Patients are the cornerstone of your medical practice, whether you are a family practitioner, pediatrician or are within another specialty. Your success hinges directly on the quality of service that you offer to your patients and this includes taking their calls. However, there are times when your patients will not be able to reach your staff, including lunch hours, off hours, holidays and more. While voicemail is the most common resolution to this problem, an answering service is a better choice and can provide your patients with better service. What can you expect? What should you look for in a quality answering service?
Obviously, not just any answering service will work for your needs. You will require the services of a company that specializes in the medical field and has staff that is dedicated to providing personal, reliable, expert service. For instance, any service that you choose for your answering needs should have a staff that continually undergoes HIPAA training, in order to ensure they are able to provide the level of service required. In addition, you should ensure that the service provides you with numerous message delivery options. What choices are available?
You should choose an answering service that offers text messaging of your patients’ information to your cell phone, PDA or pager. You should also be able to have the service leave a voicemail message, or deliver an email message to your account (which can be accessed via a handheld device). Other options include operator-delivered messages, fax message delivery and more. This ensures that you receive the patient’s message immediately, but also ensures that your patients are able to speak directly to a live person, rather than an impersonal voicemail system. This is an essential part of developing a solid reputation and earning the trust of your patients.
You should also choose an answering service that has a very low “on hold” time. Most services force your patients to wait for one to two minutes before the call is answered. However, you will find services that have hold times as low as 30 seconds, which ensures that your patient is treated with the respect and urgency that their call demands. Your patients’ messages are urgent and should be treated with care; a quality service will ensure that your patients receive that care and that you are able to receive their messages in a timely manner.
