When your patients leave the dental office, what happens to that paper referral they put in their pockets? It gets crumpled, spilled on, forgotten on a table, and often in the trash. But in a digital world, patients expect you to be more efficient than that. So imagine if referrals could be as simple as a click on your phone. That is the concept behind Bright Referral – digitizing the referral process into three simple steps.
The process starts with the Bright Card. It’s like a paper referral pad on steroids. The card contains NFC and custom software like the type in a grocery checkout. Once the dentist makes a referral, all the patients have to do is tap their phone on the Bright Card right in the office. All the information that the patient needs to contact the specialist pops up right on the screen – the specialist’s website, social media accounts, locations, the reason for the visit, office schedule, and pricing or insurance information. Then, the patient can easily and quickly schedule an appointment, send a message, or request treatment notes from the referring dentist. There’s no more waiting until the patient gets home, looks up numbers, has the time to research the office online, or delays until they forget to make the appointment.
On the other hand, Bright Referral allows doctors to analyze referral data and build their practices based on facts. Setting up the account takes less than five minutes. After that, referral data is collected and displayed in an easy chart and list form. Specific to the patient, you can see who came in through referral, when they called, which doctor referred them, and if dental notes need to be shared. On the practice growth side, specialists can see easy-to-read charts such as what season or month referrals are the highest or if referrals rise after a certain type of interaction with the referring office, like lunch or treats. You can use this data to encourage more referrals. For example, if you know who sent the most referrals in a specific month, you can send a thank you and a small gift for sending the most referrals.
The data also shows if a referred patient did not call for an appointment. For example, suppose an office is sending over ten referrals in a month, but only two are calling to schedule. In that case, it can be an opportunity to strategize how to transform those leads into appointments.
Since the company’s co-founder, Dr. Geoff Sudit, is an orthodontist, Bright Referral first launched to the orthodontic community. But any specialist can benefit by making referrals easier and obtaining data to improve referral performance. Liz Sudit, the other co-founder of Bright Referral, explains that the company was born when they recognized that the referral process needs improvement for a better dentist and patient experience. “My husband has been using this for about six months. With just his existing referral sources, he has seen a 30% increase in his referrals since using them. So, it pays for itself really quickly.” Seamless, simple, and trackable. Bright Referral shows that innovation and insight can lead to a better patient referral experience.
Visit us: brightreferral.co/canadaprint
About the Author
Lou Shuman is the CEO of Cellerant Consulting Group, dentistry’s leading corporate incubator and accelerator. He is a venturer in-residence at Harvard’s i-Lab, co-founder of LightForce Orthodontics, a member of the Oral Health advisory board and founder of the Cellerant Best of Class Technology Awards. He was selected in 2021 by Global Summits Institute one of the World’s Top 100 Doctors.
