Information for your Reception Team

The information below ensures your reception team understand the benefits of BetterConsult for your doctors and patients, with tools to help your reception team play a key role in BetterConsult's success. As you would expect, and may have experienced with other initiatives, your reception team will receive enquiries from patients when BetterConsult is introduced to patients for the first time.

Top Tips from the BetterConsult practice community
Practice manager guide to engaging the reception team

1. Discuss the benefits of BetterConsult with your reception team prior to implementation.
2. Ensure that waiting room and reception resources are in place prior to implementation.
3. Let the reception team know which GPs are using BetterConsult (therefore which patients).
4. When booking an appointment over the phone or face-to-face, let patients know they will receive a pre-consultation questionnaire. Also, add BetterConsult to your on-hold message. (suggested scripts below)
5. Have copies of the BetterConsult patient '1-pager' at reception to assist with patient enquiries.

Email to Reception Team 
Simply copy and paste the text below into an email and discuss it with your reception team. Feel free to tweak the email to suit your own style.

Dear Team, 

The doctors at our practice are now subscribed to BetterConsult, a secure pre-consultation questionnaire that captures a patient’s reason for appointment and relevant clinical information, providing a  summary to the doctor the moment the patient record is opened for the appointment.

How BetterConsult benefits our doctors 

• Control their consultations 
  by knowing the patient’s agenda from the start, doctors can prioritise accordingly
• Focus on treatment discussions 
  understanding the patient's needs more quickly means maximised treatment discussion 
• Set patient expectations 
  give patients a clear idea of what can be covered in one visit

These benefits naturally extend to benefit our patients as well. 

How BetterConsult works

BetterConsult integrates with our Best Practice software. Commencing shortly, patients that book new appointments will automatically receive an SMS from BetterConsult, prompting them to complete the pre-consultation questionnaire.

BetterConsult is completely secure and private and the output is only accessible to the patient’s doctor. 

Which patients will receive BetterConsult SMS?

Patients who are under 75 years of age and who have an appointment with the doctors subscribed to BetterConsult will receive the SMS.

Assisting our patients

 It is expected we'll receive enquiries from patients who are experiencing BetterConsult for the first time. The following will assist in handling patient enquiries:

1. When booking an appointment over the phone or at reception, please let patients know they will receive the BetterConsult SMS prior to their appointment.
2. We have placed posters and a desk stand at reception which explains how BetterConsult works.
3. On-hold message now includes information about BetterConsult.
4. For any questions or support enquiries, the BetterConsult team can be contacted on 
   1300 559 883 or email support@betterconsult.com 

We are excited to be implementing BetterConsult and you play such an important role in our success.

Let me know if you have any questions.