Physicians Answering Service
Physician Answering Services – Reliable Message Solutions
Inbound call answering and message management solutions for physicians. Connect your callers with cheerful, intelligent receptionists 24 hours a day. Describe your physicians answering service needs and we’ll get you same day quotes from the nations most reliable medical calls centers.
Medical Call Service offer solutions for physicians, surgeons, cardiologist, dermatologists, and beyond.
A physician’s answering service is something that no practicing physician should be without. It is unfortunately impossible for a doctor, even one with an excellent administrative team at his disposal, to ensure that every single call gets answered in a reasonable amount of time, and that patients with important concerns are heard as promptly as possible. However, with an answering service, all of a sudden all of these important goals can be realized, and patients can be given the help they need over the telephone no matter how busy the phones lines may be.
A HIPAA compliant answering service for physicians employs a team of live operators who are trained in the intricacies of taking calls for the medical industry. They are able to answer a wide variety of basic patient inquiries and can handle calls based on customized scripts and call handling procedures that you establish with our organization. This means that no external model of organization or operation is imposed upon your physicians practice. Instead, we take the model that works best for you, and make it work even more effectively by filling in the gaps where your team simply doesn’t have the manpower to field all incoming calls.
Call Service For Physicians:
- Primary Care
- Hospitalists
- Surgeons
- Cardiologists
- Dermatologists
- Orthopedic
Physicians Answering Services: The Essential Guide
Not sure how physicians answering services work? This guide will give you a good idea as to what they do and how your practice can benefit from using them.
What’s the number one complaint about physician offices?
One study revealed it’s not the doctors or nurses. The quality of health care received isn’t the problem. Most patient complaints have something to do with customer service, which included long wait times, disorganized operations, and inadequate communication.
Now, if you’ve been taking steps to improve your customer service, you might have come across physicians answering services. But what do they do exactly?
Let’s take a closer look at how they work and how your medical office can benefit from using them.
First Things First: What’s an Answering Service?
Have you ever woken from a nasty toothache at 4 a.m.? After popping a painkiller, you might have been tempted to call your dentist. But it’s 4 a.m.
And you know that the earliest you could call his or her office is at 7 or 8 a.m. What do you do?
You wait because you have no choice.
If only your dentist had an answering service, you could have called anytime you want, especially if it’s an emergency. That’s basically what after-hours answering services do for medical professionals. They allow patients to get in touch with their doctors and dentists 24 hours a day.
How Physicians Answering Services Work
If you have someone in your office who takes and screens calls, gives answers to patients’ common questions and sets up appointments, then you have an idea as to how a dr answering service works.
But it’s a bit more than that. You actually get a whole team to do that for you. Depending on the provider, you could even get outbound call center services to help you get more clients or patients.
Benefits of an Answering Service for Physicians
Aside from making sure your patients can get in touch with you no matter the hour of the day, a medical answering service also offers the following benefits:
Enhance Patient Care
We talked about this in a previous article, where we explained how intelligent medical call services specifically employ people who are professionally-trained to respond in a way that makes patients feel heard and safe.
They have systems and procedures in place to make sure calls are redirected to the right specialist and they also work with your in-house staff (if you have them) to make sure the volume of calls received are well-managed.
For patients who have pressing needs, an answering-service employee can forward such calls to the appropriate department to keep emergency situations from getting worse.
Save Time
If you’re running an extremely busy office, then you know how important it is for everyone to do their jobs. But the thing is if you only have one person handling all your calls for you, something or in this case, a patient will most likely fall through the cracks.
A physician answering service is your first line of defense when it comes to keeping all your patients happy. Virtual receptionists can help screen calls so your staff can get to the most important calls first.
A lot of physician answering services also come with an appointment reminder system. This takes a load off your staff because they don’t have to fit in calling patients to show up for their appointments when someone else can do it for them.
Cost-Effective
One solution you might look into instead of going for a medical answering service is to hire more people to handle incoming calls.
It’s not a bad idea, however, you have to understand that those new employees will need training. And training isn’t exactly cost-effective when you consider what you have to pay for sick time, insurance, plus other resources. Plus, these new hires – no matter how enthusiastic they are about their jobs – won’t work 24/7.
A physician answering service team, on the other hand, doesn’t need additional training. Also, you know that they will answer phones and take messages round the clock. They always have your back even when you’re on a holiday or busy somewhere else.
HIPAA-Compliant
As a medical professional you know that HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996) violations may lead to fines that may be as high as $1.5 million. If you work with a HIPAA-compliant physician answering service, you don’t have to worry about that.
For one thing, they will never use Alpha Pager to send your patients’ information. The same goes for unsecured text messaging apps or standard email.
You can trust that they’re up to speed when it comes to any laws about patient health information. This not only protects your patients but also your medical office – a win-win situation for all involved.
What to Look For in a Medical Call Service
Now that you know how an answering service works for the medical industry, the only thing left for you to do is choose a provider.
The best way to do this is to meet the manager in person. This way you can check how well they can deliver personalized services. Don’t forget to ask if they offer customized solutions for your particular line of practice.
Another thing you need to find out is their billing practices. Some will bill you over a 28-day period, while others will charge per the number of calls they handle. There are also providers who charge on a per-unit basis (a unit could mean any call stretching from 5 to 15 seconds).
Try to crunch the numbers first before you sign any contracts so you won’t get any surprises when your bill arrives. It’s also a good idea to go for a service provider with short-term service contracts. This will allow you to switch to a new service in case something goes wrong.
Work with the Best Medical Answering Service Provider
Tell us what you need and we’ll match you with the best provider. Working with us means getting access to the nation’s best answering service companies.