How HotDoc’s Customer Service and Customisation Transformed Centenary Medical’s Day-to-Day
Stephanie and Laura are the Practice Managers at Centenary Medical in Queensland’s Jindalee. The bulk billing clinic has been running for 7 years and is family owned. As well as two full time GPs, the clinic has several allied health practitioners in-house, including an occupational therapist, a psychologist, a dietician and a podiatrist.
Stephanie describes with a laugh, “We’re a couple of bleeding hearts really. We’re a small clinic, very family oriented. We’re not a cattle run. We treat everybody the same. We do a lot of mental health stuff that other doctors just don’t deal with. We do a lot of care planning with our patients as well, from the very young to the very old.”
Stephanie explains, “A lot of doctors around here don’t do the care planning or the chronic disease because it takes them 30 to 40 minutes and they figure they can see an extra 4 patients so it’s not worth it. We think it is worth it.”
“We give people the time”, Laura adds.
“It’s a very happy, safe environment and it’s not a churner. Every patient gets called up by the nurse before they go in to see their doctor. We do a blood pressure check, we check weight/height, we find out what they’re in for, and check to see whether there’s anything else available that we can offer them.”
“It’s a holistic approach”, Stephanie says. “Often patients are being seen for an hour between the time they spend with the nurse and the doctor.”
Why the decision to move to HotDoc?
Stephanie and Laura first turned to HotDoc because they were looking to reduce their bill. Stephanie shares, “Our last booking provider directory was charging us an arm and a leg—I think we were paying something like $800 a month—and we hadn’t even started doing SMS because we worked out it was going to cost us like $1,000 a month.”
While it was price that originally triggered the decision to move, the real benefits of HotDoc presented themselves after the decision had been made.
A fresh change with a custom feel
Stephanie explains, “[HotDoc’s] products just turned out to be so much better.”
“We love the fact that we can own what goes on. Like, we can make changes ourselves. We can put a new doctor on and update what it is that they do. We can change the hours they work, the wording of the Recall. We can do everything.”
“Whereas with the other service, we had to wait 48 hours to have changes made. It took 2 days to change something and 2 days to change it back. We don’t have time for it. We honestly don’t have time. We’ve got enough fires to put out everyday.”
“It doesn’t work in health care”, Laura adds.
“You have to be flexible in your care. Things change all the time and we need our programs to be flexible too. We don’t want someone owning what we do. We want to own it ourselves. I think that’s the big thing for us.”
Above: Receptionist Leader, Laura, accessing the HotDoc Reminders dashboard
Above: One of Centenary Medical’s consulting rooms
A new level of customer service
HotDoc’s customer service has also proved to be a big drawcard for Stephanie and Laura. “It used to be that if appointments dropped out, or something went wrong, and we contacted our old booking provider, they couldn’t care less”, Stephanie says.
“Whereas HotDoc, the minute I message you, straightaway I get a reply.”
“And the training has been amazing”, Laura says.
“We never had training with our last booking provider. They said, ‘Look on the internet, the training is on there’. Whereas you know, we’ve had Leanne [HotDoc Customer Onboarder], who’s been absolutely fantastic to work with. She’s been on the ball all of the time. She’s such a happy-go-lucky person and it’s just fabulous.”
“You can sit and joke with her,” Stephanie adds laughing.
“And she’ll joke back and it’s very easy. It’s relaxed. And, you know, no question is a dumb question. She knows the products and the cause. And you know, if she doesn’t know – not that there has been many times where she hasn’t really known anything – but she would say, ‘Look, I’m going to get back to you’ or ‘I’m going to schedule another training session when I’ve got time so we’re not rushing and we can go through it properly’. I think that’s really valuable.”
“Our previous directory booking provider was the opposite,” Laura says.
“If we had a problem, it would be 48 hours before we’d even hear from somebody and we might just get an email, but with HotDoc, we get a phone call immediately.”
“At the end of the day, we haven’t had anything go wrong where we’ve had to ring you guys or send you a message,” Stephanie says.
“But I just know that if we did, you would be there, like when we’ve rung Leanne early on. It’s just nice to actually feel like you guys are there whenever we need you to be there. That’s what it feels like. And it feels like we’re not being ripped off.”
Making the transition to HotDoc
When asked how the transition to HotDoc was, Stephanie and Laura were understandably cautious but optimistic. “We were cautious to begin with, obviously,” Stephanie explains.
“It was worrying at first because it’s a big program. Like, you have a big offering—there’s a lot of stuff—and we didn’t know what we could or couldn’t do because we didn’t have the same amount of products with our previous booking provider. But it has actually been really easy.”
Laura agrees:
“It’s been exceptionally easy. Even putting the widget on the website was easy. Within 2 days everything was up and running. There was no downtime, it was just smooth.”
Stephanie says, “Of course, we had the first couple of days where we were a little unsure of what we should be prepping and what areas we should be focusing on and whatever, but as soon as we had training, it all just made sense.”
Above: Practice Manager, Stephanie, logging onto HotDoc
Above: Stephanie and Laura at the reception desk
“The beauty of it is, the way it is set out, you can’t really make a mistake”, Stephanie says.
“Like, if something doesn’t look right, we can go in and get rid of it and put something else in there. So that’s what’s been good.”
“And a lot more people are making appointments online, which is fabulous,” Laura adds.
A community beyond HotDoc
“And, I love the For the Love of Healthcare community”, Stephanie says.
“We’re all on that. It’s really helpful to see what other people are doing and other people’s comments… I get on there and throw in my two cents. It’s just a really nice supportive space.”
