---
title: 3 Signs You Need a Healthcare CRM
description: A Healthcare CRM can help companies to get organized, control costs, provide valuable reports and insights, and even improve patient satisfaction.
---

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# [3 Signs You Need a Healthcare CRM](https://blog.gravitydigital.com/3-signs-you-need-a-healthcare-crm)

 Written by [Casey O'Quinn](https://blog.gravitydigital.com/author/casey-oquinn) | March 9, 2017

A Customer Relationship Management (CRM) application is essential for every business, including providers and practices in the healthcare space. Some applications claim to be industry specific, like a healthcare CRM. Other applications are universal in nature, but also customizable.

Overall, a CRM can help healthcare companies to get organized, control costs, provide valuable reports and insights, and even improve patient satisfaction.

# 3 signs it’s time for a Healthcare CRM

**1. You are inefficient.**

Inefficiency can take on many different looks. All of these are a telltale sign that you’re in need of a CRM:

- Sometimes, inefficiency looks like clunky and time-consuming processes, procedures, and workflows.
- Other times, it looks like a team entering the same information into multiple systems. *(This is inefficient in terms of time and cost!)*
- On the more dangerous end of the spectrum, it could be data that contains errors and leads to mistakes.

The [New York Times](http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/us/health-system-waste-tallied.html), covering an Institute of Medicine study, revealed 30 percent of U.S. healthcare spending (about $750 billion) was wasted in 2009, on byzantine paperwork and excessive administrative costs among other problems.

**2. Technology gaps are affecting patient experience.**

What is a technology gap? It’s simply an issue, process, or missing element that could be solved or “*closed*” by implementing software or other technology. 

While a technology gap can be hard to spot, here are a few symptoms that you're dealing with in your practice:

- Patients complaining about intake process.
- Patients have to provide the same information multiple times.
- Patients that don’t know what to expect during an office visit, exam, procedure, or surgery.
- Patients unclear on when they will receive results and reports.
- Patients do not have a clear method of delivering feedback.

  
**3. Your patient outreach is lacking.**

A healthcare CRM allows providers to communicate with *specific* groups of patients.

Here are some outreach issues a CRM can address:

- You are unable to segment your patients for specific outreach. For example, sending results of a new study to patients with diabetes.
- You don’t have a tool to send patient education materials to patients, especially materials that could improve patient outcomes.
- You don’t have a way to market to your patients. For example, informing patients about new equipment and capabilities within your practice.

A note about HIPAA and PHI: 

There are obvious concerns to address when storing patient information in a CRM or Healthcare CRM. Referring to a CRM as HIPAA compliant is not quite right. A CRM, at its core, is a database and it *can be* HIPAA compliant. As with any database, it’s all about security, user roles, record-level access, and the data that’s stored inside of it. Consult with your compliance department to determine your specific requirements as it pertains to HIPAA and PHI.

**Conclusion**

You’re not alone. Issues stemming from a lack of a CRM solution reaches to every industry and profession.

*40% of salespeople still use informal means such as Microsoft Excel or Outlook to store customer data. (HubSpot, 2016)*

There is a wide range of options from “off the shelf” CRMs, Healthcare CRMs, and universal/customizable CRMs.

[View full post](https://blog.gravitydigital.com/3-signs-you-need-a-healthcare-crm)

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