It is very important for any medical center to show to its patients it cares, for it to win their trust. Now this cannot be achieved as soon as a medical center is started, but it can happen over time. There is no doubt that the diagnostic and surgical skills are the most important, but as the center becomes popular, it will require an efficient answering service, which can be handled by staff members. 

The answering device is the first point of contact between the patient and the medical center. Therefore, it is important that these calls are handled efficiently and promptly, so that both doctors and patients find it easy to take future courses of action. Of course, it would be beneficial if the medical center can keep the doctors answering services cost down to the minimum, since it is used for several hours in a day. 

Choose a fixed rate

A doctors’ answering device will surely be in use for about 12 hours in a single day, and any number of calls could be answered during that time. Therefore, it makes a lot of sense to go in for a fixed rate every month. All you need to do is to get in touch with a reputed company that sells answering services and ask for a price quote in your area. By opting for a fixed rate, you will be able to reap the maximum benefits from your equipment while not worrying about extra charges as per minutes, patches, pages and individual calls. If you’re a doctor, this deal gives you more time to focus more on your core areas of competence.

Advantages of choosing a high quality answering device for your clinic 

• You will always be able to focus on providing exceptional patient care 
• Patients will have the option to choose from multiple languages, so that they can explain their problems easily
• You will save money as you will be employing lesser staff members to handle calls
• The device can handle the situation if you are unavailable for urgent calls
• Its intelligent system will ensure that only urgent issues are escalated
• On-call scheduling for physicians is made possible 
• Patient-clinic confidentiality is maintained at all times
• If there is no response to an emergency call, the device will be able to connect the patient to multiple backup numbers 
• The answering service shows that a high degree of professionalism is being exhibited by your medical center

Patients don’t like speaking to robots

Complete automation at a doctor’s clinic is irritating for a number of patients. Many of these patients are old, which means that they find it very hard to work with technology. Therefore, ensure that your answering service also has a staff member handling calls, so that patients get the human touch. It goes a long way in showing that the medical center can express empathy and compassion at a patient’s situation. In addition, speaking to a human makes the patients feel their time is being valued. 

Isn’t every patient important for a doctor? 

Yes, it is true that every affected individual is equally eligible to receive medical care from a doctor. However, medical centers normally get two kinds of calls from patients- urgent and not-so-urgent. If the call happens to be classified as urgent, the answering service will be able to get the doctor-on-call within 3 seconds, allowing him or her to offer medical advice as early as possible. On the contrary, if this call is not urgent, patients have the option of recording their messages, which will be handled by the device on the next day. This is how the doctors’ answering service benefits both doctors and patients.

Get a HIPAA compliant answering service machine

Always ensure that while choosing a doctor answering service, get one which is HIPAA compliant. HIPAA is the short form for 1996 Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act and it has the authority to enforce regulations that can protect patient privacy and health insurance portability. It protects medical information and patient data from being misused in the US and elsewhere in the world. Prior to HIPAA, no standards of medical privacy were present in this field.

Customer satisfaction is very important for your clinic

A customer, once dissatisfied will never return, no matter how hard you try. Think of the answering service as part of a reception service at the clinic. This is naturally the place where a patient spends maximum amount of time, and so any kind of constructive feedback is likely to be provided here. 

An efficient doctor answering service can be programmed to meet clinic protocols. When the machine comes from a reliable vendor, you can be sure that the product would already be meeting external quality standards. It will certainly help take your medical practice to the next level.