When patients need hearth care, they might need to get it at any time of day. When you’re at work, you’re busy, and when you’re not at work, you would rather be relaxing at home without the worry of your patients until tomorrow.
If you manage a lot of patients, you may think that it is impossible to have a long-term piece of mind, that is, until you employ the services of a physician answering service. Answering phones, dealing with patients who are out of office, and other small yet irritating tasks will be no more for you and your staff, so that you can be left with your more important work. Here are five features that a medical answering service can provide for your office and patients.
1. Around The Clock Support
Running an office, clinic, or other medical facility is not just a daytime commitment. Concerns with patients can happen at any time of day, and if nobody is at your office when a patient is calling, nothing good results from it. With a physician answering service, what happens instead of the call going to your office is that the call will be forwarded to a live call representative that will get the patient the help and/or information that he or she needs. No more voice mail, no more waiting until tomorrow, when a patient needs assistance, he or she can get it.
2. Medical Dispatch
Some inquiries that patients may have are urgent. If an elderly patient falls, or a young patient suffers from an asthma attack, a call representative on the other end of the phone can escalate the problem to emergency services, so that an ambulance or other service can arrive quickly. Medical answering services use highly trained professionals who will handle patients’ calls according to your business.
3. Appointment Scheduling
Sometimes, a patient doesn’t call for help, but rather to schedule an appointment with you. It can be difficult to manage a schedule on your own, as every day you have to keep tight track of new appointments, cancelled appointments, and other tasks to work around them. Thankfully, this can be a job for a medical answering service, as they can be responsible for setting up your schedule, booking appointments, and making changes if need be. These changes are made immediately, so that you can track your schedule online, without contacting the answering service, for the most recent tasks that need to get done.
4. Issuing Reminders
You may ask, what if my patients need to be reminded about their appointments? A physician answering service has you covered with this as well! In addition to managing appointments, calling representatives can call patients at their home and give them a friendly reminder about who to see, where to go, and what time they need to arrive. Missed appointments is never good for your office, and always having somebody to help remind your patients will keep your office going according to plan.
5. Check Up Calls
Call representatives employed by answering services can also check up on your patients for you. After a procedure or appointment, they can ask patients about how they are doing and coping a day after their visit to your office. There is always a chance that something can go wrong or that the patient experiences a serious issue, so it is always good to be sure that your procedures or directives to your patients go well with no complications. Without doing reminders and check up calls yourself, you can lighten your personal schedule and not be overwhelmed.
