Choosing a medical answering service is a great way to enhance patient communication. In addition to taking messages and forwarding them to the right person, medical answering services also handle appointment scheduling, cancellations, and other common inquiries. They help free up time for doctors and staff to focus on patient care. In addition, most services are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Providing patients with prompt responses to their questions is an important part of maintaining a healthy doctor-patient relationship. If you are considering a medical answering service, it is important to make sure the service is HIPAA compliant. These services use highly advanced call center software to ensure that all calls are processed in accordance with your provider’s protocol. The software will also compare calls against your doctor’s protocol to ensure that the best person is available to handle the call.
Medical answering services can also be a great resource for physicians and staff. If your practice has several locations, you may want to consider streamlining communication. If you have a large number of people answering the phone during normal business hours, you may find yourself rushing to handle overflow calls. The service will be able to handle all of these calls, as well as alert patients of office closures or changes. The service can also help doctors comply with HIPAA requirements.
Medical practices have a lot of demands on their time. Often, they are too busy to answer every call that comes through. The service can help reduce missed appointments and help doctors avoid wasting valuable time on answering calls. In addition, the service can be integrated with medical answering service back-end systems, so you can be confident that your information is safe.
Many practices have voicemail options, but these can get frustrating. Many patients are frustrated when they are given busy signals, or when they receive a message that is unclear. A medical answering service can handle these types of calls so that the caller is greeted in a way that is clear and understandable.
When a patient calls your office, they want to be greeted by a live person. This is one of the best ways to create a positive doctor-patient relationship. When a call is answered, the live Customer Service Professional will be able to greet patients in a way that is specific to your practice. A professional medical answering service will make sure that each call is handled properly, so that callers are not put on hold or have to wait for a long time.
A good medical answering service should have an excellent record-keeping system. In addition to being HIPAA compliant, a good service will provide external quality checks and have a solid grasp of the English language. You should also consider a company that provides 24/7 service, so that your practice can be assured of having access to a medical answering service at all times. You may also want to choose a company that has unique applications for surgeons, chiropractors, and other healthcare professionals.