Building a Scalable Platform for Patient Intake with Penrod Foundations

The Problem

The clinic was growing fast. That kind of rapid expansion is exciting, but it also uncovers outdated systems and processes. The bottleneck that rose to the top? An outdated patient intake system.

The biggest headache stemmed from how outreach coordinators managed patient information. Imagine a family with a child who needs therapy. Mom calls in to schedule an appointment, then gets pulled away for work. Later, Dad calls for an update or to provide more information. In their old system, this created two separate accounts, two separate engagement records, and even two "separate kids," all for the same child. The results? Confusion and a sluggish intake process. It had a cascading impact, especially when families had multiple children needing therapy. Outreach coordinators tracked patients under the parent or caregiver, with the child's name and details stuck in a simple text field. Outreach coordinators were constantly losing time trying to figure out if they were talking to the right caregiver. To make matters worse, they were dealing with large amounts of duplicate leads.

The clinic knew they needed to incorporate more advanced features, such as AI, marketing journeys, scheduling, and pre-authorizations. But the current platform couldn't get the basics right, and it wouldn't scale.

The Solution

Penrod stepped in to help the clinic build a solid intake process on Salesforce Health Cloud. Our approach wasn't to overhaul everything at once, but establish a bite-sized foundation that would solve current intake challenges and support their future growth. We focused on transitioning them from their clunky sales-based tool to Salesforce Health Cloud.

A Foundation for Growth

Penrod's Health Cloud Foundation enables healthcare organizations to get up and running with Health Cloud in weeks, not months. It's a pre-built Health Cloud implementation with an easy user interface, pre-configured settings, and a collection of time-saving automations for behavioral health. It also included a data model built for patients and households.

With the household model, parents, caregivers, and children are linked within a unified record. When a parent, guardian, or outreach coordinator called during intake, the coordinators could easily view all relevant information for that child, eliminating confusion caused by duplicate accounts and engagements. We also implemented person accounts, so the children are now actual records in the system, not just names in a text field. The result? A structured data model that scales.

Our initial project focused on establishing a solid foundation before implementing additional enhancements. With that in place, our client is ready to automate:

• Benefits verification
• Patient journeys
• Scheduling
• Pre-authorizations

Advisory for Best Practices

The solution went beyond a platform implementation. Together, we built a backlog of future enhancements and mapped out how Health Cloud could ease pain points and support their growth. Even with a small internal Salesforce team, the clinic is set up to maximize its investment in Health Cloud.

The Results

Health Cloud immediately improved patient intake. The most significant improvement? A vast reduction in duplicate patients. Now, our client can easily connect one child with multiple caregivers. Outreach coordinators are no longer wasting time trying to determine if they're speaking with the right person.

The transition to Health Cloud has laid the groundwork for their future plans, including marketing journeys and AI. As their VP of inbound said, "The attention to detail, checks and balances, and clear recommendations have been consistent and extremely helpful for my team."

Is your healthcare organization struggling with outdated systems, duplicate patient data, or a lack of scalability? Do you need a clear roadmap to use advanced solutions like Salesforce Health Cloud but aren't sure where to start? Penrod helps healthcare providers build a bite-sized, future-proof foundation for growth.