Six Tips for Using an Automated Medical Answering Service
You’ve worked hard to establish your practice, but you just can’t overextend yourself to be available to your patients 24 hours a day. Expecting your in-office staff to be available after-hours isn’t reasonable or cost-efficient.
Patients often have questions or concerns during off-hours. So, what can you do to meet the needs of your patients while your office is closed for the evening, the weekend, or an extended holiday? Use a medical answering service.
Medical answering services are nothing new in the field of medicine. But they are the most underutilized service a doctor can have for their practice. Keep reading to discover six tips for using an automated medical answering service.
1. Focus on Patient Satisfaction
Patient satisfaction is one of the most important aspects of your medical practice. Having an answering service for a medical practice is a key component in improving overall patient satisfaction.
Your patients can experience great frustration. This is especially the case if they are being constantly put on hold or being moved from extension to extension. This, in turn, lowers the opinion of your practice.
Medical answering service will be able to connect your patients with someone to answer their calls. This includes during nights, weekends, holidays, lunch hours, and when the office line is busy.
They can connect with your office after-hours and access help and information. As a result, they will speak highly of you to others about your practice.
This will provide your business word of mouth referrals for friends and family looking to find a care provider.
2. Harness Positive Ratings to Boost Your Healthcare Provider Rating
When patients speak highly of your practice, they will want to tell others about you as well. Rating sites like Yelp, Google Reviews, and HealthGrades allow patients to post reviews and ratings about a business.
A whopping 84% of bad reviews on Yelp listed poor phone communication, follow-up, and long wait times as their chief complaints.
Through a medical office answering service, you can help to bolster your healthcare rating. The higher your rating, the more likely new patients will want to come to your practice for their healthcare needs.
Having bad reviews, for any reason, will deter prospective patients. But if calling the office and being able to talk to a human is the number one problem, a medical answering service can help solve this issue.
3. Use Recorded Messages as a Tool to Improve Efficiency
Medical offices are notorious for losing paperwork, test results, messages, and memos. When a patient has to wait a long time to receive a response to their inquiries, it can quickly sour them on your practice.
Having to go into detailed explanations about a reoccurring problem or concern every time they call your office can be tedious and detract from the issue at hand.
Detailed notes and messages are recorded and securely stored with a medical answering service for easy access later. It’s fully HIPAA compliant. This can help streamline the process of patient records and inquiries.
It also ensures that the patient is being heard and their needs are being documented in a way that provides a more complete picture of their overall care.
4. Use a Medical Answering Service to Provide Support and Answers 24×7
Having an after-hours answering service provides a much-needed source of information during busy times, off-hours, weekends, and holidays.
When you can’t be available to answer phone calls and return messages, your medical answering service can be there.
This is extremely important in operating a Medicaid answering service where answers to common questions can be provided through a 24×7 medical answering service.
Medicaid recipients can find out what services they are eligible for by calling an established hotline number.
Through a Medicaid answering service, beneficiaries can coordinate transportation to their appointments. They may also be able to get meal delivery services.
If a patient is post-surgical or just out of the hospital and they have non-emergent concerns or questions, a trained medical office answering service can facilitate their needs.
5. Manage Your Appointments and Scheduling Remotely
A medical answering service can be used for more than just an after-hours answering service. It can even be set up to call and remind patients of an upcoming appointment.
A patient is more likely to keep up with their appointments as scheduled when they are regularly informed of their upcoming commitments. There is even an option to send a text message reminder to the phone number on file.
A medical answering service may also be available after-hours and during lunch breaks or other busy times for patients to call and cancel or reschedule appointments.
By having this option available, patients will feel better about being able to call and change appointments easily if another issue arises at the last minute.
Not being able to alter an appointment within the confines of the typical 9-5 weekday workday schedule could result in a higher no-show rate.
6. Target Improving Overall Communication
Having medical answering service or after-hours answering service will help you establish a strong rapport with your patients. It will also help to improve communication with your patients who feel like their concerns and questions are being answered promptly.
Your patients will no longer feel like they’re being lost in the shuffle or playing phone tag with traditional message systems. They feel heard and listened to. They will trust you more.
This can open up a line of communication where your patients feel you care about them and they aren’t just another name on a file.
The patient’s need for connection and communication with their healthcare provider can be strengthened via a medical call answering service.
Your Medical Answering Service Solution
At Doctors Answering Service, we know how crucial a medical answering service is to your practice. Whether you’re a dental office, doctor’s office, or hospital, you can benefit from the use of medical answering service.
24×7 Doctors Answering Service provides quotes from the leading medical answering service centers. You can choose the one that’s right for you. We are fully safe, secure, and HIPAA compliant.
You and your patients will be able to see what a difference using a medical call answering service can make. Connect with a real person, not a machine.
Contact us today to request your free quotes.