Working online

Calling on skills from her previous career in IT, member Stacey Chapman offers advice and tips on how to begin finding your way with working online.

Stacey Chapman

Member: London

In the last year more and more of our daily personal and work lives have been moving online. But lots of acupuncturists feel intimidated by the online world and the tech side of things and can be hesitant to join in. Another way to look at it is to see how it can benefit both you and your practice and more importantly your patients.

There are plenty of online systems out there, from calendar bookings and sending online forms to full patient management systems that also include taking notes, telehealth calls, invoicing and billing.

A good place to start is to answer a few questions, to see what is taking up your time. What small steps can help reduce the overload and make things easy for your clients?

Getting started

I would recommend writing out on paper what your current processes are: • How do you communicate with patients: email, phone, WhatsApp, text message, other social media channels? • How do they book an appointment with you? • What if they want to reschedule or cancel? • What information do you regularly send to new patients/existing patients? • What other tasks are taking up your time?

Once this is all written down you can start to look at what the best solutions might be. I normally recommend taking baby steps: focus on the things that can make your life easier with less admin.

Having a calendar online to manage appointments and send reminders can be a big help. You may choose to make this available for patients to book in – or maybe it’s just for you to get started.

Here are the questions to think about when looking at what is available.

What’s the goal?

• Based on your written list, think about the goal of adding in an online system. For example: • streamline bookings • online bookings for patients • sending confirmations/reminders • telehealth or automatic links to video services like Zoom • keeping treatment notes • help with invoicing/billing and financials • reporting on your practice

What’s your budget?

There are free options that may work for you. These normally have some limitations on number of appointments/ locations and reduced features available.

Paid plans are usually on a rolling monthly contract, often with discounts for an annual subscription.

Do you need to connect to other services?

• You may already have an online calendar to keep your personal time like Google or Apple. Many systems will connect in and sync with these. • You may also want to connect with

Zoom or Google Meet etc for video calls. • Do you send a patient newsletter using something like Mailchimp?

Often these services can be set up to sync details automatically.

People/locations/services

• Think about locations – do you work from multiple clinics? • If you work with an associate, how do you need to manage their bookings? • In case you offer different therapies such as qigong classes, many systems also allow for group bookings.

Branding & customisation

What about branding and messaging? Many free plans have restrictions. Is it an important part of your marketing to be able to customise your system so that people recognise when things are connected to you.

Information gathering

Do you want to collect additional information from your clients? For example completing the Covid screening questionnaire before an appointment, or sending your intake form with some questions before you see them in person.

Security & privacy

Think about the security and privacy of any data you collect. Many companies have clear information about GDPR compliance on their websites. You may need to update your data privacy policy and let clients know about this.

Secure passwords are essential, so not just the same ones you use for everything online! Adding two-factor authentication is also a good idea, where you get sent an additional code via text or an app to enter when you log in, as well as your password.

Ease of use

As well as fitting in with your processes, your system needs to be easy for you to use. Some of the free systems can be a little more difficult to find your way around. Here are some of my favourites for you to explore.

Scheduling systems

Calendly 〉 calendly.com: really simple interface – free plan allows you to have one appointment type and to send confirmations and reminders via email. Good if you want to keep things simple and just streamline your bookings

Acuity Scheduling 〉  acuityscheduling.com: paid plan with a few more features, from $15 USD/month. Great if you have multiple practitioners, different appointment types and want to customise your confirmation and reminder messages. Can be set up to include forms for patients to fill out and to accept payments.