Medical practitioners provide patients with countless hours of reliable care throughout the work week, but the services don’t end after business hours, on weekends, or during holidays.
Patients will reach out by phone to find answers to urgent concerns. Find out how patients benefit from a doctor’s answering service by visiting https://electronichealthreporter.com/10-ways-your-patients-benefit-from-a-doctors-answering-service/#nav.
Doctors will respond to the calls they can get to, while others end up on voicemail, or a staff member can handle the call when operating hours begin. It’s challenging to triage calls for the most emergent. Some questions can be readily resolved with a visit to the office site while an urgent call is being held up.
The provider aims to give each patient a personal touch, but it can become overwhelming when trying to maintain efficient operations. Fortunately, deciding between the patients you help and the quality of care they receive is no longer necessary.
With a top provider in the medical answering service realm, managing patient calls and providing customized services for your facility is prioritized. Patients avoid long hold times and are assured of a personal interaction when the line is answered with a knowledgeable response to needs.
How Is a Medical Answering Service Important to a Doctor’s Office
A high-quality answering service specializing in healthcare takes the bulk of patient calls from the practicing facility so the provider and staff can focus on patient care and daily operations.
The service can triage the after-hour calls to reach out to the physician when there’s an urgent situation and direct other callers with answers to common questions. Here is how a medical answering service is important to the function of a doctor’s office.
Cost savings
The more time staff spend answering calls, the less time they could be spending with a patient or handling vital day-to-day tasks. While a practitioner can add to the staff to specifically handle the call volume, the extraordinary expense associated with this effort takes away from what could be spent on better patient care.
Instead, a phone answering service offers cost-saving alternatives. Some include the following:
- Off-hours: The answering service provides 24/7 provisions, with you paying only for the representatives who take/make calls.
- Single point of contact: By incorporating the answering service as the sole point of contact for the entire establishment, you can save money on hiring front desk receptionists for each facility.
- Reduced staff: When hiring a smaller staff, the business saves on benefits, salaries, and training.
Life/work balance
Physicians have an exhaustive schedule, making maintaining a life/work balance difficult. When there are off-hours, it’s their time to recover and prepare for the next shift while connecting with loved ones and close friends.
In this same vein, the provider must be prepared for urgent medical situations that must be handled in their off time. A doctor’s answering service are specialty professionals trained to speak with patients after hours. They’re capable of assessing which calls need urgent attention and addressing common inquiries.
Doctors can maintain private numbers and take time off without neglecting urgent patient needs. Read here about the importance of doctors’ answering services.
Hold times are reduced
Patients and healthcare practitioners have busy schedules, making it important not only that the calls be answered but also that it be understood that the practice has difficulty responding to every call when engaging in quality patient care in the office.
With a professional answering service, calls are answered promptly, and agents avoid putting patients on hold, instead filtering or redirecting as appropriate. Tailored scripts are incorporated to reflect the professionalism and values of the facility.
Patients’ needs are met in a reasonable amount of time, allowing a positive experience, greater satisfaction and encouraging loyalty and potential referrals in the future.
Increasing the bottom line
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When a doctor’s answering service maintains the phone system, the staff is able to keep the practice functioning optimally. Each minute that the phone service responds to patient inquiries, the practice can be more productive, patient care can be of higher quality, and the office is more efficient and profitable.
Because calls are never missed, patients are given ample attention, leaving less opportunity for no-shows or appointments that can be readily dealt with by reaching out to a patient over the phone.
Final Thought
The medical answering service will offer a positive experience not only for the patient, who has come to expect the highest quality from their healthcare provider, but also satisfies the medical practitioner, who can achieve a life/work balance otherwise virtually impossible.
The doctor’s answering service triages calls to ensure urgent needs are directed to the provider for immediate handling and common inquiries are handled by the service, which is versed in healthcare practices and that provider’s protocol.
Minimal wait time, higher availability and quality of service, and staff who are refreshed create a satisfactory patient experience, leading to loyalty and future recommendations.
