If your practice management or billing system does not have robust customer relationship management capabilities, you should consider purchase such a systemBenefits of this software are manySuch a system will provide a more effective way for you to communicate with patients and potential patientsIt also can be used for keeping records of vendors you deal with as well as health care providers and related information.

In selecting a contact management/customer relationship management (CRM) system, some of the features you should look for include the ability to:

• Integrate contact records with your word processing system so that letters can automatically be addressed based on address information stored for the contact;
  Fax and email directly from the system;
  Interface or connect this system with your practice management/billing systemOne example of such an interface would be the ability to click a button next to a contact being viewed and to automatically pull up patient treatment information;
  Capture and seamlessly record contact information entered on a web page;
  Add custom fields to the contact record so that the system can be configured specifically for your practice;
  Schedule appointments directly from the contact;
  Automatically send an email to a contact about an upcoming appointment;
  Automatically import contacts supplied from an outside source such as a list broker;
  Easily customize screens;
  Produce a standard set of contact and activity reports;
  Provide the ability to automatically dial a contact from their recordFor example, once a week the system would produce an on screen list of upcoming appointmentsThe system should be able to dial the first number in the list and as each call is completed, automatically dial the next number in the list;
  Export all contact information in a standard industry format such as comma separated values
  Easily design and produce customized reports;
  Design and launch automated processesAn automated process executes steps in a sequence based on a configured set of rulesFollowing is an example of some automated processes: