What is Practice Management Software?

Practice management software (PMS) is a type of program used to operate medical and healthcare practices. Its core purpose is to help organize administrative tasks, streamline appointment bookings, simplify invoice creation and billing, and manage client or patient medical records. At the core, a practice management system will include a diary (calendar for our United States customers) or scheduling program to manage patient bookings. In addition, there will also be a client management function that stores important patient details. Practice management software providers offer a diverse range of features, and this usually varies depending on the type of health practice the software specializes in. Most practice management systems will include these key features:

• Appointment calendars
• Client database
• Clinical notes
• Patient correspondence
• Test result uploading
• Text/email appointment reminders
• Financial reporting

But before we get too detailed, let’s look at the bigger picture…

Firstly, what is Practice Management?

Practice management is the general term used for the process of managing the administration and business aspects of a health clinic or medical practice. Larger clinics will have a dedicated ‘practice manager’ to perform and be responsible for these tasks, but for most health clinics, these functions will be done by the practice owner, receptionist or admin team.

Practice management tasks include; administration of daily operations, business planning, records management, client communications, hiring and managing staff, ordering and managing equipment and consumables, ensuring regulatory compliance, invoicing and management of debtors, and of course, appointment and calendar management. These tasks and duties are distinct from the clinical roles which form the basis of the actual health service being provided by the clinic.

So what is Practice Management Software?

Practice management software is the application (or computer system) that helps you put all of the practice management tasks together and manage all of the information involved with running a health clinic. It is specifically designed for health practices to streamline and automate the common tasks of practice management.

While a very small and low-volume practice might be able to survive using manual, paper-based systems, most practice owners find that they are much more efficient and professional once they move to practice management software. In fact, many practices tell us that they wished they’d started with Power Diary sooner!

Instead of having a separate place for client contact records, treatment notes, appointment calendar, invoicing and more, you can have all of this information in one, integrated place. Plus, your practice management software can make many tasks significantly more efficient – like appointment reminders, writing up treatment notes, and sending client referrals. And of course, the reporting functionality of practice management software can help you understand what’s happening in your clinic, so that you can make improvements.

Does Your Clinic Need Practice Management Software?

Feel like your practice is perfectly fine on its own? Like you don’t want to waste your money on practice management software? Well, you just may want to think again. These statistics from a recent study conducted by SoftwareAdvice.com point to a growing need.

According to their research, the most common needs that practices had when starting with or switching to a new practice management system include; scheduling, treatment plans, and billing.
See the breakdown below.

If these functions are important in your clinic, chances are you’ll benefit greatly from a proper practice management tool.

Benefits of Practice Management Software

The best practice management systems will give you benefits including;

What about Online Practice Management Software?

When using online practice management software like Power Diary, you’re taking advantage of software that is ‘in the cloud’, ‘online’, or ‘web-based’ (all of these terms mean the same thing). This means that you benefit from a number of important advantages. Simply by logging into Power Diary, you can easily manage appointments, communicate with patients, record custom notes, send invoices or process credit cards, and so much more. To keep it simple, web-based practice management software is hosted on the Internet. This means that the software is not installed on your local computer, and instead, you can access the software via your web browser on your computer, tablet or smartphone. There’s no clunky software to download, and your client data is far more secure.

How does Practice Management Software Work?

Practice management software works by combining a few key features into one powerful system. Each of these are inter-related, but to break them down, when you start with Power Diary, you get;

Plus More

The best practice management systems will also include detailed reports & analytics to help you manage your practice better. They should also integrate with other key software that you might use (eg Xero, Mailchimp, Stripe, etc).

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So, hopefully, that’s given you a good understanding of what practice management software is and the benefits of using it in your practice.

If you’re still wondering whether Power Diary is the right practice management system for your clinic, why not start a
free trial here 👇 to see for yourself!