What is a Medical Answering Service & Does Your Practice Need One?

Patients often expect prompt, compassionate and consistent communication from their healthcare providers at all hours of the day. Meeting these expectations, however, can be challenging for practices juggling limited resources, packed schedules and rising administrative burdens. A medical answering service would be a valuable solution for practices to consider in such situations.

So What Exactly is a Medical Answering Service?

At its core, it is a professional solution to help handle any or all incoming calls on behalf of healthcare practices. You might also come across several generic answering service variants which cater to various industries. However, the benefit of a medical answering service is that it is specialized to the unique needs, regulations and nuances of the healthcare industry. 

Trained human receptionists who understand the significance of patient confidentiality and HIPAA compliance deliver empathetic and personalized call handling. 

A medical answering service can support practices in a several ways including: 

• Never missing a call 24/7, including after-hours, weekends and holidays
• Booking and rescheduling patient appointments 
• Taking messages and routing them to on-call staff
• Handling urgent calls and escalating via your call-flow
• Providing personalized bilingual answering

Essentially, acting as an extension of your practice. 

Does Your Practice Really Need a Medical Answering Service?

It’s definitely worth thinking about clearly prior to committing to one. Here’s some benefits that you might want to consider. A medical answering service can be beneficial: 

To Enable 24/7 Patient Access and Satisfaction

Patient queries aren’t limited to office hours. With a 24/7 medical answering service, your practice remains available to patients at all hours, offering them support and comfort in knowing they can reach someone at any time. Prompt and empathetic responses help elevate patient satisfaction, loyalty and most importantly, patient trust. All essential for a growing practice. 

To Minimize Missed Calls and Lost Revenue

Missed calls present huge missed opportunities to book more appointments. Some studies suggest that practices miss close to 30% of calls during office hours alone. Every call that goes unanswered can lead to a lost patient, a missed appointment and wasted marketing efforts. An answering service can ensure that no call gets missed and that every call answered adds to your practice’s growth. 

To Reduce Staff Burnout and Improve Efficiency

It’s no surprise that front desk teams often face a sense of overwhelm that can lead to stress and burnout. They are, after all, solely responsible for handling multiple things at one go; such as answering calls, checking in on patients and handling administrative tasks. With a medical answering service at hand to support them, they will have a few less things on their plate allowing them to focus on providing better patient care. 

To Support for After-Hours and Urgent Call Management

It’s evident that emergencies in healthcare can occur at any time of the day. The best way that you can ensure your practice and staff are supported 24/7 is with an answering service partner. You can escalate emergencies, and provide appropriate instructions to round-the-clock receptionists, ensuring that your patients get the help they need while protecting the work-life balance of your on-call team.

As a Cost-Effective Alternative to Hiring Additional Staff

Hiring the right staff is notoriously challenging, especially in a practice that’s already brimming with clashing priorities. Practitioners can opt for a medical answering service to adopt a scalable and cost-effective solution that grows with their practice. The practice will only be charged based on their specific plan requirements and they can choose to upgrade or downgrade as they’d like. 

For HIPAA Compliance and Patient Privacy

As a healthcare provider, ensuring your patients’ privacy and security will always be top of mind, aside from it just being legally required. Any reputable answering service catering to healthcare providers should be HIPAA compliant and ensure that patient messages and information is handled with confidentiality and stored securely. These factors will ensure that you can trust the service to maintain the integrity of your practice at all times. 

For Appointment Management and Reducing No-shows

No-shows are a huge lost opportunity for practices that ultimately impact the bottom line. Look for an answering service that offers appointment scheduling and reminders so that you can be sure to address your no-shows. These features will allow your patients to book, confirm or reschedule appointments with ease and ideally will improve their satisfaction too. 

To Provide Professional and Compassionate Patient Experience

The best medical answering services know that ultimately it isn’t just about answering calls 24/7. It’s about providing compassion and empathy for patients calling at any hour of the day. It’s about giving them the assurance of a human voice on the other end of the line so that your patients know your practice truly cares. This will help build trust and improve patient satisfaction ensuring that your patients choose you over other providers. 

Some Things To Consider When Choosing the Right Medical Answering Service

Choosing a service to be an extension of your practice isn’t a simple decision. Here are some things to keep in mind if you’re considering hiring one: 

• Medical/specialty-specific expertize: Especially with regards to HIPAA-compliance and handling the nuances of patient queries.
  
• Hours of availability: Look for 24/7/365 coverage to never miss a call.
  
• Tech and tool integration: Look for a provider that offers seamless integration with your existing systems (e.g.; EHR, practice management software).
  
• Reviews: Research client testimonials and case studies to gather more insights.
  
• Personalization: The right service will be able to cater to the unique needs of your practice. With flexible and scalable options.

To Conclude

Patient expectations aren’t going away anytime soon, so investing in a 24/7 medical answering service isn’t merely for convenience but rather a strategic decision for your practice. It can help elevate patient access and satisfaction, drive revenue and improve overall operational efficiencies. The right answering service for your practice will be an adept partner in helping you scale your practice and ensure that your patients feel heard and cared for anytime that they reach out.