Not every business needs a medical answering service but a medical clinic or a hospital would certainly be an exception. This is a great way for a doctor or nurse to respond immediately to patients even when they are not in the office. Needless to say, a patient forms a very deep attachment to his or her doctor. A doctor guides his or her patient through numerous difficult episodes and experiences. There is a level of trust here that is built over time.
When a doctor uses an answering service, he or she communicates with the patient, personally and quickly. A patient is more likely to be satisfied talking with a secretary or doctor’s assistance than leaving a message on a machine. A doctor does not have to add to his staff when he uses an answering service. He does not have to pay overtime to an employee. The doctor simply allows the service to take over and returns a call when convenient.
This concept gives the patient exactly what he or she wants: the attention of the doctor and a human voice that will address immediate concerns. The doctor is now reachable at night, in the early morning, even on weekends and holidays. Yet, the establishment never has to pay extra because services will be provided on an “as needed” basis.
Options for this answering service are customizable. You can have voice mail, text messaging and paging services installed to inform you of new messages. You can even connect with an operator to speak to patients directly in the event of an emergency.
If you want to be available to your patients but have limited resources, an answering service is your solution. Remember that these workers are not just trained secretaries but have experience and education in medical secretarial work. You lose nothing and gain your patient’s trust.
Naturally, whenever there is a major disaster or emergency, panic ensues. The solution to this problem is always to remain calm and take logical steps to save those who are in danger. The impact of a fire, flood or hurricane can be devastating. In fact, such destruction can put several businesses out of commission in just a few seconds. Thus explains the role of a disaster recovery service.
What if your business has been affected by a local emergency? Not only are you losing money because of damages but you are also losing money by the second due to downtime. If you depend on daily sales or have regular correspondence with your customers then sustaining communication is important.
With a disaster recovery service you can keep the lines of communication open regardless of what is happening with your phone line or the local scene. Even if your office is shut down and you are away from the office, you can have an operator take down in-coming calls. This can apply to a variety of scenarios including your own personal injury.
A superior disaster recovery service offers more than just a live operator and telecommuting technology. This company can also offer backup power for short-term or long-term outages, redundant and satellite phone lines from a variety of providers and emergency facilities on standby. A disaster recovery service should also have facilities scattered throughout the country so that it can bypass emergencies and reroute calls.
A disaster recovery service keeps you in business even when the elements of nature knock you down. This is an important part of staying in business, especially when your company expands beyond city or state borders. If you are going for a statewide or national audience, you must be prepared to meet the demands. Time is money…fortunately, disaster recovery saves you time.
It may be a difficult decision, choosing between a medical answering service and a regular call center, which seems cheaper at first glance. However, there is a big difference in these two types of services. While both options offer well-trained and experienced employees, only the former can guarantee efficient performance and medical experience.
If you are a doctor, nurse or another medical practitioner then you well know you have an obligation to protect your patients. While you cannot be available 24 hours a day and seven days a week, you still want to make your patients feel welcomed to contact you. A live operator will give the patient confidence that a human is listening and is concerned about possible symptoms or medication issues.
However, a live operator that previously worked with an airline company might not know how to take a medical call. The medical experience factor is one issue to be aware of when choosing between a medical answering service and a call center. Patients will have more confidence if they speak to a trained medical secretary that can address their concerns rather than just take messages.
Another key issue to consider in choosing between a medical answering service and a cell center is that of a dedicated service. When you go with a regular answering service, your patients may actually be competing against a variety of other calls—tech support, billing issues, plumbing problems and so on. In fact, the same operator may be addressing medical concerns while giving tips on overflowing toilets. It just does not seem fair to your patients.
With a medical answering service, you get employees specifically trained for medical calls, and that only take medical calls. Furthermore, a medical answering service does not outsource calls to India. These workers are trained in Health Insurance Probability and Accounting Act training as well HIPAA. This option is the smartest choice for a professional office!
HIPAA training refers to the HIPAA Act of 1996, the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. This law was put into effect in order to protect health insurance coverage for workers and their families. In addition, the act also set national standards for electronic health care transactions and national identifiers. To this day, anyone that handles medical records must meet a high standard. This is true, despite the fact that not all providers must adhere to HIPAA rights.
However, to doctors who are concerned with patient health and legal liability, following HIPAA training and standard is an essential part of good heath care. These high standards improve efficiency in the office and protect patients’ confidentiality. An answering service that adheres to high HIPAA training standards proves that its employees are trained and ready for professional behavior.
In addition to agreeing to keep medical records confidential, the company might also strive to record and back up all telephone records, messages and voice recordings. (All federal laws on recordings are followed) This backup procedure is done for the protection of the doctor as well as for emergencies. The best companies also keep physical documents locked in a vault for a last resort.
When you use a medical answering service, not only do you get workers with HIPAA training, but you also get workers that have medical call experience. You can easily tell the difference between a HIPAA trained company and a substandard call center service. Furthermore, medical answering services deal only with medical calls. You do not have to worry about your patients competing with a variety of other industries.
If you are a doctor then you owe your patients the best client care available. You personally may not always be available but your office can be. Make your communication personal with a live answering service.
If you are a medical professional then you have probably already considered the option of a call center service. Is it a luxury or a need? You decide, as you review our list of five reasons to use such a service.
1. A call center service saves you money.
Instead of hiring another secretary or asking your current staff to work overtime, you can hire a live operating service for cheap. You pay only for the services you use. You can order services during your busy season and then reduce your operations for the winter.
2. A live operator service offers superior quality.
Call center employees, especially those with medical call experience, are dependable, react well under stress and are experienced in taking detailed notes.
3. A call center service has more features than an answering machine.
A live answering service does more than just take messages down. An operator can screen your calls and take down only the most important messages. In the event of an emergency, the operator will contact you according to your preference: by fax, phone, email, text or pager.
4. A call center service is always available.
Even if you hire a full staff, chances are, they are not going to work for you on holidays, sick days, nights and 365 days a year. When you outsource you are not paying an individual—you are paying a service. The service is available as often as you want it, even on holidays. With this option, there is never a sick day or a vacation to interfere with your success.
5. A call center gives the personal touch.
In this age of Internet supremacy and depersonalization, now more than ever before, it is important for businesses to connect with their clients on a human level. What profession, if not the medical profession, is dependent on human communication? Your patients are usually nervous or afraid when they call you. Having a human voice address their concerns can soothe them and leave a lasting impression of your practice.
A medical call center is not just an answering service. When a doctor has a practice, he has an obligation to get back with his patients as soon as possible. Some of these patients may be undergoing an emergency. Others merely want reassurances from the doctor that he or she is taking a situation seriously.
In the past, a doctor might have been content to add more staff to his/her team or ask for overtime. However, these expenses add up quickly. Before long, the entire practice is in jeopardy because expenses on salary are outweighing the profits. One solution would be to get an answering machine instead of a medical call center solution. However, many people tend to avoid machines. A human voice is preferable; patients prefer this and a live operator will probably get a more detailed message from the patient.
Another option might be hire a virtual call center to handle these issues. While this can work for some businesses, it is not ideal for a clinic, hospital or doctor’s office. Regular call center workers have no medical experience. Some workers may even be a lower quality in general, having only worked for cable companies or mid-level retail.
When you use a medical call center you get a higher caliber of worker. A medical operator is trained to handle medical and dental calls. In fact, this is the only type of call a medical operator will handle. They can react to stressful situations calmly and correctly. They can deliver you messages promptly and efficiently.
Working with a medical call center ensures that your patients never have to “compete” against retail customers or tech support customers. While these other issues may be important, medical calls very often involve life-threatening situations. Promptness and clear communication is imperative!
Contact a medical call center today and work with operators that are trained and ready for a fast pace work environment.
Several benefits can come from using a medical call answering service. First of all, these workers are highly trained in standard secretarial practices. They have training and experience superior to that of a standard call center worker. They are also trained in how to take medical calls for clinics, doctor’s offices and hospitals.
Answering services play an important role in our society today. In this age of technological prowess, the human factor is often times missing from the business world. When you use a medical call answering service, you give your patients the warm and reassuring voice of a human operator. Trained operators are also available at all hours of the day and night. This is of comfort for a patient that calls in the middle of the night worrying about new symptoms. They can talk to a human being who will deliver the message to the doctor by email, text, voicemail or phone if requested.
A superior medical call answering service has a hold time of 30 seconds, and can play back a customized message by a doctor or staff member. This is much better service than the average call center can promise, which is about two minutes. Another issue to consider is the burden put on by call center operators by their employers.
Some call center representatives have upwards of 150 clients and may have to take on a variety of businesses and industries. A medical call answering service only focuses on the medical profession. They handle medical calls and take only medical calls, leaving all those other callers to a call center. This reduces holding time, caller frustration and the risk of human error.
If you want to differentiate yourself from other clinics or practitioners known for treating their patients poorly, then invest in a medical call answering service. Show everyone that the welfare of your patients is a priority!
A nurse telephone triage service offers special features above an ordinary medical answering service—which itself is above a regular call center. Whereas a medical answering service answers general questions relating to doctor visits and other medical information, a nurse telephone triage service is actually capable of answering health questions.
A nurse telephone triage service is staffed by nurses. Nurses do more than just secretarial work. A nurse must be able to assess a client's health based on described symptoms. Not only must a nurse know how to recognize a patient’s condition in person, but he or she must also account for a lack of face-to-face interaction. Therefore, this worker must be highly skilled in medical knowledge, disease, hospital procedure and normal age development. In addition, the nurse must have excellent communication skills.
Not only must the nurse know how to respond in an emergency, but he or she must also have good listening skills and perceptive ability. For example, is a patient demonstrating vocal signs of the same symptoms he described? Or is she giving any non-verbal clues as to the condition, like anxiety, pain or confusion?
Nurse telephone triage services are also a step above health advice lines. The latter is mainly a community service and strives to answer general health concerns. The triage service does more than secretarial work. When a patient calls in, sometimes he or she wants more than just a live operator. They may want medical advice. This is not an appropriate action for a medical operator that only has experience in making appointments or filing for prescriptions.
A nurse telephone triage service is especially necessary in cases of a sick or sensitive patient. If the caller is susceptible to disease or infection, then a doctor must keep in close contact. If he or she is unavailable for a short period of time then a nurse may have to give lifesaving advice. This is the main difference and an important reason for you to order such a service.
Why should you use a live answering service when there are cheaper options out there? You may be wondering if a medical answering service is really worth purchasing, especially when compared to a voice recorder or standard call center service. Let us first consider these cheaper alternatives.
A voicemail service or an answering machine does not give your patients any one on one attention. Many people refuse to talk to a machine, while others will skimp on details. The simple reason is that these people want to speak to a live human being—one that seems concerned about their problem. A voice recording system is a lot cheaper, but this will not endear your patients to you at all. In the end, keeping your business is all about accommodating your patients.
Why use a live answering service when you can just hire another secretary? Because paying salary is expensive. Using an answering service is actually much cheaper than increasing your staff because you only pay for the services you use. You cannot very well tell a staff member to go home on a slow day. However, you can easily cut down on a live answering service in the slow season and save big money.
Lastly, why not simply use a substandard call center service like the phone companies and cable companies use? One, because you actually care about your patients and would not purposely subject them to inferior service. Two, because even conscientious call center workers outside the medical field could not be expected to take a medical call. Employees for a medical live answering service are taught how to respond to medical emergencies and other situations that involve medications and patient symptoms.
Using a superior live answering service reduces the risk of your patients waiting a long time or injuring themselves because of faulty advice. In short, this option lets your patients know that you care.
There are many reasons why the government put HIPAA laws into effect. As the owner of a medical practice, you are most likely quite familiar with the set of rules that govern certain areas of the health insurance process and patient privacy. In order to guarantee that patients are protected, medical caregivers must undergo HIPAA training.
Most likely, you have made sure that everyone in your practice is trained and up-to-date when it comes to HIPAA. To not train your employees would be to take risks with the complaisance of your practice, and you could face stiff penalties. While you have most likely taken great care to keep your staff trained, you may be overlooking one area of your business.
Many practices may not even think about their answering service in conjunction with HIPAA training. However, a responsible medical professional must consider this.
Keep in mind that, when a patient calls your answering service, they will share details with the operator. Additionally, the operator may have access to sensitive information in your practice. If you have not thought of this before, you could be opening yourself up to a big problem.
A quality answering service will be able to confirm that their operators have undergone HIPAA training. In order to make sure that your practice is compliant in all ways, you must choose a quality answering service that specializes in medical calls. You must also make sure that they understand the importance of HIPAA compliancy.
While a patient may never know the extent you went to provide them with the best service, you will know that you are providing them the very best possible. By choosing an answering service that requires HIPAA training, you are meeting the government’s requirements, and you are taking important steps to provide for your patients.
