Upon hiring a professional answering service, you are putting your full trust in knowing that no matter what happens, the professional operators will be there to answer the calls and assist to the needs of your patients when you are unable to. That is the insurance a reliable call center will provide when it creates disaster recovery initiatives.
When you are selecting a medical call center to represent you during your off hours, weekends and vacations, it may be a good idea to inquire to see what kind of disaster recovery methods they have in place. It's not only good for you to know that if a natural disaster occurred in any part of the country that their services would continue, but also the more of these initiatives they have in place, the clearer is the sign of a quality call service establishment.
The following are a few examples of the systems you should be looking for to assure that your service would continue, even in the case of a major weather disaster or other type of emergency.
- Backup power for both short and long-term outages - Ask if the company has an uninterrupted power source for short-term power loss, and/or a generator for use during long-term outages. If in place, it wouldn't hurt to ask how often these systems are tested.
- Nearby emergency facilities - Has the company teamed up with a local recovery facility to assure that they would be able to have access to equipment and support they might need to continue uninterrupted service to your patients in the case of a natural disaster?
- Redundant phone lines - Ask if the company has phone lines from several different telephone service providers, so that if one route is disrupted for some reason, they would be able to reroute to another.
- Alternate locations - In case of emergency, the company should be able to route your patient's calls to a location in another part of the country, with no interruption of your service.
In short, there is no need for a natural disaster or other type of emergency to keep your patients from being able to reach you or get the precious medical information they may need during your unavailable hours. When choosing an answering service, be sure that they have some kind of disaster recovery plan in place to continue their service with you regardless of what may happening outside the office doors.
