Here’s What to Look for in a Medical Answering Service
Until recently, not many doctors and hospitals were aware about the multiple benefits of subscribing to a medical answering service. All around the world, medical practitioners can no longer limit their services to standard working hours. Having an answering machine or voicemail record of patients’ calls after the working hours, does not work any more. To make your customers feel important, their calls must be attended by a real person no matter what time of the day they call. Call answering services can provide professional and efficient phone coverage as per your needs.
Benefits of an Answering Service
Physicians have to be more responsive than other professionals since not attending calls from patients can easily cost lives. No call from a hospital, patient or another doctor must ever go unanswered at any time of the day. With a medical answering service in place, live operators will promptly and efficiently attend calls from patients in the most professional and courteous manner.
Doctors generally use answering service dentists to cover after-hours calls and to attend a portion of the calls that come in during regular working hours. With this service, patients will be able to call up physicians and set appointments even after the working hours. In addition to updating the patient database, physicians can also check up the schedule and confirm appointments. Since the answering service will remind patients about upcoming appointments through SMS or emails, the chances of no shows are lower.
Another benefit that a medical answering service offers is the accurate and appropriate handling of emergency calls. A physician will often receive important and urgent referral calls from nurses or other doctors. The trained operators in answering companies are capable of promptly identifying real emergencies and efficiently directing those referrals to the right department or doctor.
The best answering service for doctors go that extra mile in dealing with emergency calls. After the supervisors of live operators confirm that the call is actually an emergency one, the call will immediately be forwarded to the right physician who happens to be available at the time. Then, if required, more specialists can be summoned to the scene.
Choosing the Right Answering Services
Today, there are lots of reputed companies providing a range of answering services for different businesses. However, when you are in the medical field, it is best to limit your search to companies that provide specialized medical answering service. Receptionists with conventional experience will not be capable of attending medical calls efficiently. In order to understand the needs of your patients and direct them to the emergency section if required, the representatives at the answering company must be specially trained. This will ensure that the operators accurately identify routine calls from the ones that demand immediate attention.
Ideally, the medical answering service company you choose must be HIPAA compliant and capable of maintaining the confidentiality and privacy of your clients as required by law. While selecting an answering company, it is vital to ensure that their representatives are well trained. You must also make sure that the training is ongoing and incorporates the latest changes in the industry. Most importantly, the live operators must treat each caller with courtesy and maintain professionalism at all times.
In any business, it is important to be highly interactive with your customers and be responsive to their needs in order to survive and be successful. This is no different in the case of medical practice. If you wish to grow your medical practice without overloading your staff or spending overtime at your office, the best choice would be to avail the services of a reputed medical answering service.
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