That said, your skin is also very susceptible to damage and various maladies. For people in the throes of potential skin cancer diagnoses or other problems, navigating the end-to-end experience of finding a doctor that they trust and who works with their insurance can feel nearly impossible.

The practitioners and staff at Utah Valley Dermatology witnessed and experienced this customer issue firsthand. According to Julie Dunn, the Practice Manager for Utah Valley Dermatology: “Coming to the doctor for skin cancer is stressful. So, [we asked ourselves] what can we do to remove every other factor in that equation for the patient so that they can just worry about their medical care?”

Despite the advances and major changes the medical and healthcare arenas have made, the customer experience continues to be stuck in the past. In the best-case scenario, patients have to log into their insurance portal, find an approved doctor, and then contact that doctor to see if they’re accepting new patients. Or, alternatively, patients try to find a local doctor on their own and hope for the best. Either way, they’re playing a lot of phone tag.

But, the folks at Utah Valley Dermatology saw this inequity and pushed to give patients the treatment they deserve. “Healthcare is changing. In the past, healthcare was never convenient for the patient. What we’re trying to do at Utah Valley Dermatology is we’re making healthcare convenient for the patient.”

On top of that, finding the right doctor is an extremely personal experience. So, Utah Valley Dermatology wanted to make it easy for patients to identify whether or not a practitioner that fit their needs and circumstances based on others’ experiences.

For Utah Valley Dermatology, the solution was simple—“We wanted an easy way for patients to schedule appointments.”

Podium enabled Utah Valley Dermatology to respond to patients in a timely fashion rather than force them to sit in a call queue. “We had so many phone calls come in that we couldn’t answer them all. We’re more likely to schedule an appointment if it’s easier for the customer to reach us. We wound up increasing the number of scheduled appointments because we have patients that would prefer to schedule with us because they prefer to send a text message.”

Additionally, Utah Valley Dermatology could leverage Podium’s Review tool to give patients a platform to describe their experience as a reference point for people looking for a new dermatologist or doctor. According to Dunn “We believe that by offering the patient a really easy way to express their unique vantage point of their experience with Utah Valley Dermatology, that we empower the patient in their medical care. Their footprint on our practice, in a form of a review, allows our clinic to improve care and feel success when our care meets the quality standards of the patient.”

Plus, Podium has allowed Utah Valley Dermatology to get more done as a team and collaborate or reassign tasks when needed. “Podium is really easy for our staff to use. It’s easy to figure out who has seen the patient’s text, who is assigned to the text, what needs to be done, and if the task’s been completed or the patient’s been helped. It’s very user-friendly. And it’s easy for someone to pick up in the middle of the conversation and finish it. Our staff members are using it more than they did the last system. And because they’re using it more, patients are getting a faster response” says Dunn.

In a few months’ time, Utah Valley Dermatology has experienced over 350 new inbound leads, received 50 new reviews, and they’ve had over 2,700 active conversations with patients.

Overall, at Utah Valley Dermatology, Podium has been a major hit. Patients can easily see what others’ experiences were like through the reviews. And not only that, they’re able to contact Utah Valley Dermatology when it works best for them through a channel that works best for them, while the staff is able to schedule more appointments and answer questions quickly. “Our employees are more likely to use it if it’s easy to use—and Podium is! They use it and they’re enjoying using it.”