Why your organization needs to switch to a new medical answering service provider?

While a few people are satisfied with the prevailing state of healthcare in the world, one important role is due to the growing role medical answering services and healthcare call centers perform in rendering professional, personal care and consideration to their patients and caregivers. Although most would agree that medical answering service takes messages for patients who call after-hours, however their role is much more than just answering calls. Let's see a few of those:

On-Call Dispatching

Suppose due to an emergency medical situation, the caller went to the emergency room. But what about conditions that come within “go to ER” and “contact the office in the evening?” In such cases, the answering service can reach the proper on-call person. The contacting ways follow in accordance with the caller's preference. It could be via phone, message, email, etc. In many instances, the healthcare provider has the answering service gives the patient’s contact data to the on-call person. The on-call person then reaches the patient undeviatingly. 

 Scheduling Appointments and Reminders

Many-a-times patients want to schedule an appointment and they are always eager to find the top slot available. So, they plan accordingly in the morning to call the office as it opens, a more suitable approach would be is for the answering service to schedule the appointment. Although no practitioner wants a cancellation but the answer taking services are even better in taking it and it's hopefully better than a no show. Additionally, the earlier you know about a cancellation, the sooner you can fill it u. The medical answering services play a vital role in this and that too round the clock. They even play the role of the remainder for the patients. Basic questions such as the arrival time, location or procedure could be answered by them appropriately. This results in a few missed appointments and a more productive schedule.

Helpful in seminar and other class registrations 

Medical service provides can call attendees for multiple classes and seminars, such as wellness class, navigating insurance benefits, nutritional lessons, exercise sessions, and so forth. They can obtain registration data, attendance numbers, and potential billing information.

Few Sings that indicates you need to switch your medical service provider

Usually, your first impression in front of patients is expressed by your answering services. It will shape would they continue for long-term depending on their positive or negative experiences. But how would you come to know whether you are providing services up to their needs and demands? Let's see a few ways that would define whether you need to re-think about your service agent or not.

Your Patients are on Hold Continuously

No one desires being on-hold and most of them hang up with elongated wait times. The last thing you would wish is to keep an emergency caller on hold or if he needs to schedule an appointment. If you constantly receive feedback about irrational wait times, you need to look at the situation keenly. An expert and reputable service provider will have a proper setup to attend all calls immediately and efficiently. 

Emergency Calls are Mishandled

There are differences between medical answering services in the way they have trained their experts, so all are not of equal potential. So if your medical answering provider isn't trained at handling medical emergencies, he would likely to cause more harm than good. So properly knowing about your emergency policies and follow set standards in dealing with their concerns is vital for a service provider. You wouldn't want to take an emergency to a wrong doctor or wake someone in the middle of the night when they aren't on-call. So if you are notified that any of your patient's emergency call was not attended properly you should take stringent actions immediately. To maintain accuracy, keep a track record of call recording and regular reviews.

Rude Agents

You simply don't operate on someone's behalf they have trusted you and your professionalism. Don't repay them and their organizations with rude operators. A healthcare organization can avoid such a provider by thoroughly going through their selection process whether they hire through a thorough vetting process or not. Be clear with your needs as to how you want them to treat your patients, how a frustrated patient should be treated positively. Make sure you incorporate a review process to verify whether or not your clients are treated with regard, endurance, and understanding. Rude behavior shouldn't be tolerated and overlooked. As they represent your organization and it can highly devalue your image in the market.

They aren’t HIPAA Compliant

We know the importance of confidentiality and data security in the healthcare sector. So take possible steps to check whether your service provider is HIPPA compliant and is constantly updated with its best practices. Because of a single mistake, even if you were aware of it or not you could be heavily penalized. More importantly, you would lose the trust of your patients. So, you should be aware of the standards your call center agents incorporate to handle text messages notifications. As to be HIPAA compliant, they must use an encrypted text messaging app to send guarded health information. This should be something you must firstly note in your service provider as it is about the safety and security of their data and would directly reflect your consciousness of their safety.