6 Reasons Why You Need a Medical Answering Service
Is your staff overburdened with phone calls, registrations and messages? Are you paying extra for overnight staff on duty to answer patient calls? Are your patients complaining about long wait times or hold times when they simply want to reschedule an appointment?
Well, you will be surprised to know that providers across the US are facing this issue. Despite giving countless hours to patient care throughout the week, providers are still facing patient dissatisfaction, and lacking the time to give a personal touch.
The answer to these woes is a professional medical answering service. Providers are seeing quite an optimized practice and revenue cycle by outsourcing answering service to companies like Astron EHS, where trained professionals handle patient calls, registrations, appointment scheduling/rescheduling/cancelling and more.
Let’s talk about some of the top benefits in detail.
1. Saves Money
Time spent by your staff in handling calls is what could be devoted to more important tasks and hiring more staff means a long term, continuous commitment of added expenses and benefits.
Instead, outsourcing medical or dental answering service to a professional company that have experts trained in medical software and terminologies is an affordable option. Medical billing and answering service companies like Astron EHS charge fees based on size of practice which can be accommodated to increase in patient flow as and when required.
Other advantages like having one point of contact for answering patient calls fosters a healthy provider-patient relationship and since these services are 24/7, after hour calls or calls during breaks are not missed.
2. Decreases Hold Time
Front office staff is usually overburdened with calls, messages, greeting the patient, registration as well as accepting payments. Between all these tasks, often calls are on wait or hold for too long.
It can be frustrating and time consuming for patients to experience this. On the other hand, a professional answering service is dedicated to just that. It reduces the workload of your staff, assists a more cheerful environment in your waiting area and reduces chaos.
3. HIPAA Compliant
Professional medical answering services like Astron EHS are trained in HIPAA compliance. The experts ensure proper handling of Protected Health Information.
4. Prepares for emergency situations & busy times
Disasters and emergencies like snowstorms, hurricanes, flooding, power outage, etc. can suddenly increase the influx of phone calls and patients at the same time.
While providers and their staff handle the patients, calls and messages can be swiftly answered and responded to by the medical answering service.
Providers may also opt for answering services only during busy times of the week/day, during staff break times and after hours.
5. Provider Personal Time
While the timing of medical emergencies can never be controlled, physicians can be relieved from answering every call especially after hours.
The calls can be answered by expert professionals who evaluate them and transfer only urgent calls to physicians and provide support to the others based on requirements they can address.
The providers can thus make time for family and personal endeavors.
6. Increases Patient Satisfaction
Efficient operations, reduced wait times, decreased hold time and giving patients the option to call after hours or during their breaks for a more private environment surely assists patient satisfaction.
Avoiding over working your staff with phone calls makes them more available to attend to patients, creates a more cheerful and organized environment in the front office area which is the first impression for your patients.
Satisfied patients are more likely to refer you to their friends and family.
Looking for medical answering services to reduce your workload and hold time issues? Get in touch with us.