Patients often come across a cold answering machine, which suggests a call back during opening hours.

Statistics show that over 60% of people who find an answering machine hang up without leaving a message.

A medical answering service helps prevent such communication mishaps from happening. It enables you to reduce your fixed costs and free yourself from taking calls to devote yourself entirely to your patients.

Managing your administration while handling your service commitments can often be challenging, not to mention other possible demands. When you make use of a service, it will alleviate some of the administration's tasks. Unfortunately, there may be days when your employees are sick or take a traditional holiday.

This is where a virtual after-hours medical answering service comes to play. It offers you all the essential functions of the administrative staff, but without the management requirements. They also do not require a vacation or take sick leaves, which could affect your business's functioning. You will also benefit from the lack of human resource issues that many business owners fear or need more time to address.

By hiring an answering service for a doctor's office, you will enjoy many advantages, including:
  • A named contact who knows your practice, you, and your customers.
  • Your virtual medical assistant will be supported by a small team that also knows your training and the care you provide.
  • No time is wasted at the various stages of recruitment.
  • No salary to take into account: paid, different insurances.
  • No salary increase or revision to manage.
  • Absences from sick days.
  • You will not need to set up office facilities, computers, telephone, etc.
  • No need for a permanent place of practice.

In case you’re wondering, a highly qualified medical answering service provider or agent will know how to react in emergencies and for different types of medical evidence. Having the service operator converse with your patients will make them feel important and appreciated by your office. At the same time, this will significantly reduce the number of messages on the answering machine, as patients who have not been helped by someone tend to call repeatedly, wondering if their message has been heard.

Have you put together a medical answering service list to deploy? To save you time, here is the list of performance advantages we recommend when looking for a healthcare answering service.

Offer better service to patients.

A telephone appointment request is often the first interaction between a patient and their practitioner. Like any professional, the latter must offer the patient quality care, the first stone of a cordial and lasting relationship.

An after-hours medical answering service managed by a dedicated team is available with a comprehensive time slot, including outside the usual opening hours of the specialist or the care center.

Flexibility / Adaptability

The ability to quickly adapt to an unexpected event. For example: canceling a series of appointments due to a personal problem. In case of difficulties or adjustments of the instructions, some doctors are forced to wait several minutes to reach their hotline, a roof.
Price

The form and envelope to budget for access to the service. One price per call or package.

And gain in efficiency.

Entrusting specialists to their medical hotlines is an effective way for health professionals to free themselves from a time-consuming and inevitable task. This permits them to devote more time to their patients and accept more appointments. Others delegate only part of the incoming calls, for example, during peak activity.

Phone call screening

With this, you can reduce the number of calls that result in a conversation with your answering service for doctors' offices. This call filter prevents soliciting a person in contexts where a simple answering machine or voice message would suffice.

The principle of telephone filtering is straightforward: during a call, the patient indicates the reason for the request and the urgency felt. With this information gathered, you can predict different scenarios depending on the situation. For example:
  • If urgent, forward the request to a remote secretary.
  • For non-urgent requests, invite the patient to leave a voice message to avoid disturbing the consultation in progress.
  • Recall the possibility of making an appointment online and advertising the website.
  • Recall your emergency instructions when the cabinet is closed.

Whether general or specialized, they consider the service efficient and reliable. Using a medical hotline is often synonymous with better organization and time savings for doctors. With a service provider ensuring patient relationship management, the practitioner can focus on his core business.

Outsourcing to save time

Whether you’re starting an activity or have a large clientele, outsourcing will save you time. Appointment booking, follow-up, hotline- these daily missions are time-consuming. Taking charge of them through an answering service for doctors' offices will allow you to devote yourself solely to your profession: caring for the sick.

Outsource for better organization.

By outsourcing tasks, you provide your patients with extensive telephone reception. The majority of professionals offer 24/7 management packages, including holidays. After-hours medical answering service is available for those who need immediate help. They also make appointments, confirm them, and update the consultation plan. 

Outsource to save money.

Outsourcing costs less than hiring an in-house employee. By choosing the pricing of the pharmaceutical answering service, you benefit from the same services at lower costs. The service generally works as a package. You can, therefore, adapt the offer to your needs, for example, by choosing management only during your holidays.