9 Reasons Why Every Doctor Should Opt for Medical Answering Services
A doctor gives thousands of hours helping their patients, even when they are at home. After business hours and during the weekend, their patients turn on their phones for any medical assistance. As a doctor, you try to take every call but many of them end up in voicemail, waiting to be answered.
It is difficult to determine which calls are urgent and which call is a normal one. For every call you answer, there is another potentially more urgent call that is n hold. You and your staff try to answer as many calls as you can but sometimes it is too much for you to handle.
This is why you need to hire medical answering services. Medical answering services is a call center that takes calls on your behalf. All the calls will be transferred to a call center where trained professionals will evaluate the urgency of the call and transfer only those calls that need immediate attention.
Here is the list of reasons why every doctor should opt for medical answering services:
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Save Money on staff
You spend a lot of money on hiring staff members to carry out day to day tasks. However, they spend most of the time answering calls. When you opt for answering services, you no longer need to hire additional staff just to answer the phone. This gives your staff to work on tasks they were hired to do. Plus, you only have to pay for the calls made via answering services. This allows you to save a lot of money.
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24/7 service
Just like us, a doctor is also a human and needs time to sleep as well. But, with medical answering services, you can provide your services 24/7. Your patients can call you any time of the day to get medical assistance.
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Protect Doctor’s Time
A doctor spends more time working than relaxing or spending time with their family. This is where medical answering services comes into the picture. Since it is impossible to weed out which call is important or not, you have to answer each and every call. With medical answering services, your patients will talk to highly trained staff who will evaluate the calls and transfer only those calls, which requires your immediate attention.
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Decrease Hold Time
Just like you, your patients also have a busy life. Still, they end up spending a lot of time waiting for their calls to be answered. With medical answering services, your patient’s call is redirected to a call center. This way your patients don’t have to wait more than a few seconds, which allows you to address your patient’s concerns quickly. It helps in increasing the patient satisfaction level.
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Meet HIPAA Requirements
HIPAA has certain guidelines and according to those guidelines, all the information related to your patient’s medical record needs to be guarded at any cost. If you are using answering services and it violates any of the guidelines, you will be held responsible. This is why you need to hire a medical answering services that meets and follows all the rules and guidelines made by HIPAA.
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Meet Government Requirements
When conducting medical outbound calls, the government has created strict guidelines, which need to be followed at any cost. Unfortunately, setting up a system to handle these calls is very expensive and time-consuming. However, when you hire medical answering services, you can use an OEV call center to cut the time and cost and meet all the requirements at the same time.
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Keep accurate records
When you are dealing with highly sensitive data such as your patient’s medical records, it is important to keep your medical practice safe. All the calls made via the medical answering call center are recorded and time-stamped, which provides accurate and irrefutable records.
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Increase in Efficiency
Every minute saved by medical answering services gives your staff time to do more important tasks at hand. This increases the efficiency of your clinic. Also, you allow your patients to reach you whenever they want, giving them the attention, they deserve without sacrificing your personal time.
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Increase Patient Satisfaction
When you hire medical answering services, you allow your staff to provide a smooth and satisfying experience for your patients. Plus, your staff can focus on more important tasks, which provides a high level of service. This increases overall satisfaction, which leads to more references, thus leading to more profit.
A doctor also deserves free to relax and recover after a hard day of work. If you are a doctor and struggling to maintain a balance between your work and private life, you should start looking for medical answering services immediately.
Author Bio –
Nancy is a freelance writer, with years of experience, creating content and own a blog. She has written on a diverse topic related to medical, health, fitness, travel and destination. Read her latest article about medical answering services.