Practi Health

Many patients delay or avoid recommended dental treatments — not because they don't want them, but because the cost and complexity feel overwhelming. Simply Health and BCGx set out to change that, for patients and the practices treating them.

Dental practices and their patients exhibit a wide range of demographics, processes, and technical literacy. Larger practices may include nurses, treatment coordinators, and practice managers in addition to the dentists and receptionists that helm smaller setups.

Similarly, patients span a diverse age range, with procedures like dental implants typically relevant for older individuals aged 60+, and clear aligners increasingly popular among 25 to 34 year olds.

Evolving throughout the project, our service blueprint aligns thinking across design, business operations, and technology. It highlights and mitigates potential user drop-off points — such as the need to login — to ensure an intuitive yet accessible experience that accommodates users across both portals, as well as the Practi team.

Patient interviews confirmed a lack of sufficient detail about invasive procedures prior to appointments. Improving transparency around each journey step and furnishing prospective patients with engaging treatment content would lessen the anxieties around committing.

The MVP focused initially on a single treatment — dental implants — with clear aligners added in the product's second iteration. Collaborating with clinical experts, we removed excess medical jargon to create clear, concise information blocks that include key benefits, an animated video, and bitesize highlights.

Recording informed consent from patients at each appointment is a legal requirement for practices. This is typically done by hand after explaining each procedure to the patient while they are in the chair.

Our design automates the process by capturing patient consent within Practi. Patients are required to read and approve the relevant information before attending the upcoming treatment step.

Legacy medical software and manual note-taking were used for patient information and appointments. Our lack of API integration with existing patient management systems presented a key challenge: how to track and encourage patient progress without any appointment information.

Our MVP patient table uses the consent mechanism as the lever for practices to nudge each patient from initial assessment through to completing treatment. The improved iteration elevates the feature towards a CRM tool — powered by an evolved set of statuses, practices benefit from improved patient insights and related actions, all aimed at increasing conversion.

Following an assessment, dentists write up a bespoke treatment plan to reflect each patient's clinical needs. Detailed and time-consuming to complete, each plan includes a series of steps and acts as the quote that patients choose to approve or reject.

Balancing design ambition against delivery timelines, we scoped the MVP to four templated treatment variations covering the most common journeys. Adding future treatments beyond implants required a further evolution — the modal becomes a sequential in-page flow where the practice selects from a bank of pre-set treatment steps.

The high cost of dental care can prevent prospective patients from following through with treatments. Dentists may offer payment plans but these are largely ad-hoc. A fuss-free finance offering alleviates monetary concerns and makes dental care accessible to a wider range of patients.

To complement research into a highly complex, regulated industry, the MVP focuses on promoting the financial product and gauging patient interest. Ongoing technical and commercial rigour with external partners unlocks a significant update — acting as a broker, Practi offers regulated and unregulated finance options, the ability to approve treatment plans, and a smooth, trustworthy checkout compliant with financial and healthcare regulations.