Top Tech Picks For Clinicians & Practitioners (2022)
October 10, 2022
Ahh… Technology!
It can be a love/hate relationship for many clinicians.
After all, you got into this field because you want to help people.
Not because you want to spend hours tinkering around with technology & software!
I hear you, friend!
Whether you’ve warmed up to technology in recent years, or you still grumble about it, I think you’ll find today’s post helpful. As you’re reading, take inventory of the systems you’re using in your practice, and stay curious about how these tools might serve you even better.
Anddd, for those who are new around here – hiii, I’m Ronda. 👋
I’m so happy you made it to my little corner of the internet today. As a long-time clinician & business owner, I help practitioners grow highly-profitable & transformative practices.
And guess what?
Behind every highly-profitable practice is a well-organized stack of tech tools that keep things running smoothly.
So let’s get to it, shall we?
Why Tech Matters For Practitioners.
First off, it’s important to remember that it’s not ABOUT the tech.
It’s about you & your patients!
And creating a high-quality patient experience. 👏
But it’s hard to create that high-quality experience when you’re spending your day manually scheduling (and rescheduling) patient appointments, following up on missed appointments, or tinkering around with some email marketing platform that keeps giving you issues.
Not to mention how much time it takes to send out your supplement protocols and other documents when you’re communicating entirely via email (I’ve been there before, it’s the worst!).
Honestly, you could be the best healthcare provider out there, but if you come across as disorganized and/or unprofessional…
Your wellness practice will suffer.
And, even if your patients are super happy, you only have so much energy each day, and I want you to spend it efficiently. Which means… you NEED better systems to streamline your practice.
So, let’s start with the basics!
Essential Tech for Practitioners.
These are my top software & tech selections… the stuff you need to attract & serve your patients.
Patient Management | Top Tech Pick = Practice Better
One-stop-shop patient management – essential! 🙌
If you’ve been following me for any amount of time, you know my top pick in this category – Practice Better! In fact, I just did a deep dive into this system, which you can read about here.
Practice Better is the perfect platform to manage your patients whether in-office or virtually. You can use it to set-up discovery calls & appointments, host secure video appointments, as well as send notes, documents & patient contracts. If you have a group coaching program, you can even host the content on Practice Better!
Online Scheduling | Top Tech Pick = Acuity
Automated scheduling, an absolute must. 💯
If one of your goals is a booked-out practice, you’re going to need a great scheduling tool!
Now, keep in mind that Practice Better does offer scheduling. Buttt, I’ve found that many practitioners (myself included) prefer to use Acuity for the more advanced functionality, like automations & form customizations.
Acuity is my top pick in this category because it’s HIPAA compliant and reasonably priced. Another great option is Calendly, which has a cool feature called Round Robin, which is great if you have multiple practitioners and want to auto-assign bookings based on a set of criteria.
Payment Processor | Top Tech Pick = Stripe
Getting paid – very essential!! 👏
Stripe is my top pick for a payment processor. Just go to stripe.com where you can create an account & connect your business checking account. From there, you can connect Stripe to your Practice Better account, making it easy for patients to pay you.
Now, payment processors do take a percentage of the transaction, so you’ll want to account for that. Currently, Stripe collects ~2.9%, which is very similar to Paypal (another payment processor option). While it’s not fun to fork over a chunk of change with each transaction, you want to make it convenient for people to pay you, and Stripe does a great job at this! 😉
Video Conferencing | Top Tech Pick = Zoom
Virtual sessions – yes please! 🙋♀️
Most of you are probably offering telehealth, but even if you’re not, you probably have a need for a great video conferencing platform as a one-off option. My top pick here is Zoom, which works for HIPAA-compliant patient calls, and can also be used for group coaching programs and webinars. The great thing about Zoom is that it’s really well known, and there’s a good chance your patients are already familiar with how to use it.
Virtual File Storage | Top Tech Pick = Dropbox
Traditional filing cabinets are a thing of the past. 🙅♀️
Dropbox is the perfect place to store standard operating procedures (SOPs), team member onboarding documents, legal documents, tax returns, brand guidelines & logo files. Google Drive is another option for this.
Emails & Newsletters | Top Tech Pick = Constant Contact
Staying top-of-mind with your patients is a must. 👌
Utilizing an email marketing platform to send friendly emails to your audience (on a regular basis) is one of the BEST ways to stay booked & selling. My top pick in this category is Constant Contact because quite frankly, it’s easy, affordable & HIPAA compliant.
Other options to explore include Flodesk, ConvertKit & Active Campaign. If you think you’re going to go alllll out with email marketing in the future, Active Campaign offers the most robust features of the bunch. But regardless of which one you choose, commit to sending out a regular newsletter and create a simple branded template that you can use over and over.
Pro Tip: there are freelancers who specialize in helping you setup your email marketing system, so once you’ve chosen which provider you want to use, look online for a freelancer who specializes in that specific platform.
Now that we’ve covered some of the essentials, have a scroll through my other honorable mentions, most of which I use in my own business, or have seen used successfully by the clinicians in my mentorship program.
Design & Marketing | Top Tech Pick = Canva
Whipping together good-looking graphics, documents & presentation slides is a must in today’s online world. Canva.com is hands down my top pick in this category with an easy drag & drop interface that lets non-designers create professional-looking materials.
There is a free version, but I recommend upgrading to Canva Pro, which allows you to use the Brand Kit (which helps you stay consistent), gives you access to a larger library of stock photography & allows you to do things like download graphics with a transparent image (important for things like logos).
Top uses for Canva include social media graphics, social media profile banners, lead magnets, downloadable PDF guides, webinar slides, logo creation & more.
Top Tech For Marketing
A great option for sending text broadcasts to groups of patients. Adding text-based outreach into your marketing strategy can help you stay top-of-mind with your patients, which leads to a more fully booked practice.
ClickFunnels makes it easy to create attractive “opt-in” & “sales pages”. For an affordable monthly cost, you get access to their page builder & customizable templates, which is perfect if you have an online course or wellness program that requires a dedicated sales page.
We are visual creatures! This is my go-to spot for finding free stock photos that can be used to enhance your website, social media graphics, webinar slides, patient handouts & lead magnets.
Having well-designed marketing materials is important, butttt you don’t always have the budget to hire a designer! When this happens, Creative Market is your answer. This is *the* spot for amazing templates. It’s perfect for social media templates, pre-made logos & pretty much any other kind of template you might need.
Top Tech For Courses & Communities
Kajabi markets itself as an all-in-one platform offering course hosting, email marketing & websites all in one place. However, most practitioners have had the best luck when using Kajabi just for their course hosting rather. They do courses *really* well, but some of the other areas are lacking functionality.
An alternative to Kajabi & Facebook Groups… Circle allows you to host free or paid communities, coaching sessions & courses. They recently added an amazing new feature that lets you “go live” directly on the platform, which makes this a very attractive option for anyone looking to migrate their group off of Facebook.
Top Tech For Financial & Legal
Quickbooks is pretty much the gold standard for tracking income & expenses. Plus, your accountant will thank you for choosing Quickbooks at tax time… 😉
Top Tech For Admin & Operations.
These tools are not required but are recommended for growing and scaling your online nutrition business. You won’t need all of these but you may want to use several of them.
This is a great tool for when you need to record videos of your screen. Perfect for recording the processes & administrative tasks you want to hand off to a Virtual Assistant (VA). You can record yourself performing each task and use that as a training video for your new assistant or team member.
Zapier is perhaps the most magical on my top tech list! It helps all of your systems “talk” to one another, and allows you to automate just about anything in your practice! Once you create one “zap”, you’ll be addicted! 😉
Slack is a great communication tool for team members such as virtual assistants (VA), billing specialists, or health coaches.
Remember, Technology is Your Friend!
Hopefully this roundup of top tech & software picks has been helpful.
I’m continually adding new finds to the list, so be sure to save it for future reference!
If you have questions about something, don’t hesitate to send me a DM on Instagram at @drrondanelson or email me here.
I love hearing from you all!
