Canyon Creek Dental Clinic

Canyon Creek Dental Clinic Boosts Efficiency With Lighthouse 360

Patient communication software wasn’t a new concept for Canyon Creek Dental Clinic in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. However, the practice’s existing PCS required a lot of time-consuming manual entry. “We needed something that would work faster,” says Office Manager Monica van Roijen. “When we looked at what [Lighthouse 360] could do, it just made sense.” 

The four-dentist practice, which sees some 30 to 35 patients per day, implemented Lighthouse 360 in March 2020, and immediately began seeing positive results. 

Saving Time With Automation

Prior to Lighthouse 360, Canyon Creek’s four front desk employees spent hours a day sorting through data and pulling up patients lists to find canceled appointments or patients who were due for a recall. 

“We would go into Dentrix, print out reports and go through them to find the patients and contact them,” van Roijen recalls. 

Now, patients are contacted automatically, and Lighthouse 360 automatically receives notice of confirmations or cancellations. Van Roijen estimates Lighthouse 360 has shaved 10 to 20 hours per week from their formerly time-consuming routine. 

The Recall feature, which automatically contact patients due for an appointment, is one of van Roijen’s favorites. “One thing I really like about the program is that if patients haven’t been seen for 18 months and we’ve contacted them for one last try, we get a notice saying this patient hasn’t [responded] so we can inactivate them instead of going through all our [data] to find them.” 

Speedy Communications Spell Cost Savings 

Canyon Creek Dental Clinic launched Lighthouse 360 right around the time COVID-19 hit. Thanks to the software’s email features, the staff was able to easily notify patients of the practice’s new safety protocols. “Contacting all our patients would have been really [time-consuming] with Dentrix, but with Lighthouse, we were able to contact everybody quickly,” recalls van Roijen. 

On a lighter note, the team also used Lighthouse 360’s email feature to alert patients they were holding a Christmas raffle. At a time when fewer patients were in the office, “Lighthouse gave us the opportunity to get all of our patients involved,” van Roijen says. 

Lighthouse 360’s two-way texting and Virtual Waiting Room features have also been helpful during the pandemic. “The night before an appointment, we send out a notice asking the patient to self-isolate and contact the office when they arrive,” van Roijen explains. “We can text [back and forth] and either tell them to come in or have them wait outside until the treatment area is cleaned and ready for them.”

One benefit of Lighthouse 360 came as a pleasant surprise. “We used to send out reminder cards for appointments and recalls. Now we don’t have to. That’s a really big cost saver,” says van Roijen. 

With less than a year of using Lighthouse 360 under their belts, Van Roijen’s team is still learning how to get the most from the software. But already, she says, “It’s saved a lot of time compared to doing things hands-on and allows us to respond to patients really quickly.” That’s something to smile about.