Family Doctor

A fast growing network of medical practices needs a robust clinical management and payment system that is streamlined and easy for staff to learn and use.

MedicalDirector’s Clinical and Pracsoft practice management solutions integrate with Tyro’s payment systems, making transactions, billing and Medicare claim processing seamless and efficient. This enables a busy practice to process payments faster and more accurately, while boosting patient experience.

Background

Providing a high standard of medical and dental care for patients, Family Doctor is a growing network of GP-owned and operated medical and dental practices consisting of 12 GP clinics and 2 dental clinics.

As a fast-growing network that purchases and transforms practices across Australia, Family Doctor leverages MedicalDirector’s practice management solutions, integrated with Tyro EFTPOS machines, in order to ensure smooth, consistent and reliable clinical management systems across both urban and rural locations.

The Challenge

The rapidly expanding Family Doctor network needed a payment solution that was reliable and integrated well with their existing MedicalDirector practice management system. At the same time, they wanted a payment system that was efficient to use across the network of busy clinics, and was robust and reliable even in rural practices where internet coverage could be unreliable.

"I’ve been with Family Doctor for three years and in that time, the network of practices has already doubled," Family Doctor's Operations Manager, Jennifer Surie, said. "We already had a good working relationship with MedicalDirector and their support team, especially when it came to merging and streamlining databases as we purchased more practices and our network grew. Plus many practices we purchased already had MedicalDirector’s Clinical and Pracsoft from inception. So we wanted a payment system that integrated with that system easily."

The Solution

For the past four years, Family Doctor has integrated Tyro EFTPOS machines and as a result, have enjoyed a reliable payment and clinical management system.

"We really like how MedicalDirector’s software and Tyro integrate seamlessly. They work well together and are both very stable, fast and easy to use."

"Features like online reporting, the ease of setup and ongoing support make our clinics more efficient as we continue to grow," Jennifer added. "We’ve even had patients comment on how streamlined our payment and patient experience is for them."

Tyro’s automated machines also make payment process a breeze, saving reception and support staff valuable time. Meanwhile its 3G capability helps offer a reliable and stable system in times of poor Internet access.

"Unlike other payment systems, you don’t have to manually punch in the amount as Tyro does it all automatically," Jennifer explained. "And with rural, remote or regional practices like Family Doctor’s practice in Lilydale which has limited Internet access, Tyro is fantastic because it can switch to 3G when lines are down."

Additionally, as the network of practices has grown, setting up and training staff has been quick and easy.

"When setting up any new clinic we’ve purchased as part of Family Doctor, the ease of set up has been fantastic,” Jennifer said. “What’s great about Tyro integrated with MedicalDirector’s solutions is that it is easy during new staff training. During training the system walks new staff through what to do, how to communicate and how to interact with the patients when completing the transaction."

Another great benefit that Family Doctor found with the Tyro integration is that Medicare claims can be processed directly online and it’s instantaneous, so patients get their money back straight away.

"In the clinic we took over in Lilydale, and they used to do 90-day cheque schemes, where the patient would pay the out-of-pocket gap and the clinic would have to wait for the cheque to arrive from Medicare,” Jennifer said. “With the introduction of Tyro, the patient still pays the gap, but gets their refund back straight away. This really helps manage any practice debt better because we can collect the money straight away, and it improves the patient experience because they could get their refund straight away too."