2019: A Cliniko year in review

Let’s begin by touching on a few of the most exciting events, and then afterward, you’ll have the chance to review all the new features that were released this year.

Process your Medicare claims (AU customers)

The most notable new feature is the Medicare integration that we launched in October. Finally, you can process Medicare claims through Cliniko! We’re thrilled with this new capability and what it means for your day-to-day operations. It took a lot of hard work to get this up and running, and we owe a huge “thank you” to the talented team at Medipass. They were instrumental in the development of this great new feature.

Import with ease

We acquired Cliniconnect, a company which provided services and add-ons for Cliniko users. One of their most popular tools was an import process, designed to transfer data from another practice management system into Cliniko automatically. Now, thanks to the acquisition, these importing tools will be built into Cliniko very soon. In other words, it’s going to be a whole lot easier to move practice data into Cliniko!

Conferences and meetups

Not only did we have a blast at several notable conferences, including Physiotherapy, Podiatry, ESSA, and Speech Pathology conferences, but we also held our first-ever Cliniko Community Meetups. These were casual gatherings that provided a fantastic opportunity for interaction between the people who make Cliniko and those who use it every day. We had some fantastic speakers donate their time, and we’re thrilled to offer a forum for people to talk about healthcare businesses and tech. We’ll definitely hold more of these events, so keep an eye out for when the next date is announced.

The Cliniko team meetup

As you may know, our fully remote team is dispersed around the globe and represents more than ten different countries. We love our diverse little family, but it can be tough living so far away from friends and colleagues. So, once a year, we meet up in person to work (and play) side-by-side and face-to-face. This November, we met at the Cliniko HQ in Melbourne, and spent a full week together working, laughing, and, of course, brainstorming all the ways we can continue our mission of making Cliniko the best it can be for you!

New feature releases

Looking for a complete list of every new feature we released in 2019? Well, we can't do that... there's too many. We can however highlight all the bigger ones! Enjoy the summary below, and remember, you can always stay up-to-date with new releases by checking out the Updates and Changes section of the Cliniko Community.

Patients and contacts

• The “Patients” page now includes the page number in the URL. Quickly jump to a particular page by simply changing the number.  No more button-clicking required.
• If you use any connected apps, it’s now easier to automatically open your Cliniko patient files inside those programs, thanks to a handy button that we added on the patient’s page.
• The primary “Patients” list now includes the type of phone number they have. “Cases” were introduced, allowing you to organise different groups of treatments together, such as GP referrals, injuries, and more.
• When assigning a contact to a patient as a referring doctor or referral source, the associated company name is now included with that contact.
• If a contact is a doctor, you’re now able to specify whether they’re a specialist or a general practitioner.

Financials

• We created a digital paper trail for invoices and payments. It’s now much easier to see the who, what, and when of any changes.
• Payment receipts got their very own “email” button.
• Xero-synced invoices now have their own page (rather than a pop-up!).

Online bookings

• You’re now able to specify how far in advance appointments can be made via online bookings.
• The subject line for your emails now supports the use of placeholders.  It makes writing a letter a little easier by automatically pulling relevant information into the content of your message.
• Appointment times can be reserved when patients book online. This means that during the booking session when a patient makes their appointment, their time slot will be held for a few minutes. That way, if they need to step away from their computer, the selection will still be available when they return. Best of all, you have the power to decide how long that time frame should be.
• The start of the week for the online bookings calendar changed from Sunday to Monday.
• Practitioners can choose a custom display order on the online bookings page.

Appointments

• Appointment change logs got a facelift! The related practitioner, business, and appointment type were all added. So, now you get a much more detailed view of any appointment changes.
• You now have the ability to cancel patients from repeating appointments. You’ll no longer have to do it one appointment at a time.
• We changed the alerts for appointment times that are in the past. They’re a little brighter and more visible now.
• If you’re attempting to schedule an appointment that conflicts with another booking, the message you’ll see is now much more clear than before.
• It’s now optional to attach a calendar event to confirmation emails.
• You can now add a “Display Name” within the business information setting. This internal designation is only viewable to you and your staff, and it helps to differentiate between clinics. That way, you can avoid any confusion if you have multiple locations with the same (or similar) name.
• We also released a new feature that allows you to create notes that appear on every appointment for a patient.

Treatment notes & letters

• You’ll now find a “Patient Info” tab added to the treatment notes page. In addition to the existing “Previous Notes” and “Appointments” tabs, you can quickly get an at-a-glance view of the patient’s birthday, general info, and more.
• The draft treatment notes that live on the dashboard are now collapsible, allowing you to hide them if you want the SMS replies below to be more visible!
• The treatment notes page got a new addition: The ability to “pin” notes to the top of the page! This is handy if there’s specific information you refer to frequently.

Reports

• The Practitioner Performance Report is now much easier to read with the separation of group and individual appointments.
• Online bookings are now included in the Appointments Marketing Report, making it easy to see the percentage of appointments booked on your website.
• Patient ages have been added to the Upcoming Birthdays Report.
• The Practice Revenue Report saw the addition of a “Payments Received (Cash-basis)” filter, which makes it easier to see the actual amount of income your clinic has brought in over a period of time. Previously, the Accrued Amount was your only option.

Communications

• Thanks to some fantastic behind-the-scenes improvements, your SMS messages now have a much higher deliverability rate.
• Sending messages to patients who last came in during a specific time frame is much easier since you now have a date filter for group SMS messages.
• Custom templates for appointment confirmations and reminders are now available. This makes it possible to easily send different messages for various types of appointments.
• We improved the deliverability of emails sent from Cliniko. So now, messages are much less likely to end up in a patient’s junk folder!

Patient data privacy

• There is a new setting which allows you to create an account-wide restriction for emailing invoices and payment receipts to patients.
• You also now have the option to anonymise the booking notifications that practitioners receiv. This ensures that no patient names or other identifying details will show up in those messages.
• You can opt to hide patient names from your browser history and any external calendar integrations with the newly-added patient name display setting.

Account security

• We added a step to the process of updating your email address. You’ll now receive a confirmation message at the new address before saving the proposed change. This verifies your access to the new account.
• Passwords and 2FA verification codes (if applicable) are now required when updating your credentials or those of another user.
• We introduced Account ownership. Users with the “owner” role are the only ones who can make changes to their account. For example, no one else can change an owner’s password.
• There is now an automatic session timeout setting. If a user is inactive for a certain period of time, they’ll be logged out of Cliniko and will have to sign in again. This helps to ensure that your account remains secure, even if someone forgets to sign out before stepping away from their computer.
• We’ve also included a setting for account-wide 2FA verification codes. It’s an optional security measure, but we highly recommend that you use it. It’s the most important way you can protect and secure your Cliniko account!

Well, that’s a wrap! Thank you for coming along on the incredible ride we had this year, and we’re thrilled to have you with us as we venture into 2020. We can’t wait to see what the new year will bring!

Cheers,

Your Cliniko Family