Amid coronavirus pandemic, healthcare services are overloaded. People need medical services for safety from the virus and other ailments. Medical service providers need appropriate preparation to keep their patients happy regardless of the hectic schedule. With your staff business attending to patients, this might leave the phone unattended. So, you need to enlist the services of a doctor answering service to handle incoming calls and keep your patients happy.
Role of a doctor answering service
While working around the clock, the medical answering service offers handy assistance to lessen the work overload. Highly trained agents respond to all incoming calls while your in-house employees can focus attends to patients. This enhances the quality of medical services, enhances patient flow, and boosts care coordination. Getting assistance from a medical answering service ensures an efficient flow of business processes without neglecting patients. Apart from benefiting your medical practice, read on to discover ways the answering service benefits patients.
24/7 access to medical services
Younger patients are not satisfied with how traditional healthcare operates. With today’s hectic lifestyle, people desire to have less wait time to see their physician, speedy appointments, efficient operations, and convenient channels. The best way to make your medical office appeal to patients during coronavirus pandemic is efficient operations, utmost transparency, and convenient access to medical services.
When you get doctor answering service, all your patients enjoy 24/7 interaction even when your medical office is closed. A live answering service extends the capability of your patients to reach your medical office. This allows handling the most common patient complaints and prioritization of urgent calls to guarantee patient satisfaction.
Human touch to customer service
Relying on voicemail to handle incoming calls to your medical office seems easy when unable to handle calls during busy periods. About 80 percent of patients hung up on hearing recorded messages and are less likely to call back. Patients look forward to a live person calling your medical office. Listening to the voicemail prompts consumes time and is tiring. People end up skipping some steps and missing some messages leading to dissatisfaction and frustration.
Redirecting your patients to voicemail gives your medical office a negative impression. The inability to talk to a live customer service agent alienates callers for making them feel less important. An answering service offers exceptional treatment and is always there for your patients where necessary. This reinforces your reputation as a reliable and caring medical service provider.
Limits frustration
Regardless of the current coronavirus outbreak, people still get other health issues and questions that need the attention of their physician. Keep in mind that these can happen anytime and anywhere. Patients who can’t reach their physicians end up frustrated. Unanswered patient calls significantly compromise satisfaction from your medical office giving patients a negative impression.
When you enlist the services of a professional doctor answering service, your patients get access to 24/7 customer support. This is the best way for the patients to understand that you care. The ideal answering agency has highly trained agents with experience to greet all your callers in a friendly and engaging tone. This makes it easier for patients to communicate their problems effectively so the agent can resolve the issue quickly and efficiently.
Guaranteed data privacy
Patients who call a medical office and reach voicemail, there is no guarantee about who is to hear their message. However, when patients call and speak to a live answering agent, there is peace of mind about the safety of their important health information. Reputable answering agents are highly trained to comply with HIPAA regulations.
Relying on a HIPAA compliant doctor answering service is the best way to be sure that patient health information is protected. This is through strategies including:
- Data encryption
- Secure messaging
- Strict data protection policies
All these strategies are regularly updated and reviewed to ensure that your patients get the services they need. All these guarantee confidentialities of their health information.
Five-star medical care
Amid the coronavirus outbreak, medical offices are overwhelmed. Keep in mind that you have to deal with the continuous flow of phone calls. This is a major distraction for medical staff. Enlisting the services of an answering service frees up your employees’ time. This allows concentrating fully on patient care. Staying focused on the needs of patients gives them a stellar impression of your medical office.
A reputable medical answering service will avail of a dedicated team of call agents to handle all your inbound calls while forwarding real emergencies. This improves staff efficiency, satisfaction, and gives patients access to five-star care.
Conclusion
To meet the increasing demand for medical services amid COVID-19, efficient and fast call handling will help offer superior patient care. The best way to achieve this is to enlist a medical answering service to benefit your employees by freeing up their time and patients through access to ready service.
