Medical professionals are busier now more than ever. These days it seems like the number of patients who need medical attention has far exceeded the number of doctors that are available to provide treatment and answer their questions. If you currently run a medical office and are having trouble keeping up with the demand from your patients, then you might want to consider employing a professional medical answering service for your office.
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What Is a Medical Answering Service?
Medical answering services provide exceptional patient and doctor support when you need it most. Being a medical professional at any level—whether you’re a nurse, a doctor, or a specialist—is a very demanding job. From treating patients to ordering tests and administering important bloodwork, there simply aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done in a timely manner.
At the same time, you also need to tend to the specific needs of your patients and make sure that they’re receiving the treatment they need regardless of their ailments. That’s where after-hours answering services for medical offices come in. If you’re a general practitioner or family doctor, you most likely work within a set number of hours during the day.
Sometimes, patients need to call in to make appointments outside of your working hours or they need access to information when you’re not available. Emergency call answering services take care of that by providing live-voice coverage during or after hours for your practice. This type of service ensures that your patients are receiving continued support from professionally trained office representatives.
All of your appointments will be aptly scheduled and kept organized. Pertinent messages will be recorded in an efficient manner and forwarded to you at your earliest convenience. Patient files and documents will be accurately verified and updated.
What Do Medical Answering Services Do?
Medical answering services are responsible for providing doctors’ offices with the much needed support to carry on their regular practices. Flu season is one of the busiest times of the year for a lot of medical facilities, so it’s important that you have a reliable and professional staff to help you stay on top of things.
Hiring an emergency call answering service is a lot like having additional backup on your administrative team. When they’re busy taking calls from patients, scheduling appointments, or assisting patients in your office, medical answering service representatives can help alleviate some of the pressure from your full-time staff.
How Can Hiring a Medical Answering Service Improve Patient Care?
Oftentimes, patients tend to feel neglected when they’re left waiting in your office well past their scheduled appointment time or if they’re frequently placed on long holds when calling your office to ask a question or when scheduling an appointment.
Hiring a professional medical answering service to handle high call volumes is an excellent solution to this problem. It gives patients the sense of comfort and peace of mind that they need to know that you value them equally and you’re not prioritizing the needs of other patients above their own.
Additional support on the phone will also result in fewer dropped calls, missed appointments, and improve overall patient morale. If a patient is dissatisfied with the type of service they’re receiving from your medical staff or if they feel as if they’re being neglected, then they’re more likely to switch to a different medical practice.
Even worse, this may deter them from seeking out medical treatment when they really need it because they might feel as if their time and needs aren’t important to you or your staff. Of course, as a doctor you immensely value your patients. Without them, you wouldn’t have a practice or medical treatment center in the first place.
You have to prove to your patients that you value their support and their time. Emergency call answering services can help reduce wait times, save you money in the long run, and offer your patients the fast and efficient services they need.
What Are the Benefits of Medical Answering Services for Doctors’ Offices?
Professional medical answering services for doctors’ offices offer a wide range of benefits to both you and your patients. Your patients will feel more comfortable and satisfied in knowing that there’s always someone available to take their calls, answer their questions, and schedule their appointments for them whenever they need it. As a doctor, this will allow you to allocate more one-on-one time with your patients so that you can provide them with the best possible treatment options.
After-Hours Answering Services for Medical Offices
Patients need to know that they can receive the medical support they need at any time of the day or night. Even though medical answering service representatives are by no means qualified to offer medical advice to your patients, they do have the ability to make and confirm appointments; give some information about medications patients may be taking; or simply reassure patients that their needs will be taken care of. In a lot of ways, this is just as important as providing medical care.
As one of the leading call centers in North America, 3C Contact Services specializes in providing professional customer service through inbound and outbound communications. We’ve represented countless business across Canada and the United States, helping them grow their businesses exponentially. Through our expertise in providing courteous customer service, we can also help doctors’ offices better manage patient requests, schedule appointments, answer calls, update patient files, and provide better care for their patients. Contact us today to learn more about our after-hours answering services for medical offices.
