When you are considering hiring a call center to take care of the calls that your clinic is getting, you need to make sure that you are dealing with a topnotch answering service. Before you hire any center, you should ask them a few questions to understand more about how they do business.
What Experience Do You Offer?
How long has the company been in business, and what kind of training do they give their employees. You only want to do business with centers who have HIPAA trained operators on staff. The more experience the company has the better.
How Do You Send Messages?
With all of the different types of communication devices that are available today, you want to be sure that the call center is able to reach you in every way imaginable. Do they offer to call you for vital messages? Will they be able to forward messages to your phone or your email? Make sure that they are also able to send to your fax machine as well. The easier it is for you to get the messages the better.
Do You Offer Triage Service?
Nurse triage service is a great addition for your patients. They can have their basic medical questions answered by a nurse, and they do not have to wait for a doctor. If the center offers this service, you may want to consider it.
How Much is the Cost?
While different companies will charge different amounts based on the services that you choose, you will want to get a basic rundown of the costs. The call center is far better than hiring more onsite employees because the cost is so much less. Consider the cost of hiring just a single employee for your phones. Imagine being able to have your phones answered 24hrs a day for a fraction of that cost.
Anyone who owns a business today knows that it is important to cut costs, perhaps now more than ever. While your clinic might be doing well, you still want to find ways to save more money, and a medical answering service might be one of the best ways that you can do just that. Consider the following scenarios, and you will see how one of these services can benefit you and save money.
The Angry Patient
Patients who need to call their doctor do not like to be waiting on hold for long periods. They have work, children, and a life that they need to tend to, and spending twenty minutes on hold while they are trying to make an appointment or get an answer to a question is not something that will not endear you to them, even if it is not your fault. When a patient has to leave a voicemail in the dead of night because no one is available to answer the phones, they are not happy. This means you are going to be dealing with an angry patient the next time you see him or her, or they might choose another healthcare professional. A medical answering service could alleviate this problem, and you will not have to worry about losing income because a patient left.
Too Many Phones
When you have too many ringing phones, one of the first things that you might consider doing is hiring another receptionist. What about the phones that are unanswered during the night? Should you hire someone to answer those as well? Imagine just how much it would cost to hire more employees. Choosing a medical answering service instead can save you quite a bit of money when you look at it like this!
If you are in charge of a medical clinic, even if you are not a physician, you know just how hectic it can be. You have patients coming in and out of the clinic throughout the day, sales reps are in and out of the clinic, and you have to deal with a host of different scheduling when it comes to patients. The ringing of the phones is just another piece of the operation, albeit one that can cause quite a few problems if left unchecked. A live answering service that will be able to help you with the flood of calls could be the solution that you need.
It is important that patients are able to reach the clinic no matter the time of day. They might have odd work schedules that only allow them to call and make appointments in the middle of the night. If they leave the message for an appointment on a voicemail, it might never make it to the schedule. It is far better for the patient to be able to contact a person to whom he or she can speak and get confirmation of the appointment. Perhaps someone has an emergency and needs medical questions answered right away. A live answering service with triage capabilities could help them avoid disaster.
You want your patients to be happy. That is how patients become loyal. An answering service that will be able to handle your phone calls, take messages, route the calls to the right places, and make appointments will help you alleviate some of the pressure of running a clinic. Best of all, you will find that the cost is far more affordable than hiring more employees for your in house phone lines. Find a high quality live answering service that will be able to get your clinic back into shape.
If you are the owner of a health clinic or if you have a private practice, you may already have an answering service that handles some of your calls for you. These services can be great for making appointments and taking messages, but you can find answering companies that are able to offer even more. Some offer nurse telephone triage, which can give your patients even more reasons to love your service.
When the patient calls, he or she will be able to ask the nurse basic medical questions, and if there is an emergency the nurse will be able to direct the patient to the right emergency services and notify you of what happened. The nurse telephone triage services will offer far more than standard message taking.
Of course, you can't simply choose to hire any company that claims to have nurses on hand who can handle triage. You need to make sure that they have the skills it takes to do the job and keep your patients safe. It is also important that the nurses employed by the company have excellent communication skills and are able to calm a nervous patient.
While you might have your own staff on call during normal clinic hours, and you might not see the need for this service, consider all of those after hour calls that are left unanswered. The nurse telephone triage service will be able to take calls that come in after you and the rest of your staff have gone home for the weekend or the evening. When your patients are worried, they will call no matter the time of day. Isn't it better to give them someone on the phone that can help them instead of just take a message?
If you have a private practice that is doing well, you probably are aware of the influx of phone calls that you are getting. While this is good news for the business, it means that you and your staff are spending far more time on the phone than you are with your patients. Even with a fulltime receptionist, you have to consider lunch breaks, nights, weekends, and vacation time. You need to have someone available to answer those phones 24hrs a day, but the cost of hiring that many people just for the phones is astronomical. A physician answering service could be the answer that you need.
It is important that you choose only a high quality answering service. You will want a company that has employees who are able to communicate clearly with your patients. They should be able to answer your phones quickly so the patients do not have to wait on the line, and they should be able to make appointments and forward calls when needed. All of the employees through these companies should have HIPAA training as well, which lets them know the importance of patient confidentiality.
The physician answering service should also have several methods through which they can send you the messages, making it easier than ever to retrieve them. Make sure that they are able to offer phone, fax, and email messaging.
If you want to give your patients even more options, consider hiring a company that offers nurse triage service over the phone. The nurses will be able to answer some of your patient's basic questions and this can free up more of your time.
As long as you are able to find a physician answering service that can offer all of the above, both you and your patients will be happy.
While you always have your patients' best interests in mind, and you always want to be able to talk with them when they have a question, the fact of the matter is that you are only human. You only have so many hours in a day, and you cannot spend all of that time on the phone with patients. It would be unfair to all of the other patients who have appointments and who are waiting to see you. Rather than spending all of your time on the phone, you can hire a medical call center that will be able to take care of these calls while you can get on with the business of being a doctor.
When you choose to use one of these services, you will find that it comes with many different benefits. One of the most important benefits that you will note is time. Instead of spending your time on the phone answering basic questions better left for a nurse, hire a company that offers nurse services over the phone. Your patients will be happy to get the answers they need, and you will have more time for your appointments. The center will also be able to make appointments for your patients when they call.
You will be able to have easy access to your messages when you use a medical call center as well. The high quality centers are able to send your messages to your phone, your email, and your fax machine. You will never have to worry about missing an important message again.
Your patients will enjoy the service as well. They are no longer going to have to leave messages on a voicemail or answering machine, and they will appreciate that they are able to have contact with a live person when you use the medical call center.
Those who are in the medical field and who operate a private practice, or who are in charge of a clinic, know just how many phone calls can come in on any given day. Even when you post your hours, you know that patients who have questions and concerns are still calling. When they are unable to get through, they will often grow frustrated. This can cause some patients to seek out a new medical provider. A medical call answering service will be able to help you keep your patients.
Because your patients are so important, you want to do everything that you can to make sure that they are happy. If they need to contact your office to make an appointment or to leave a message, the last thing they want to do is deal with an answering machine. When you hire an answering service that is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and even on holidays, it will give your patients more confidence. When they know they are able to get into contact with your office rather than an impersonal answering machine, they will be happier.
With a medical call answering service, you will be able to take more time away from your work without fearing that you are missing something important. Any messages that come in that need to be dealt with right away will be forwarded to you. This means your nights and weekends are yours once again.
You will even be able to save some money when you are using these services. Rather than hiring several new employees to answer the phone lines 24 hours a day, your medical call answering service will be able to do it for a fraction of the cost.
When most people consider disasters, they immediately think of their family and their friends as well as what is happening to them. Disaster recovery plans are not often at the fore of your mind. What if you own your own business though, such as a medical clinic? Who is going to be able to tell your patients that the clinic is closed when they call to see what's happening? What are you going to do? If you don't have a plan in place, you could very well watch your business die.
Disasters are unpredictable. Earthquakes, floods, fires, and other tragedies can cause huge problems and interruptions in the services you provide. They strike without warning, and they can take away just about everything that you have if you aren't prepared. A disaster recovery plan for your business is just what you need. You need to have an offsite call center that will be able to handle all of the incoming calls from patients that are concerned and wondering where they can go for their appointments. Of course, recovering from a disaster includes far more than just having a call center handling your phones.
Some of the other actions that you might want to take include having backups of all of your important files. The last thing you want is for all of your precious patient files and financial information to vanish because you were not prepared. It is important to have your backups located offsite in a location that is safe. Digital files are usually the best type of backup, but you might want to have hardcopies as well.
While no disaster recovery plan will be able to take care of all of the possible emergencies your company might face, the more preparation you do ahead of time the easier you will be able to weather the storm.
When you find that your clinic is getting more phone calls throughout the day than you are able to handle comfortably, you might want to consider hiring an answering service. The service will be able to take care of the calls and make appointments for your patients. Some of the call centers are even able to perform nurse triage to help patients who have some basic questions.
Hiring one of these services will open up your phone lines and patients will not have to wait as long on the line when they are trying to get through. This will be a relief to your patients, and it will reflect nicely on your clinic and the way that you run things.
Make sure that the answering service you choose hires only professional employees with HIPAA training and great phone skills. Patients can sometimes panic when they have a problem, and you want to make sure that the employee on the line is able to alleviate the patient's fears and get to the bottom of the problems. Hiring a call service that has a decent amount of experience is key. When you are searching for your service, take the time to learn about all that they have to offer. You might be able to find other areas that they can help make your clinic run smoother.
While a high quality answering service will certainly be able to make all of those phone calls more manageable, they won't solve all of your problems. You still need to take the time to make sure that all of the physicians on staff are doing their best to care for the patients and make their scheduled appointments. With doctors who like to talk, this is sometimes easier said than done!
If you're shopping around for the best call center for your medical office, you'll find plenty of options available today. While it's great to have options, it's easy to become confused or distracted by the many choices you have to make. You may decide on a company in haste just to get the task over and done with.
The following are 5 of the most common mistakes physicians make when hiring a medical answering service. Take care to avoid them as you navigate your options to ensure you end up with the right answering service for your needs and your budget.
1. Choosing a generic answering service.
A phone service that doesn't specialize in the medical field isn't prepared to provide the type and level of care you and your patients need.
2. Entering a long term call center contract.
You shouldn't have to sign up for service long term to obtain great rates on professional medical answering services.
3. Assuming HIPAA compliance.
No medical practice can afford to assume an answering service is HIPAA compliant. Don't take a company's word for it either regarding compliance. Insist on seeing a compliance certificate and verify some facts about how they manage tricky compliance issues.
4. Opting for the least services.
Medical answering centers offer a wide range of services today. Assuming that fewer services will equate to savings for your practice may be a costly mistake. The more call services you're able to outsource, the more efficiently your business is likely to operate.
5. Settling for a second-rate call center.
If an answering service isn't fulfilling its service promises or fails to meet your expectations, don't assume this is the best you can expect. Top quality medical answering specialists are ready, willing and able to meet and even exceed your expectations.
