As telemedicine grows more prevalent every year, clinicians need a software solution that helps them communicate with patients and run their practices. Telemedicine software fills the gap by helping both practitioners and patients schedule and conduct virtual appointments.
The tools also help with tasks like completing forms, billing insurance, and tracking analytics. For more info on the best telemedicine software, delve into my list of the top options.
The Top 5 Best Telemedicine Software
Mend – Best for reducing missed appointmentsSimplePractice – Best for creating a professional websiteDoxy.me – Best for personalizing large clinicsOnCall – Best for digital health startupsUpdox – Best for office productivity and enhanced patient experience
The following telemedicine platforms create great clinician and patient experiences in their own unique ways.
#1 – Mend — Best for Reducing Missed Appointments
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If you’re searching for a telemedicine software that cuts down on patient no-show rates, Mend is a great option. According to Mend, there is a 23% average global no-show rate which costs a 10-provider practice an average of $857,808 in minimum lost revenue every year.
Mend’s Predictive AI helps determine when these no-shows are likely to happen.
Mend users can set up automatic notifications to reduce missed appointments. These can include a combination of phone calls, emails, or texts. Mend lets users automatically send paperwork, easily navigate reschedules and cancellations, and send bulk notifications. Patients can self-schedule appointments and receive calendar invites.
Digital patient intake forms allow patients to use any device to fill out forms. A patient will receive a form link via text or email, enter their date-of-birth, and then fill it out. Mend can be used to send things like images, income verifications, treatment plans, surveys, medical histories, e-signature forms, credit cards, insurance, leads, orders, and referrals.
Patients self-schedule appointments through their clinic’s website. They can customize details like appointment length, in-person or virtual, and more.
To further decrease no-show rates, patients can easily reschedule appointments. Mend factors in patient age, geography, provider availability, and insurance when generating schedule options.
Mend’s entry-level pricing plan is called MendFree Telehealth and is free to use. It comes with features like HD video, secure messaging, unlimited patients and employees, provider and patient support, canvas mode, and screen sharing.
MendPractice is the mid-tier plan, and it costs $29 per provider per month. In addition to the free plan’s features, MendPractice comes with electronic health record (EHR) integration, group visits, patient scheduling, phone and email support, digital forms, smart alerts, and an interactive patient waiting room.
The third plan is called MendEnterprise, and you must request a quote for pricing details. It comes with everything included in the other plans plus a dedicated customer success manager, patient self-scheduling, payment capture, virtual workflows, and customizable digital forms.
#2 – SimplePractice — Best for Creating a Professional Website
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SimplePractice is telemedicine software that helps with everything from setting appointments to billing patients. It helps eliminate paper use, organize appointments on the calendar, allow patients to schedule and enter payment details, reduce no-shows with emails and text reminders, offer telehealth appointments, and file insurance claims.
With SimplePractice, there’s no need to hire an expensive web developer or try to build a business website on your own. The platform comes with an add-on that allows users to create a personalized website. It starts out by asking users to choose from a selection of themes which can be changed later on if needed.
Its professional website builder lets users integrate SimplePractice’s appointment calendar along with electronic records. Users can receive appointment requests, promote their brand, and showcase testimonials. The websites are compatible with mobile phones, tablets, and desktops. It also covers website search engine optimization (SEO) for users.
All of SimplePractice’s pricing plans come with a 30-day free trial. For solo practices, it is broken down into two plans.
The Essential plan is for clinicians just starting out, and it costs $39 per month. It includes unlimited clients, paperless intakes, and online payments. The Professional plan costs $59 per month and includes custom templates, online booking, and add-on options.
Group practices will need to purchase the professional plan but at different price points. It starts at $98 per month for two clinicians and goes up to $410 per month with 10 clinicians. If your practice has more than 10 clinicians, you can add additional users for $39 each.
All plans come with free live support, mobile integration, HIPAA compliance, security, and reporting.
#3 – Doxy.me — Best for Personalizing Large Clinics
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For larger clinics looking to personalize and brand their telemedicine platform, Doxy.me is the perfect solution. While it also includes plans for smaller organizations, Doxy.me’s clinic and enterprise features are unmatched. The software is best suited for professional organizations, health systems, hospitals, and clinics.
Its custom branding feature lets users customize their platform to include company logos and themes. You can direct patients to a customized landing page that makes it seem like the platform was created in-house. Doxy.me also helps large clinics track trends, usage, and potential opportunities using its analytics tools.
Clinic users can customize waiting rooms using videos, images, and important content. In addition to clinician-on-patient video chat, Doxy.me allows clinicians to video chat with each other through its platform. Users will also receive a personalized subdomain to seem more professional. This ensures the name of the clinic is the first text seen when visiting the platform’s URL.
Doxy.me is separated into four pricing plans. The first option is free, and it includes basic features like waiting rooms, meeting history, browser notifications, email support, end-to-end encryption, and online help pages.
The Professional plan costs $29 per month and is intended for solo practices. It includes screen share, group calling, HD video, and on-demand chat support.
Clinics with 2 to 50 providers should choose the Clinic plan, and it costs $42 per provider per month. It has advanced features like shared rooms, admin controls, personalized subdomain, and customized branding. Larger organizations should choose the Enterprise plan, and pricing details must be requested. Enterprise includes an onboarding team and a dedicated account manager.
#4 – OnCall — Best for Digital Health Startups
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OnCall is a widely used telemedicine software helping startups, enterprises, brands, and clinics create virtual care programs and grow their businesses. It is used by more than 600 leading healthcare organizations to book more than one million appointments every year, and it has more than 10,000 users.
For fledgling practices looking to quickly implement a telemedicine platform, OnCall provides expert support and resources to launch in less than 30 days. You can quickly expand your business through customizable workflows, thus growing your customer base and operations. OnCall also comes with 24/7 customer support.
OnCall’s API integrates with existing data like appointment details, patient health information, billing records, and intake form responses. The platform simplifies billing and patient acquisition, and users personalize it with branding options. It also helps with appointment scheduling, payment and insurance verification, and pre-appointment device testing.
During appointments, clinicians can share interactive content, send instant messages, and chat through HIPAA compliant video software. The platform provides reporting tools revealing data like number of forms signed, total amount billed, booking requests received, and appointments scheduled. Clinicians can also record patient prescriptions, insurance, and forms.
OnCall has two pricing plans meant for small clinics or larger organizations. OnCall Practice costs $99 per license per month. It includes features like customizable patient profiles, analytics dashboard, branded email and SMS appointment reminders, digital files and forms, provider appointment scheduling, session notes, charting, receipts, and secure payment processing.
OnCall Enterprise lets users create a fully branded platform, and pricing information must be requested. It includes personalized patient emails, a dedicated customer success manager, onboarding support, insurance verification, free admin accounts, API access, branded website booking pages, branded mobile and desktop apps, and custom domains.
#5 – Updox — Best for Office Productivity and Enhanced Patient Experience
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Updox is a comprehensive telemedicine software that helps with office productivity and improving the patient experience. The platform has 470,000 users, and its database currently stores 150 million patients. Use it to keep your schedules full while reducing the need for physical paper copies.
For increasing productivity, Updox lets clinicians use any device to sign, edit, send, and receive faxes electronically. Providers use more than 1,200 pieces of paper per month on average. Therefore, its software is dedicated to turning forms digital and reducing waste and printing costs. Electronic documents can also be categorized as “Urgent” if they need immediate attention.
Patients can interact with clinicians from any device through secure messaging and video chat. Its Broadcast feature lets clinicians reach out to a large pool of patients at once, categorizing them by diagnoses and demographics. Its Patient Portal lets patients access bills, medical records, and appointment details.
Updox has a unique product offering with four plans. It has a Telehealth product, a Patient Experience product, an Office Productivity Product, and The Complete Communication Platform.
The Telehealth product is for virtual visits and includes video chat and secure text messaging. The Patient Experience product is similar but also includes patient reminders, broadcasting, patient portal, and electronic forms. The Office Productivity product focuses more on in-house tasks and includes electronic faxing, direct secure messaging, and electronic forms.
The Complete Communication Platform is a bundle of all three products into one. Pricing for all products must be requested, and a demo can be requested.
How to Find The Best Telemedicine Software For You
With so many features offered by telemedicine software, it can be difficult to pinpoint which ones are the most important. It’s best to go with a tool that digitizes forms, streamlines communication, lets you promote your brand, reduces no-shows, and records patient information and appointment histories.
Digitized Forms
Companies waste thousands of dollars on printing and paper costs every year. Digitized forms solve this problem by eliminating the need to buy and print paper.
Many patients and providers prefer digitized forms over physical paper copies. Collecting forms is more efficient because patients can complete them from any device from anywhere. Digitized forms can help companies progress towards their environmental goals as well.
Look for telemedicine software that advertises paperless or digitized forms. You want one that stores information like claims, medical records, insurance documents, patient intake forms, and more. You’ll also want a software that has e-signature capabilities for easy signature collection.
Communication Options
Clinicians should choose telemedicine software that comes with video chat and messaging options. While HD video isn’t mandatory, it is preferred. Being able to send messages and content during a virtual appointment is also important. If you find a software that lets users screen share in real-time, this is a bonus.
Communication doesn’t only apply during appointments. If you want improved transparency, choose a system that lets patients and clinicians interact before and after appointments. This allows patients to ask important questions about prescriptions, diagnoses, and treatment strategies.
Branding Capabilities
Many telemedicine software, especially enterprise-level solutions, have branding features. This allows practices to advertise their logo on things like websites, email signatures, forms, notifications, and patient portals. Branded software comes across as more professional to patients, and it is a great tool for marketing.
A branded landing page, for example, ensures patients they have visited the correct URL and are ready to log in. A custom subdomain is a great feature too. This allows users to add their practice name to the website URL. For example, the patient portal for a practice named “HEA Care” could be accessed by visiting “www.HEACare.abctelemedicine.com”.
No-Show Rate Reduction
Unfortunately, no-show rates are a common problem that practices face. No-shows waste time, cost money, and delays care for people who need it. However, telemedicine software has found ways to reduce no-shows.
Many no-shows happen because patients simply forget about their appointments. That’s why it’s important to choose a software that includes text, email, and voice appointment reminders. It also helps to choose one that lets patients easily cancel and reschedule appointments. That way, clinicians are informed ahead of time and can fill in the time slot accordingly.
Patient Recordkeeping
Make sure to choose a software that allows you to log important information about patients. These include details like prescriptions, diagnoses, allergies, symptoms, complications, and medical history. Another helpful recordkeeping feature is appointment history. This lets clinicians see a patient’s previous visits and the reasons they scheduled them.
Summary
To recap, Mend is the best telemedicine software for reducing missed appointments. SimplePractice is a great option for creating a professional website, and Updox is best for patient experience and office productivity.
Large clinics looking to personalize their platform should go with Doxy.me, and digital health startups should look at OnCall. If you need further guidance, make sure to consider our five telemedicine software criteria.
