Weave

[Kanzi]

I am considering dropping my traditional phone system and going with Weave. Has anybody done this and integrated with PracticeWorks? How well does it work? Would you do it again? I currently use Lighthouse. 

[cabaa99]

We have been using it for 2+ years with PW and it integrates well. A few advanced functions are not available, like properly filtering for type of appointment in listings, or active vs. inactive pts, but none of these are a significant though, and the available Weave features far outweigh them.

The staff likes Weave a lot and it is a key element of our routine and productivity: call IDs, two-way texting, text to pay, automatic reminders by text and email, voice and text history, call recording, and statistics/reports. Plus you get rid of your typical phones and their overpriced billing.

One thing: is key that you have a solid internet provider, with good uptime, because the IP phones won't work if the internet goes out. Weave itself has been improving their data centers, and having an outage on their side is quite rare and doesn't last long.

So, I'd recommend, and happy to answer questions about it.

And if you go for it, please mention our office "Charlote DentalPro" as referral 🙂 

[Kanzi]

Thank you. I made the decision to go with WEAVE. The “on boarding “ to get it started was not very smooth. The representative was not attentive and multiple mistakes were made. We have been “live” for 2 weeks now. Had about five requests for support which would not have been needed except for no testing of the system on WEAVEs end. The squeaking wheel gets greased, after multiple support requests. 

[tmslaug2]

Can you provide an update re: how WEAVE is working out for you?

[cabaa99]

They have shortcomings, however, I have a more positive view:

- The text2pay facilitates collections. With a few clicks a message with a link is delivered, and we can also attach the statement from PW if desired. Weave tracks payments pending and we can resend if we need to. Is a bit more expensive than collecting thru PW integrated credit card, but speeds up the process and simpler for the patient.

- Text messages: We use this heavily. We have automatic text reminders for recall appt missing 2 and 1 month before due, also an automatic email, and also text 1 month afterwards to try to get the pt to come back still. Different messages in each case. Bounced emails are purged manually in PW. We also have the confirmation requests for unconfirmed appts (we do email a week ahead, and if not response text up to 3 times in between). We also send a reminder 24 hours before to confirmed pts. This automates the process for 80% of the pts. The rest, still need a phone call. We also use it for bday messages.

- The call history is quite useful for us, specially if there is a situation with a pt. We can play back the conversations, pull the log of each call received or placed with the pt, as well as the text messages exchanged. Recordings can be downloaded and stored in the pt chart if needed as an MP3. This also allows auditing staff and coaching for better communication. Pts often send their insurance card picture by text as well.

- We do not use Weave's in-office chat feature, but we would if we did not have another system in place before Weave added this. The in-office chat is key for front desk productivity, since people don't need to move around as much to coordinate and exchange information.

- We have pre-recorded messages when office is closed for holidays, and can easily be activated from the mobile app. We are planning to set up a phone tree next, as Weave recently added support for this.

- The mobile app is used by managers to monitor things when not in the office, even to pull pt details without having to get into a remote session to a local PC in the office running PW. 

- The statistics tells us how are we doing with phone performance. Key metrics for us are #rings before answering and #missed called during business hours. We ensure those stay low. Also, we requested Weave for dedicated phone #s to use in different ads, and the stats page shows us how many calls we got each week/day/period in each dedicated number, so we have a good idea of how well a given campaign is doing. We pair that with the PW referral feature, and that gives us our front office conversion rate (ad call to appointment). 

- We don't need to interact with support often. When we do they are normally responsive via chat, although it can take a few minutes to get them. We actually need to interact more often with Carestream support due to PW issues. 

- We stopped using the review request service when Google changed their terms about how this work (can't catch negative reviews ahead), and instead we simply send a preset text message with the link to the google and fb page for the pt to click and write us a review. It takes 5 seconds to copy and paste so can't justify the cost of the service now. However, the Weave app still pulls in all the Google reviews received.

- Pt pictures don't work. Neither do the active/inactive status. We also do not use the balance info directly since is unclear if pt has been invoiced already or not from Weave. We don't use their fax service either.

- We have used their mass email feature once to send a promo to a pre-selected list of patients. It worked fine, is straight forward to add a picture and a custom message, although we've not exploited this feature significantly.

- And of course, the typical pone features: voicemail, conference calls, holding, transfers, etc. Voice quality is good normally. It can deteriorate sometimes, but we found that most of cases are resolved rebooting our router which we now have automated to happen every night, vs. it being a Weave service issue.

- I do wish that they phones had better LCD screens, since the angle matters to see it clearly. A nicer phone would be welcomed, specially if it can support bluetooth headsets.

I think once you are beyond the setup phase things work well enough to add value.

[tmslaug2]

Thank you for the replies! I had a demo today and was very impressed. They are pushing hard though for us to sign an agreement today to get fees waived.

[Kanzi]

Take your time on a decision. They will still waive their fees. Remember in sales, creating a sense of urgency or scarcity is common. I took three months and told the salesperson that I wasn’t going to make a fast decision. They still honored the “discount “ I was originally offered. This is an important decision for your business, why should you be pressured? And yes, lots of promises made at the time of sale. Remember that I posted... after the sale the salesperson was not responsive, when on boarding. This is a rapidly growing company that I believe has a good potential but is not perfect and in some cases careless.

[tmslaug2]

I agree, thank you so much!

[Kanzi]

I decided to go ahead with WEAVE. Their “on boarding” “specialist” was a person who was supposed to make the process easy.  My experience was that if asked to solve three problems, she could do one, and forgot or ignored the other two. So repeated requests had to be done and it was quite frustrating. As dentists, most of us look at “details”; this “on boarding specialist” did not. 

Appointments were made to install the phones and software, some were kept... some were not. With an excuse that they forgot and that I’d get a “credit”... which never was fulfilled. 

The system is up and working. Not a smooth transition, but it now is working ok. Photos of your patient, not integrated into WEAVE, so some patients have no photos, so may have an X-ray as their photo, 

The sales person was full of hot air. He never responded to calls and texts when I asked for a different on board specialist. The sale was made, and that’s all he really cared about. 

I think the company  is growing so fast that it is hard for them to keep up.  My reviews have been “stuck” at 200, even though I used the software to solicit reviews and received some. WEAVE blames this on a third party... no solution. So it looks good on paper, but in reality it’s worthless data.  

Text messaging works well so far. The confirmation of appointments works well, except when occasionally the patient will get a text that their appointment is an hour later than it really is. So my team has to “watch” for  errors and call the patient or text 5hem that the software made a mistake. 

Overall... it’s “ok” but I wouldn’t brag about the company yet. Hopefully they will improve. I’ve reached out to CareStream and WEAVE to volunteer as a beta. No response. 

[jdowner]

Hello @Kanzi 

Welcome to the Exchange

Just as an FYI since you're asking about Weave.  They just become official partners with Carestream about two weeks ago.  We are still in the process of exchanging information and documentation with them about how they currently integrate with our applications, so we don't have a lot of information ourselves on them as of yet.  prior to that we only did some light troubleshooting before it had to go back to their support. 

From what I've personally seen about it though, it seems to be a good application that fulfills a lot of roles.  But I'll leave the experienced opinions about it to other offices who also happen to use it.