Outsourcing Benefits: When to Hire a Medical Answering Service
The 3 As of physician excellence are availability, affability, and ability. The idea of excellence in availability is always a concern with nearly 1 in 4 physicians working 61 to 80 hours per week.
Your day is already packed with everything from patient care to meetings, administrative tasks, and community outreach activities. If you’re looking to take something off your plate, consider the outsourcing benefits of hiring a medical answering service.
COMPARE QUOTESAre you wondering what those benefits are? Keep on reading to find out when you should take that step to sign up for a medical answering service.
1. When You’re Starting Up
According to new data, the US could be seeing shortages of between 37,800 to 124,000 physicians by 2034. This makes it a good time to be starting your own practice and getting new patients.
As you are starting out, you need to consider how you can put your best foot forward and reach the largest number of patients. Managing your expenses is an important step to success as a new healthcare business. Hiring phone answering services as you are setting up your health care practice allows you to save money and manage your expenses.
With an answering service, you can ensure that your patients are well taken care of and they are not spending their time talking to a voicemail. They will feel heard and connected, which will keep them coming back. It’s a simple way to grow your practice and help patients.
2. When You’re Losing Patients
Are you losing patients or getting a lot of no-shows in your healthcare practice? One of the reasons for this could be that they are not able to get through to the office. When patients don’t feel like they can speak to someone at the office, they can feel frustrated and annoyed.
Being able to chat with someone at the office is even more important if they want to reschedule an appointment or follow up on their prior appointment. If your patients can’t reach the office, you can end up with a lot of no-shows in your schedule.
No-shows are a waste of time and resources as you try to contact patients and reschedule them. You can end up with large open slots in your calendar. Consider an answering service if you want to address your growing list of cancellations or no-shows.
3. When You Need to Manage Business Costs
One of the outsourcing benefits of hiring a phone answering service is that you can manage your business costs. Rather than hiring a full-time receptionist or on-call staff for after-hours emergencies, all you need is to hire an answering service.
With rising costs and expenses, you may be looking to cut costs. You could have a healthcare practice that cannot sustain full-time employees, especially if you are starting out. You don’t need to deal with employment, hiring and payroll costs when hiring an answering service.
All you need to do is pay a low monthly fee and get access to well-trained staff. You can save costs of training new employees and dealing with turnover. It means that you also get to hire employees that are more specialized and can focus on more important tasks than dealing with scheduling appointments.
COMPARE QUOTES4. When You Have a Seasonal Business
Another reason you may want to consider hiring someone to answer the phone is when you have a seasonal business or if you need extra support during busy seasons. For example, flu season may be a busy time for you. You can get additional support by hiring a phone answering service.
You may also be considering reducing your hours. Maybe you work in the mornings for a couple of hours and late evenings to cater to your patients’ work schedules. You can choose to hire part-time staff, but they will not be available to handle patient calls during off-hours.
Getting an answering service allows you to be available for your patients without hiring full-time staff. You don’t need to be open at all hours, but your patients should be able to call in and reach someone at your office.
5. When You’re Looking for 24/7 Service
If you have an extremely busy practice, you should consider hiring a medical answering service. One of the outsourcing benefits is that you can get 24/7 service without hiring full-time staff. Your patients can get the benefit of around-the-clock service and even get emergency assistance if they need it.
With 24/7 service, you can save time and resources. You will not need to spend time dealing with voicemails or forward calls to your cellphone. Your personal time will remain yours, and your patients will be satisfied.
Even a 10-minute break is life-threatening for patients who need to contact their healthcare specialist. An emergency after-hours medical answering service provides extra support and protection for your patients. Your answering service and your patients will not be affected by power outages or damaged phone lines.
6. When You Have Multilingual Patients
If you are in an area with many multilingual patients, you want to take the extra step to cater to their needs. It’s hard enough finding top quality staff. It may be impossible to find someone who is also multilingual.
Luckily, with the right answering service, you can find operators who speak English and Spanish so your patients feel comfortable communicating. You can show your patients that you go the extra mile for their convenience.
Take Advantage of Outsourcing Benefits
Outsourcing benefits range from 24/7 support to multilingual operators that can help you increase your availability for your patients. You work hard and you don’t want to lose customers because you missed their calls. Getting a medical answering service can help you deal with those concerns.
Contact us for a free quote today. All you need to do is take 30 seconds of your time and describe the needs of your practice. You can get up to 3 quotes to choose from, so you can get started immediately.
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