If you are running a medical clinic, you should consider hiring an answering service. Your staff may be inconvenienced when required to answer phone calls while attending to patients. Without the service in your medical clinic, the staff will be overwhelmed, disorganized, interrupted by incoming calls, and provide poor services.

Therefore, several benefits are arising from hiring a professional call answering service for your facility. The medical answering service will help when your staff is handling large numbers, booking appointments, or answering questions. Additionally, the service helps provide services like 24/7 availability, cost-effective, reducing hold time, saving your time and money, providing services in case of emergencies, meeting the government requirements, among other benefits.

Notably, after business hours and over the weekends, the patients may call for emergencies or questions. You will receive several calls, and the rest will be diverted to voicemail until a member of your staff responds to them.

As you handle incoming calls, you may come across patients requiring your services urgently. For every answered call, there is another urgent call on hold, waiting for your response. Sometimes, you may need adequate time and personal interaction with your patients, but the work becomes too much for both you and your staff.

However, don't worry about the level of quality your facility can offer and the number of patients you may help. By hiring a professional answering service, you will handle the incoming calls and offer your patients the best services. The patients will receive the personalized help they need at any time they need it, even after business hours. The following are the common benefits arising from using a medical answering service for your medical clinic:

  1. A Medical Answering Service Will Save You Time

You may be planning to hire an extra employee to assist your staff with the workload. However, one more employee would make a huge difference in the clinic's expenditures. However, with a medical answering service at work, you will avoid hiring more employees, paid vacations, or paid sick days. If you have various locations for your firm, hiring more employees may be expensive. Additionally, the medical answering service will handle the incoming calls from all the locations. Therefore, you don't have to hire many new receptionists or hire an employee to split between the offices. A single answering service will perform all of your clinic's duties effectively.

  1. A Medical Answering Service Will Reduce the Hold Times

A patient may be busy and so could be your facility. As you try to answer each call quickly, most callers may be put on hold. However, with medical answering service in place, the calls are filtered and redirected to a call center rather than being placed on hold.

Additionally, you may provide the exact scripts you want the agents to follow with the medical answering service. Moreover, you will train them on your medical clinic procedures and practices. With the medical answering service, your clients will be greeted by a person with knowledge and experience in providing help to the callers. A client may call to inquire about health issues, book appointments, or clarify their medication.

  1. A Medical Answering Service Assists the Patients In Case of Emergencies

Your medical clinic may be located in an area prone to natural disasters like floods, power outages, regional pandemics, snowstorms, hurricanes, and earthquakes. In that case, it may cause great destruction since you were not expecting, leading to the closure of your office. Therefore, having a medical answering service in place is very important. If you aren't prepared for the unexpected, your patients may be abandoned in case of emergency.

However, medical answering service will provide 24/7 customer support. Moreover, if your customers want guidance after a natural disaster occurs, the answering service will be helpful. The team comprises qualified medical practitioners with access to the patient's records.

  1. The Service Saves Your Money

Note that time is money and every minute spent answering phone calls by your staff is a minute which might have been used for more critical tasks. Although you may employ extra employees to ease the call's strain, it could result in high costs. However, if you have a medical answering service, your facility will have access to various cost-saving options. The options are:

  1. Reduced Employee Costs

If your medical clinic has many employers, the expenditure will be high. Alternatively, if the medical clinic has fewer employees, it will have fewer expenditures on paid leave, training insurance, salaries, among other expenses. Additionally, you will avoid the costs of hiring new employees for the post of a receptionist.

  1. After-Hour Calls

Medical answering service will offer a 24/7 service to the patients. Additionally, the service is available during the day and night time. You will only pay the agents for the time spent when answering calls and not the idle time.

  1. Decreased Liability

With a hundred percent patient records and compliance with government requirements and HIPAA, your professional answering service will reduce the potential liability and save more money.

  1. One Point of Contact

Besides hiring several receptionists to answer each call at your facilities, medical answering service may serve as the intermediate for your medical clinics. You may use a single medical answering service for your different medical clinics in different locations.

  1. Meet Medicare/Government Requirements

The government expects the answering service to adhere to its guidelines while carrying call verification and medicare outbound education. An answering service for your medical law firm helps reduce costs by using an outbound education and verification call center. Additionally, it meets government requirements and ensures customer satisfaction. Notably, the service will help answer enrollment questions, contact new enrollees, document response rates, and other necessary metrics.

  1. Increased Patient Satisfaction

With all the benefits arising from the medical answering service, your customers will feel more satisfied with your medical clinic. Additionally, efficient operations help decrease the time spent on phone calls and appointments. The patients will reach your clinic anytime and receive the help and answers they need. Moreover, medical experts will only handle critical phone calls, allowing them to respond promptly. An increased availability, a staff that isn’t overwhelmed, and less wait time create a conducive environment for the medical staff.

  1. Increases Profitability

When you have a medical answering service at work, your staff will have more time to perform the necessary tasks for a smooth operation. Minimal interruptions result in huge profits for your medical clinics. Any minute saved by the call center may be useful in increasing your clinic's efficiency and profitability. Additionally, your patients will reach the medical answering service 24/7, thus ensuring you avoid missing client calls. Working day and night ensures the firm makes profits while your staff is asleep at night. Giving the patients the attention they require will minimize the number of patients' appointments for issues that might be solved over a phone call.

  1. Meets Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Requirements

The patient's privacy is essential, and the government closely monitors it. As per HIPAA, the service should closely monitor and guard the patient’s information. If the medical answering service breaches HIPAA's requirements, your medical clinic will be responsible for privacy breaches. However, your facility may avoid the violations if you choose a HIPAA compliant medical answering service.

  1. Protecting the Staff’s Time and Privacy

After business hours, your medical officers are their time for relaxing, recovering, and connecting with family. However, you can't control time for issues or emergencies. Therefore, the physicians will always handle the problems during their off period.

With a medical answering service at work, patients may communicate with your staff professionals after business hours or at any time of their choice, either day or night time. Additionally, the live agents evaluate every call, transfer the emergency calls to the health professionals, and provide the patients with support or issues they can address.

  1. Keeping Irrefutable Records

As your clinic deals with sensitive information like medical records, it is critical to keep the information safe. Therefore the calls made via medical answering service will be recorded and provide accuracy and irrefutable records when required.

  1. Cost Effective

Hiring and maintaining a full and properly trained staff may be costly, especially to a new medical clinic. Additionally, hiring extra staff for answering calls increases the clinic's spending. However, when you utilize a professional call center, you will avoid the extraneous costs of paying technical support, paid time off, insurance coverage, among others. The call center professionals are well equipped in medicine and will require additional training from your practice. Therefore your staff will focus on high-priority tasks, thus reducing staffing costs and increasing employees' efficiency.

  1. Relay Messages to Nurses and Doctors in Real-Time

With trained call center experts, they will evaluate the urgency of the incoming calls. Besides directing them to a local emergency room that might be costly, the medical answering service will forward the incoming calls to the trained health professionals. The patients will receive responses from actual nurses and doctors, bolstering their confidence with your clinic. Additionally, the answering services are flexible and can support various practices, including chiropractic, surgical, and dental.

  1. Appointment Reminders

Many medical answering services provide appointment reminder services. Therefore your office will avoid the task of calling the patients to confirm whether they will show up to their appointment. Mostly, the reminders are customized depending on the appointment. For instance, a basic check-up will require one reminder. Alternatively, a surgical appointment will need multiple reminders to ensure the patients attend your office prepared for the procedure.

  1. Increased Availability

There will always be busier days in a medical clinic, even when you have the staff handle the incoming calls. Medical answering service will ensure overflow support for the patients. If your receptionist receives high call volumes, the call center will provide relief for both your patients and your staff. The patients hate being placed on hold, but with an answering service in place, you don't have a reason to put them on hold.

  1. Better Client Experience

Medical answering service is available on a 24/7 basis. Therefore your patients may book an appointment whenever they want. The patient won't wait more on hold. Rather will book the appointment right away. Additionally, with the answering service in service, it will reduce the workload for your staff. Therefore the team will be more relaxed, have more time, and provide better patient service. Happy patients will always remain loyal to your medical clinic. Additionally, they will recommend you to their family and friends.

  1. Your Staff Will Concentrate on Taking Care of The Patients and Have a Smooth Follow Up

The main reason for hiring an answering service is to give enough time to your doctors and nurses to handle the patients and perform the essential activities. An answering service is very crucial to the patients booking appointments. Notably, most profit for your medical clinic is brought by the patients already on your premises. Therefore, you should avoid disappointing them because of poor services from the nurses and physicians busy answering calls.

Additionally, a professional medical answering service will take the correct information from the patients. This is because the professionals you hire don't engage in any other task rather than dealing with phone calls. Therefore the agents will take great notes, ensuring you follow the patients and remind them of the appointments.

Conclusion

If your medical clinic is overwhelmed with incoming calls, you should consider hiring a call answering service. The med answering service will provide several benefits to both your staff and your patients. The service could help save time for the callers, booking doctor appointments, and ensuring your staff members are not interrupted by the incoming calls as they handle the essential duties. The service will be crucial for the growth and survival of your medical clinic. The growth and survival of your clinic will result in increased profitability for your facility. Your patient's experience is the most critical element for the success of your medical clinic.