Everything You Need To Know About Working With A Medical Answering Service
If your medical practice is struggling with answering all of your incoming calls during the business day and/or after hours, then a medical answering service just might be the answer you seek.
Rather than having to hire more staff for your business, you can easily and seamlessly outsource the work to the answering service instead. Since the answering service is tasked with staffing their own business, utilizing their service will prevent you from having to deal with a multitude of different staffing issues and all of the costs of hiring and retaining staff.
How a Medical Answering Service Works
To work with a medical phone call answering service, all your employees need to do is forward the office's phone lines to the answering service when they want them to pick up the calls.
When patients call your medical office, the answering service operator will answer their calls with a custom greeting of your choice. Since the answering service answers as your office, most callers won't know they aren't actually speaking with someone physically located inside of your office.
Services Offered by Medical Answering Services
When your patients reach the answering service, they can do more than simply leave a message for someone in the office to call them back.
For example, you can arrange with the answering service to give out your business hours, directions to your physical location, and even book or cancel appointments. Doing so greatly reduces the number of messages the service will take that need to be returned by your office staff.
How an Answering Service Improves the Flow of Your Business
When the answering service is taking calls, it frees up a lot of time for your employees to work with patients who are physically in your office. They won't have to interrupt conversations to answer the phone. In addition, callers won't get long ring times or be forced to leave a message on an impersonal voice mail. These simple things go a long way towards increasing the level of customer service your practice offers.
A Final Note About HIPAA Compliance
Finally, it's vital you choose an answering service for your medical practice that is HIPAA compliant. Just as your staff needs to comply with the HIPAA regulations for medical information privacy, so too does your answering service. So, when you speak to the answering service about signing up, make sure you confirm they are HIPAA compliant.
Get in touch with a medical answering service today.
