Digitization in the dental practice - How the Berlin practice Krekeler & Kollegen optimized its processes

In this article you will read about

• Krekeler & Kollegen ahead of digitization
• Nelly as an expert for practice digitization
• Challenges of analog document management
• Positive feedback from older patients
• Data protection like banks
• Future-proof everyday practice thanks to digitization
• Efficient digital with Nelly

With its treatment methods, the Berlin dental practice Krekeler & Kollegen is technologically ahead of many competitors. For example, it uses state-of-the-art dental procedures such as digital impressions and dental restorations with 3D acquisition (and thus treatment without taking impressions).

While complicated dental processes have long been digital, simple organizational processes such as patient admission and billing were still done on paper. But the practice has now changed that. We show how Krekeler & Kollegen have consistently pursued the digitization of their dental practice with Nelly and how they benefit from it today.

Time constraints and mountains of paper - Krekeler & Kollegen facing the digitization of their dental practice

The dental health of the entire family is at the center of the dental practice Krekeler & Kollegen. The focus is on tooth-friendly and tooth-preserving procedures. This means that the practice uses prophylaxis, preventive examinations and conservative dental treatments to ensure that patients do not develop any complaints in the first place.

While the practice is proactive about patient health, until recently it relied on familiar analog processes for organizational procedures. For example, it still handled medical histories, patient information forms, data protection and invoices in paper form. However, this presented the practice with challenges time and again.

Paper form makes processes slower and more expensive

Doctors and medical assistants spend a third of their working time on analog administrative tasks - such as taking medical histories and issuing invoices. This also gave dentist and practice owner Melanie Krekeler pause for thought. She therefore began to research how she could optimize the organizational processes by digitizing her dental practice. It quickly became clear that digital solutions would help the practice eliminate mountains of paper, save costs, reduce the workload of its professionals, and make it easier for patients to visit the practice.

Nelly as an expert for the digitization of the medical practice

While searching for a provider for digitization, Krekeler & colleagues then came across Nelly. The practice was quickly convinced by Nelly's holistic approach. The provider digitizes a large number of bureaucratic processes in medical practices - from medical history to documents such as cost estimates to billing.

What also convinced the Berlin healthcare practice: Nelly is an established expert on the topic of digitization in dental practices. The platform has already been used by more than 450 medical practices. To date, more than 350,000 patients have benefited from this. In this context, Nelly has already digitized over 3 million documents.

Digitizing the dental practice - Nelly solves these challenges

For Krekeler & Kollegen, the main focus was on digitizing documents. In this way, the dental practice wanted to simplify the entire daily work routine - for employees and patients. To achieve this, it was able to master these challenges:

Elaborate patient admission

Since the digitalization of the dental practice, the case history has become much less time-consuming and cumbersome. For example, staff no longer have to manually transfer the medical history form filled out by patients into their own system and then bring the form from the reception desk to the treatment room.

The practice's dental administrative assistant (ZMV), Jasmin Link, also noted that: "The medical history form is right in the doctor's office, without us having to take it there. That makes everyday life easier for all of us here."

In the practice, patient admission now works like this: Patients scan a QR code directly at the reception desk and fill out the medical history form on their smartphone in the waiting room. From there, the data is automatically and directly transferred to the practice's system - and can also be viewed by the dentist in the treatment room.

Inefficient handling of documents

Before digitization, all documents - both before treatments and afterwards - always had to be printed out first and then filled out and signed by the patient and returned to the practice. Often, this also required the patient to send them by mail. This not only cost money, but also a lot of time. Now, Melanie Krekeler's team can complete this process for many documents with just a few clicks - just like the patients. Documents such as cost estimates and clarification forms are delivered digitally - only certain documents still require the written form . Nelly stores the digitally signed documents in the patient portal. The data is then transferred to the PVS via an interface.

Complicated calculations

The Berlin dental practice was also able to simplify billing with Nelly. Patients now store their preferred payment method and Nelly issues invoices via email or SMS. For the practices, this means: faster liquidity, less paper consumption and more time savings.

Digitization of the dental practice: Positive feedback from older patients

Patients do not need an app to fill out the admission form at Krekeler & Kollegen quickly and easily. They can simply store their data in the browser on their own cell phone. In this way, the data entry process runs in a familiar way. This is particularly helpful for older people. They don't suddenly have to operate a different device or operating system.

The digitization of the dental practice is therefore also finding favor with older patients, as ZMV Jasmin Link explains:

"Older patients have predominantly responded positively to this. If they have a cell phone, they're thrilled with the ease of data entry."

Despite the holistic digitization of the dental practice, Krekeler & Kollegen remains flexible. If patients do not have a smartphone (with them), they can still fill out the admission or treatment form on paper.

Data privacy - as secure as banks

Sensitive data such as patient information requires the highest possible level of data protection. To ensure that the data is just as secure as on paper (or even more so), Nelly's highest standards of data protection for practice digitization were a decisive factor for Krekeler & Kollegen. At Nelly, the team found bank-like data protection: all data is encrypted and stored on German servers in compliance with DSGVO. In addition, Nelly has undergone certification by TÜV for audited data protection.

The digital dental practice is therefore not only well received by patients, but also by the team. Jasmin Link, a dental hygienist, let us know:

"The changeover here in our team has been positive throughout. Since we already work very digitally in everyday dentistry as well, the switch to digital documents was just the next logical step."

Future-proof everyday practice thanks to digitization

Just as the team around dentist Melanie Krekeler treats patients with foresight, the practice is also taking a forward-looking approach to the (digital) dental future. The fact that this future lies online is demonstrated not only by the recently introduced e-prescription, but also by the soon to be mandatory electronic treatment and cost plan (eHKP). Practices that are hesitant about digitization today will therefore quickly lose touch - with the requirements of the industry and the expectations of patients.

Efficient digital with Nelly

Nelly is the first company in Europe to digitize dental practices holistically. Practices can easily integrate the software into their existing practice management program. The result: You save

• 90 minutes a day,
• 80 percent in paper and printing costs and
• 30 percent settlement costs.

Create a digital workflow in your practice now. We will advise you on your individual case free of charge and without obligation!

Contact Nelly now!

The personal designations used in this article always refer equally to all persons. For the sake of better readability, we have refrained from using double or opposite names.