while also allowing patients the time they need to fill out the form to the best of their knowledge.

4) Positive Patient Experience

With the combination of decreased wait times, the elimination of paper forms, and improved clinical decision making, providers are able to offer patients a more positive medical experience. The online patient intake form helps patients visit with their providers via telehealth or e-visit, still giving their providers accurate PHI. Patients can also update their information at any time, even if they do not have a scheduled visit. The combination of each benefit listed above enables patients to be less frustrated with your practices required clinical workflow and empowers them to stay involved in their care.

To learn more about an online patient intake form that will benefit your practice, click here.