The referral form that went to a to-do folder
An orthodontic practice in Suffolk gets all of its new patients from referring dentists, who complete a registration form on the practice website. The form emailed reception. Unread emails were saved as PDFs into a “to be done” folder, and every so often someone worked through it, typed each referral into Orthobridge, the practice management system, and moved the PDF to “done”.
The hole was obvious once you looked. Click an email while answering the phone and it was marked read and silently dropped out of the batch. A dropped email was a lost new patient. The retyping was slow, and the reception team didn’t like it; data entry isn’t why they’re there. Everyone knew. Nobody had time to fix it while running the day job.
We built nothing. We talked to management and the receptionists to understand how referrals actually moved, then rang Orthobridge’s supplier and asked whether they could take the form directly. They could; it was a service they already offered. We relayed questions and answers between the two, walked the practice through the supplier’s proposal, and kept it moving until it was signed off. A handful of conversations over a few weeks, and the chasing that stops these things stalling.
Once the supplier completes the work, a dentist’s referral lands straight in an Orthobridge queue for the practice to review and accept. No inbox, no PDFs, no retyping, no referral lost because the phone rang.
Sometimes the fix already exists. The job is knowing to ask, and having someone whose job is making sure it happens.
Sound familiar?
We are in Ipswich, we work with businesses across Suffolk and Essex, and the first conversation is free. Thirty minutes, no obligation, and no assumption at the end of it that the answer is software.
hello@maly.co.uk | 01473 934672