How a Medical Answering Service Saves Your Practice Time And Money
Looking for a simple and efficient way to save your medical practice money? Check out the top ways a medical answering service can save you both time and money.
Doctors are busy people. In fact, a quarter of all doctors work between 61 to 80 hours per week! That’s a lot of hours.
If you are one of these doctors that work long hours you also know that even when business hours are over your patients may still be calling about illnesses. They may also have questions. You take as many calls as you can and even advise some patients to call back or visit during your hours of operation.
- HIPAA Compliant
- 24 Hour Service
- Appointment Scheduling
A medical answering service could efficiently help you to deal with such cases. The number of patients you could assist would increase and so too would the quality of healthcare you offer.
If you are looking to find a simple and efficient way to save your medical practice some money? Check out these tips that will help you to make the right choice.
Medical Answering Service: What It Means for You
The truth is as a practitioner you want to offer adequate time and your own special brand of care to your patients. Yet sometimes it becomes too overwhelming for you and your staff.
By outsourcing your answering service, you get the opportunity to efficiently manage your calls and offer customized call options in line with your practice.
- IVR Solutions
- 800 Numbers
- After Hours Support
What this means is that each patient will get help tailored for them, when they need it without holding the line, calling back repeatedly or not being able to reach you after hours.
Save Money
Less time spent by your staff and yourself on the phone means more money. Getting more members on staff to help with your call volume means additional expenses.
Think instead to hire a medical answering service. It saves you money in several ways. The first being that you can offer 24/7 care but only opt to pay for the time spent on calls instead of the downtime between calls.
With this service, you can use it as your practice’s contact center eliminating the need to hire several receptionists. That’s already fewer employees equalling to reduced money spent on salaries and benefits for your employees.
Gain Private and Personal Time
You will most likely want to use your after hour time to bond with your family, rejuvenate and unwind. But you probably know all too well that there will be medical emergencies. You are definitely going to want to help your clients.
With a medical answering service in place, your patients get access to trained health experts 24/7. The agents will assess each call, direct them to you and your other physicians accordingly and even help with those that they can handle.
You get to protect your number and privacy so now it’s possible to enjoy after hours and also not neglect patients in need of care.
Reduce Hold Time
Your practice is busy so even though you’d like to help each patient immediately and save time on each phone interaction, the truth is that some patients will still get placed on hold.
Having an answering system allows calls to be carefully filtered and directed to the call center. Using scripts you’ve customized, call agents can assist your practice and even upload all the necessary patient data to your system.
What this does is save patients time as well as meet and satisfy their needs. It’s a win-win situation for all parties involved.
Be Ready for Emergencies
Disasters do happen, being prepared during medical emergencies is important. While you might be unable to open your practice, you must still be reachable.
An answering service, especially an outsourced one, keeps you available to both your patients and employees.
Reduce Technological Costs
A high call volume means that you need the technological system to support it. These will include phone lines, computer software, call waiting and voicemail system. The fact is these are costly and will add to your monthly phone bill.
Using an outsourced call center to answer your calls provides you with all the equipment in one place. This saves you from having to get new software, equipment, and a hefty phone plan or package which means a lower operating cost for your practice.
Lower Personnel and Training Budget
To handle high call volume requires trained staff as well as the necessary equipment and software. You will also need to train new staff. A new member on board equates to wages and benefits to consider.
Using agents at a call center to answer your calls means you are using trained individuals who can book appointments and keep patients’ data protected since they are trained in HIPA laws.
An answering service offers customized customer service to your patients in a smoother, time-sensitive manner. Your receptionists in the office now get to focus on customers. Overall you save money as well as time.
Strengthen Profitability
A medical answering system increases productivity by giving your staff more time to handle their individual tasks. This helps to heighten customer satisfaction as it means more time to focus on your patients.
Additionally, the service saves time to answer calls thereby increasing productivity, efficiency, and profitability. A call will never be missed so patients get the needed attention. Over time this reduces no shows and appointments for issues that can be dealt with over the phone.
Get Connected With a Medical Answering Service
If you are looking to save time and money in your medical practice then an answering service is definitely useful for that. From the tips above, you see its great benefits to your practice.
It reduces your budget by lowering the amount allocated to employees’ salaries and benefits as well as lessens the cost of installing phones and computer software. All of this helps to keep more money in your pocket.
You get to convey an image to your patients that says their needs and time are important. Most if not all your after-hours will truly be yours to unwind and relax.
If you are interested in getting a medical answering service then feel free to contact us.