Do You Need After Hours Answering Services for Medical Offices?
Every year, doctors’ offices across America receive more than 860 million visits from their patients. So if you run a medical office, there are plenty of patients out there for you!
However, a high volume of patients means that you and your administrative staff have a lot to stay on top of. You need to keep patient records up-to-date, book appointments, and file claims for treatments. On top of this, your reception staff has to be on hand to answer your office’s phones throughout the day.
During working hours, your phone lines can become very busy indeed. This is why a lot of practices use after-hours answering services for medical offices. So what do these services do and how can they help to streamline your workload? Read on to find out more!
What Do After Hours Answering Services for Medical Offices Do?
An after hours answering service for medical offices provides 24-hour support for you and your patients.
These services are run by call center agents with specialist training in receiving medical calls. Agents accept calls from your patients at any time of the day or night. During each call, an agent will collect information from your patient including:
- Their name, age, and contact details
- Their reason for calling
- Any symptoms they mention
- Specific concerns that they have
- Which medications they are currently taking
All of this information will be then relayed to you immediately via text message or email. Agents also make a recording of each call, so that you can review the details if you want to. If a patient flags an urgent issue their agent will transfer them to you or the emergency services.
So why are these services so useful? Let’s take a closer look at the benefits of using an after hours medical answering service.
Answering Services Help Your Patients Access the Care They Need
As any doctor knows, medical conditions do not just arise during working hours. After hours answering services ensure that your patients can reach out for help whenever they need it.
These services also help you get key information about your patients in an efficient way. This means that you’ll have more time to focus on treating patients during your day. So you will be able to help more patients while the answering service takes care of the rest!
An After Hours Medical Office Answering Service Keeps Your Patients Happy
If a medical after hours answering service gives you more time to focus on your patients, this can also improve the quality of your care. However, this isn’t the only way that an answering service can keep your patients happy.
These services offer a brilliant bedside manner 24/7. They give your patients someone to talk to about their problems when they are feeling unwell and vulnerable. This can make them feel more satisfied with their care from the very start.
On top of this, answering services can help your patients with administrative tasks. For example, they can take care of insurance filing and medical claim reimbursements quickly. Staying on top of this will help to keep your patients happy.
After Hours Answering Services Increase Your Provider Ranking
Keeping your patients happy is not just important for them. It can also help to boost your provider ranking on websites such as HealthGrades and WebMD.
These websites provide physician rankings based on assessments made by real-life patients. These assessments are usually based on:
- The quality of communication with your medical practice
- Your professional conduct
- The quality of their treatment
So patient satisfaction can have a big impact on your provider ranking and answering services can improve this. If you are planning to grow your medical practice then this is an absolute must, which leads us to our next point.
Answering Services Help Your Practice Grow
Having a great reputation with your patients is essential if you want your medical practice to be a success. While everyone has to visit the doctor’s office at one time or another, there are more than 200,000 of these across America. So your competition is fierce.
Patient recommendations and rankings can help to bring new patients to your door. This is vital if your want to grow your medical practice.
However, you also need to be able to accommodate an increase in the number of patients using your practice. This means having plenty of staff who are available to focus on patient care. Using an answering service means that the staff working in your surgery will have more time to do just that!
Answering Services Can Save Your Money
If you were going to hire staff to answer the phones at your medical office 24 hours a day, this would be very expensive. You would have to cover at least four additional salaries. And you’d still only have four extra staff available to take patient calls!
Medical answering services offer you more call agents at a fraction of the price. These services offer a variety of price plans so that you can find one to suit you. You can also pay on a monthly or annual basis depending on your surgery’s budget.
Get Help From After Hours Answering Services for Medical Offices Today
As you can see, after-hours answering services for medical offices can help to streamline your workload. This means that you can deliver better patient care throughout your practice. You will also have more time to focus on improving and growing your practice — so what are you waiting for?
Get a free quote for an after hours medical office answering service today!