Medical Answering Service, Telephone Answering Service – MedConnectUSA

It’s hard to encourage you to imagine the unthinkable because, well, it’s unthinkable.

But indulge the exercise for a moment.

Let’s say a natural disaster strikes, maybe even one as potent as the one that ravaged nearly all of New Jersey last October, super storm Sandy. Or, maybe one as devastating as Hurricane Katrina way back in 2005. Or, one of the many tornadoes that has battered the Midwest over the course of, well, forever.

Crazier: what if it’s something far smaller-scaled and affects only you.

That’s a particularly scary scenario, not only for you, but for your patients.

Think about it: who’s going to be there to answer all of their questions? They could have serious complications that have arisen since they saw you last, and they might not have anywhere else to turn. They need you – or someone who can be an extension of you.

Worse, they actually may have someone else to turn to. Or at least they might find someone. Surely this is not something you want. It’s bad enough that you’re going to have to shell out whatever cash you may have on hand to make repairs so you can get by and move on. But now you have to worry about loyal patients taking their business elsewhere because of an unforeseen tragedy. This is surely something you can’t afford.

That’s what’s so great about disaster recovery services. They let you be you even if you can’t be. If there’s no one there to answer the phone, whether it be because the phone isn’t working or it’s simply under water or rubble, disaster recovery services can be your best friend. Disaster recovery services can help you keep in touch with all of your patients while you try to piece together your life and practice. Who wouldn’t want that?

Maybe things are going well for you, and you’re simply looking for ways to help take your private practice from good to great. But just as maybe, you might be hanging on by a thread because of a gamut of communication and accessibility issues.

No matter who you are or what your balance sheet looks like this quarter, it might be time for you to at the very least consider a physician answering service.

Think about the potential here.

First, a physician answering service would be able to handle all of your calls throughout your already hectic office hours, when neither you nor your assistants seem to have a waking moment to answer the phone – even if there’s a legitimate emergency on the other end. Simply, this could be a life-changer for your business.

What’s more, it would enable you to have someone there to answer your calls after hours, when neither you nor any of your associates are available. This could go a very long way with your patients.

Think about all of the problems they regularly encounter on a daily basis.

There could be a last-minute scheduling conflict that arises, and they might not be able to handle it during normal daytime hours, when it might be too late. That’s a complete waste of an appointment – and potential revenue.

And that speaks nothing of all the issues patients are having with not only the conditions they saw you for but also the medications that you’ve prescribed to help them get through it. Knowing someone will be there to field their calls before they need them is a simply immeasurable benefit that only a physician answering service can provide.

Really, it could make all the difference.

As a doctor, you try your best to do everything you can to not only provide for your patients the best and highest quality care possible, but also provide for your family a life far better than yours was when you were growing up.

That’s why you went to med school, that’s why you made countless sacrifices before and after, and that’s why you get out of bed every morning of each day: to make a difference to people you care about.

The irony is, for all your efforts, you might be overlooking one of the best and most effective options to help you achieve those goals: a medical call answering service.

A medical call answering service can simply be a complete game-changer for your practice. No matter what your size, whether you’re the biggest of the big or the teeniest of the tiny, outsourcing all of your call answering services to trained professionals, who can ensure that your patients are getting the attention they so badly need, might be the single greatest way to take your health care coverage to the next level.

Think about what that could potentially mean for a patient.

Where they used to have to wait tens of minutes on the phone for someone to help them book or reschedule an appointment, field a question about a prescription or do most anything they’re calling to do, patients would now have the ability to get that attention instantly and from someone dedicated specifically to that and that alone.

This could in so many different ways elevate your practice to a whole other level. It could create a better quality of care, and help boost your recognition around town.

All of it starts and ends with a medical call answering service.

Maybe you can be there around the clock. Maybe you’re so swamped throughout the full 24 that you don’t have a minute to even think about getting to the phone.

Either way, whether you’re in a position to make decisions for the biggest of the big hospitals or the teeniest of the tiny private practices, it’s probably a good idea for you to at the very least consider opting for a nurse triage service.

Nurse triage services are simple: they give you an extension of you, precisely when you need it the most. This could be for the late night and early morning hours for most hospitals, which often send much of their staff home during those hours, leaving them completely under-manned when they may need it most. (At least if you consider that, as they say, nothing good happens after 2 a.m.) This could also be for after your office hours, if you’re the owner and operator of your own private practice and may have patients who need to contact you with emergencies when you’re home with your family or off in another world in your dreams – assuming you actually get the chance to sleep.

In so many ways, a nurse triage service could make all the difference. Think about what comfort you’d be able to offer to a patient, who, upon leaving your office after an appointment, would hear that she could call you – or an extension of you – at any waking moment in the day, no matter what, with her concerns or questions.

That could be huge. Not only is he or she likely to become a loyal patient, but there’s also the potential for him or her to share the experience with friends who may too.

And that’s only scratching the surface of the potential benefits of a nurse triage service.

Think about your list of responsibilities. Does this make your head hurt? OK, you can stop.

Now think about the responsibilities of your staff. They’re so often pulled in so many directions. While they may have been hired to be receptionists first and foremost, they are in reality, basically, “do it all” employees. They handle so many different tasks, which certainly isn’t a bad thing in and of itself – or at least it wouldn’t be if they were still able to do the very thing that necessitated their employment in the first place: answer the phone.

This is where a call center comes in.

A call center is exactly what it sounds like: it creates an off-location hub for you to send all of your phone-answering services for a certain pre-designated period of time.

That could be throughout your normal office hours, so that you can reallocate some of your payroll onto other tasks that have more meaning. It could also be specifically only for after hours, to enable you the luxury of having people there to answer the phone in special cases of patient emergencies. The possibilities and permutations are endless.

So long as you have a call center, of course.

Simply, a call center could completely change the game for you. It could help you save money, so that you can better spend your funds on business functions that are absolutely crucial to your survival as a practice. It could simply be a matter of helping your employees to spend their time better, so that people who are on location at your office can actually be doing tasks that only someone who is on location could do.

Suffice it to say, in so many ways, a call center could make all of the difference.

Sure, you can assign an employee to pick up the phone now and again. But an elite business, something yours certainly has the potential to be, simply cannot be successful in this field without an elite medical call center. Really, it’s that important.

Think about the potential functionality that a medical call center can provide.

This can be used to interact with patients, to make sure that they’re aware of their currently scheduled appointments and to get feedback from them immediately after their appointments. Not only could this help you ensure future cash flows – if not for a reminder, patients might forget, and not come and make their copays and entitle you to insurance payments – but, on a more personal level, it also helps you get to demonstrate to your patients how much you care about their health.

A medical call center can be used to communicate with other health care providers, in case there’s an issue with the patient and drawing on their past medical records could help. Sometimes, the key to cracking a case is all about having that little bit of extra information to draw upon, and if it’s the difference between saving a life, it’s certainly worth it.

This can even be used to help you place orders with suppliers, to ensure that you’re never out of any of the critical medical supplies your establishment so sorely needs. Perhaps the only thing worse than providing poor care is not being able to give the best care possible, because you simply didn’t have time enough to secure supplies.

There are many benefits to using a medical call center to help manage your business.

In fact, it might be one of your best business investment decisions this fiscal year.

We all have to accept our limits. The vast majority of us will never be able to dunk a basketball, or do much of anything else with a basketball that justifies a pro contract.

Same goes for shredding on a guitar that isn’t hooked up to a gaming system in front of fans that don’t include your old college buddies.

When it comes to your business, whether it is the biggest of the big hospitals or the teeniest of the tiny private practices, it’s probably a good idea that you go ahead and accept that you simply can’t keep up with the necessary functionality that only a medical answering service can provide.

Think about your payroll right now. Now think about its current responsibilities.

The people you’ve tabbed as quote-unquote receptionists are oftentimes so up to their ears in tasks that they’re not even in front of the phone for a single second – let alone those fleeting moments when it’s ringing, and because there’s an emergency on the other end.

Of course, considering a medical answering service is first and foremost about providing the best possible care for your patients. But there’s far more to it than that – most of which actually doubles back to a recollection of your Hippocratic Oath.

Think about it: getting a medical answering service might be one of the savviest economic decisions you can make, especially if you’re a smaller practice and are totally reliant on people remembering their appointments – something a medical answering service could certainly help with – in order to get copays and insurance payments.

Fail to secure that income, and you’ve effectively failed to be around for all of the countless people who need it on a daily basis. Besides making your life easy, that might be the biggest reason for you to at the very least consider the change.

Maybe there was a time where doctors could double as receptionist. But let’s face it: times have changed. Now, with your surging business in this ever-competitive field, whether you’re a macro-scale hospital or the tiniest of private practices, it might be in your best interest to start considering implementing an answering service.

Think about the potential functionality of an answering service.

You can not only ensure that there’s someone there to field phone calls every waking moment of your daily office hours, but you can also: (1) check up on patients to confirm appointments, (2) follow up with patients after appointments, to assure they’re satisfied with their treatment and that it is, in fact, working for them and (3) to maybe even ask for input or feedback as to how you could make your practice better.

Each of these capabilities is nothing short of significant.

If not for an ability to make sure that your patients know that they have regularly scheduled check-ups or even sudden out-of-the-blue appointments, not only might your patients forget, potentially costing you copays and other revenue streams, but worse, they might become seriously ill. This is not something you want to have to live with, for sure.

It is important to have feedback from your patients both immediately after appointments and a few months down the road. Try as you may, you simply may not be able to detach and place yourself in the shoes of patients, to see what they really want and whether they’re actually getting it from you and your staff. Not only does a simple call show you care, but it offers you the opportunity to offer the best care possible.

Suffice it to say, an answering service is simply a must-have component of your practice.

It usually does not take long for a medical professional to realize that his or her patients are having a difficult time contacting them. When that epiphany arises, it is time to consider hiring a specialized medical answering service. A competent service designed specifically for medical practitioners will have the specialized training required to handle all the needs of the professional.

Specialized Training

Medical answering service call centers are operated with a highly trained staff that are taught to professionally handle making appointments and replying to generic, everyday questions related to the medical professional’s business. Although they will never answer even the most basic medical question, they are trained to fully understand medical jargon and terminology to assist the patient in the best manner possible.

HIPPA training

The staff that operates the medical answering service usually receives HIPPA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) training as a way to ensure full compliance with the laws concerning patient privacy. Their training usually involves procedures when handling the patient’s sensitive information, and all the proper ways of minimizing data misuse.

Reliable Backup Systems

Highly efficient medical answering services will operate with a reliable backup system. With the critical nature of every handled call and possible life-threatening outcomes, the professional call center will be well-equipped for any power outage or breakdown. The service will provide high-quality answering resources to provide services around the clock even through technical complications, or at times of man-made or natural disasters.

The medical professional that is eager to hire an answering call center service must strike a balance between desirable services and monthly costs. Usually the least costly service does not provide the expected results. Once the best company has been chosen, the call center service team will help the medical professional maximize their 24/7 communication efficiency, while holding down costs.

A physician answering service has become a must-have solution for medical offices around the country. Many dental clinics, physician practices, hospitals and urgent care centers use a medical call center as a way to remain in continuous contact with their patients. Many doctors recognize that using a physician call center is an easy way to maintain satisfaction levels, when patients realize the hospital or doctor remains genuinely concerned about the effectiveness of their treatments they are receiving along with the progress of their healing.

Increasing Productivity

In busy medical practices the phone continually rings. However, most of the inbound calls are of low priority, and can instantly take up the time of the medical staff during busy business hours. As a result, productivity levels begin to drop, patients become unhappy waiting in the reception room, and profits begin to dip. Alternatively, using a physician answering service to receive all inbound calls can maximize productivity because it allows every member of the medical staff to do their job without being interrupted. An efficiently run physician answering service will be trained to prioritize calls and only redirect important or critical phone calls into the office.

Increasing Patient Satisfaction

One of the best advantages of utilizing the services of a doctor’s call center is a more efficient routine in patient scheduling. Highly trained medical answering service agents can coordinate and maintain the appointment planner by minimally communicating with front office staff each day. To increase efficiency, the physician call center will then provide a reminder call on the day prior to the appointment. Anytime a patient expresses difficulty in the ability to keep their appointment, the physician answering service operator can work to find a better appointment, minimizing “no shows” and possibly filling the spot with the patient that is eager to attend an earlier appointment.

A physician answering service can handle all the upfront duties of operating an efficiently run medical facility. By handling appointments, cancellations, reschedules and diverting low priority calls a medical call center is a valuable tool for any office.