A doctor gives countless hours to its patients during the week, but their work doesn’t stop when they close doors. After business hours and during weekends, patients call the doctor for all sorts of medical emergencies and questions. As a doctor, you take calls when you can and the rest goes to the voicemail. Those patients have to wait until the next day to get medical help.
While taking a call, it is difficult to weed out the urgent ones. For every call that you answer, there is a potentially urgent call on hold.
We know you want to offer your time to your patients, but sometimes it is too much for you and your staff to handle.
Fortunately, you no longer have to choose which to answer. By hiring an outsourced medical answering services, you can manage all your call and offer your services to each and every patient. Also, your patient will get help when they need, without waiting on hold for several minutes.
Apart from answering all the calls, here is the list of several other benefits that you enjoy when you choose medical call center service:
1. Save Money
Time is money and every minute your staff spends on answering the phone that could have been used to do more important tasks. Yes, you hire additional staff, but it will only add more to the cost. When you hire medical answering service you gain access to many cost-saving options such as:
• After-hours calls: A medical call center offers 24/7 service while you pay for the time spent on talking and making calls.
• One point of contact: Rather than adding additional phones, all your patients will contact one number, this saves money on phone bills.
• Reduced employee costs: When you choose a medical answering service, you can hire staff for doing important tasks. This allows you to save money on salaries, insurance, and more.
2. Protect the Doctor’s Privacy and Personal Time
Doctors usually spend more time working than relaxing. For them, after hours it is time to relax and spend that time with their family. Unfortunately, no one can control the timing of a medical emergency, which means the doctor has to handle these emergencies even during their time off. But with medical answering service, you only have to worry about patients who need your help urgently. When you patients call, they will speak to professional who will evaluate whether the call is urgent or not. If yes, then only they will transfer the call to you.
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3. Decrease Hold Time
Just like you, your patients also have a busy life. As much as you would like to answer the call immediately, your patients often end up on hold for several minutes. With the medical answering services, all calls will be redirected to a call center where they will speak to trained professionals. This allows you to address your patient’s needs in a reasonable time, which increases their satisfaction.
4. Meet HIPAA Requirements
According to the health insurance Portability and Accountability Act, all patient’s health information should be guarded. If the answering service violets any of the HIPAA guidelines, you will be held responsible for the breach of your patient’s privacy. To avoid these violations, you need to hire a service provider that meets all the HIPAA requirements.
5. Meet Medicare/Government Requirements
When conducting medical education and verification calls, the government requires strict adherence to its guidelines. Unfortunately, setting up a system to handle these is quite expensive and time-consuming, using a medical answering service, you can use the OEV call center to cut the cost and meet all the requirements at the same time.
6. Keep Irrefutable Records
When dealing with highly sensitive information such as medical records, it is important to keep your practice safe. All the calls made through outsourced answering services are recorded and time-stamped, which provides an accurate and irrefutable record.
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7. Increase Efficiency
When you hire medical answering services, your staff can use the time to do more important tasks. Every minute saved by your call center can be used in doing something more productive, which increases efficiency. Your patients can reach medical help whenever they need them and you can give your patients the attention they deserve.
8. Increase Patient Satisfaction
All these benefits help in creating a more satisfying experience for your patients. More efficient operations reduce the time your patients spend waiting during a call. Your patients can reach you at any time, which increases patient satisfaction and can lead to more references.
Everyone deserves time to relax and recover from a day of hard work. If you are a doctor and you are not able to give time to your patients, then you must give medical answering services a try.
