Archive for the tag 'answering service'

This Virtual Receptionist Can Do More Than You Think!

Dr. Maulik February 8th, 2010

If you run a health care center and in search of efficient frontdesk helper for multitasking, you should probably give a shot to a state-of-art automated virtual receptionist that can function as substitute of your live staff!

A typical human virtual receptionist would answer patients’ calls with some limitations –for instance most live agent will not book appointment for your caller, or if they do, the fee they charge for the service can be hefty to your. An automated virtual receptionist will help your caller with an appointment at a fraction of the human agent’s fee.

Because a virtual receptionist is electronically connected to doctor’s online scheduler, a doctor can also turn this wonderful system into patient reminder service –automated calls to patients for reminding them about forthcoming appointments and visits to the health care center. Clinic owners can therefore minimize the risk of financial loss due to the patient’s no-shows issues. In addition to reminder service, online scheduler that support prepaid medical appointment also help doctors deals with such issue as it ensures partial or full payment of appointment be made at the time of appointemnt booking.

An all-in-one Virtual receptionist-Appointment Scheduler can synchronize your schedule with Google Calendar and send it to handheld device such as Smartphone, iPhone and Blackberry. This feature has been proved to be very useful for doctors who travel out of their stations frequently. 2ways Google Sync allows them to manage their schedule from handhelds device without computer. It is truelly “anywhere anytime” convenience and flexibility.

New technologie is here to help you run a better business. An all-in-one Multi-tasking virtual receptionist could be the best helper you ever known.

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Complete your office automation with Online Appointment Scheduler

Dr. Maulik January 19th, 2010

If you think your office automation is completed without installing online appointment scheduler that takes care of arranging patients’ appointments online, probably you need to look at some of the great benefits that come with that wonderful system.

Online appointment scheduler, as the term suggests, is software system that fixes patients appointments online without any human assistance! If this is not enough, patient appointment scheduler can also perform various tasks that are quite difficult by human medical receptionists at a time. The patients do not need to go through series of questionnaires! Also, the system can be manipulated as per doctor’s expertise and can be used as automated virtual receptionist.

Easy availability is one of the best tools to take your business graph on high! By installing online appointment scheduler for patients, the health care center is accessible by patients 24/7 without any hassles. In addition, when your use a scheduler connecting virtual receptionist, there are no chances for the patients to get busy calls that otherwise frustrate them and they keep down the phone. Woven with latest technology, the virtual receptionist cum online appointment scheduler comes with multilingual option for smoother communication with foreigners. Designed in a very user friendly way, automated virtual receptionist is gaining much popularity among health care providers for medical management.

Some added features of online medical management system include its reminder service. The system can make calls to patients and remind them about their forthcoming appointments and visits to health care centers. Also, patients can be notified about their regimen, dos and don’ts as per doctor’s advice using patient reminder calls. Reminder service, according to many health care providers, proves to be very helpful in minimizing patient no-shows those are major factors contributing the revenue loss.

Online appointment scheduler also synchronizes patients’ appointments with Google Calendar and sends it to handheld devices such as Blackberry, iPhone and Smartphone. A two way communication allows health care providers to reschedule, cancel or alter appointments as per his or her convenience. This proves to be very useful tool for health care providers who travel out of their town/clinics frequently.

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Why should you switch to an Online Doctor Appointment Scheduler?

Dr. Maulik November 29th, 2009

Although, it is said that humans are more intelligent than machines but it will not be wrong if we say that machines are more dependable than humans. Even we as humans do not trust other humans but we trust the computers. Technology has really made machines so powerful that they have outperformed humans in efficiency and reliability.

As any other office, medical offices also have receptionists to help doctors coordinate with the patients and perform jobs like answering to the queries of patients, fixing appointments and do a basic level of management. With the advances of technology these routine jobs can be done very well with medical software for online appointment schedule. A medical professional who is a little techno savvy can get the information of all the appointments directly on to his handheld device like iphone or blackberry, if the online appointment scheduler is synchronized with the Google calendar. Some of the best software also let you know about the appointments by single word command SMS or using a text message.

A virtual receptionist is also capable of communicating in several languages such as English, French, Spanish and Chinese. Look out for a Doctor Appointment Scheduler that should also has patient reminder services bundled with it so that it can also help you from loosing any revenue resulting from no shows by patient. This is done by either and automated email notification and a telephonic reminder to the patient. Things will be a lot easier to handle with you will have an automated office. An online appointment scheduler works all the responsibilities of a virtual receptionist and also able to respond to your patients using an automated answering machine.

We have seen the advantages of a doctor appointment scheduler but there are few things you should consider when you decide to purchase such software.

Before you decide to buy and online doctor appointment scheduler make sure that it is HIPAA compliant to ensure security and privacy of the conversation as well as patient information. You should also ask for additional features that the product has when compared with the competitive products. One such important feature you should look for is the ability of the software to let you customize it as per your medical specialty.

Do not shy away from asking for a Demo of the short listed medical software as it will give you a clear picture of the features supported as well as let you have a look at the user interface of the system.

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Phone Answering Service – How It Could Save Your Medical Practice

Martin Wright January 19th, 2009

Hospitals all over the US are reeling from effects of an economy in chaos and financial markets experiencing some of their worst times in 70 years. There is a tremendous increase in the number of uninsured patients visiting hospitals. Many hospitals are thus on the brink of collapsing while others are being closed down daily. As many employers work on how to scale back on health coverage and as the State looks for ways of cutting health care programs the people are left with no option but to off important but elective care like colonoscopies. With this kind of a scenario private medical practice is also taking a body blow. No practitioner can afford to lose clients and practices are looking for ways of attracting new ones. A lot needs to be done though, to achieve this. The kind of service that clients get will determine whether the practice retains or loses the client.

A good phone answering service is a sure way of ensuring that your clients are always happy. A friendly 24/7 medical answering service makes the patients feel well cared for and believe they are getting value for their money. As the competition for the few clients continues a efficient and friendly front desk phone answering service could be the critical thing you need to help your practice pull through this recession.

By investing in an after-hours answering service you make it possible for your clients to get attention when you are out of the office. A good phone answering service will also help your staff concentrate on other more important issues that will improve customer satisfaction and ultimately enhance retention. During these challenging economic times it is important to make sure that your clients are not kept for long waiting for their calls to go through. A good doctor answering service will give your practice the edge you need to beat your competitors. As more businesses close down you need to change the way you do things and ensure increased efficiency to enhance customer satisfaction.

The cost of investing in a live answering service is incomparable to the earnings you stand to gain from this one time investment. In addition, there is no need to worry about maintenance fees and your office will remain ‘open’ 24 hours a day 7 days a week! You could easily see your client list double within a few months through referrals and increased retention. A physician answering service is all you need to weather this recession. Get one today and you will always be glad you made this decision!

As the world eagerly awaits the swearing in of the 44th American president, it is no doubt that the new White House occupant has his job well cut out for him. With the effects of the economic downturn being felt not only here in the US but in many other areas in the world, governments are doing everything in their capacity to cushion their economies. Big businesses like Citigroup and SsangYong in Asia continue to register huge losses and file for bankruptcy as the business arena gets trickier. The medical practice will certainly be
affected!

Take good care of your business and have a recession-proof year at your practice!

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Looking for an Affordable, Quality Phone Answering Service

Julia McEachern December 8th, 2008


When I was growing up and my parents needed to contact our family doctor after his office closed, they picked up the phone and dialed him directly. Gone are the days of that personalized after-hours service and you will now be hard pressed to find a physician who easily hands over their personal contact number to patients…just in case.

Physician offices are understaffed, underpaid from managed care organizations, and overwhelmed by the medical and social needs of the patients they serve. Many physicians feel “chained” to their practice and work long hours each day. Sickness and illness occur twenty four hours a day, seven days a week and often can not wait until the office opens. Physicians and patients alike rely on phone answering service to receive calls from patients and relay messages to the on call physician. A quality phone answering service performs this function seamlessly, integrating itself into the workflow of each physician office that it serves. Unfortunately, affordability of these services is often a prohibitive factor as well as the human error that can occur when an phone answering service is used.

Common physician complaints about live answering services include:

  1. Messages from the service are relayed to the wrong physician on call, sometimes repeatedly waking up this person throughout the night
  2. Patient names are not transcribed correctly
  3. Answering service staff are not well versed in medical terminology therefore incorrectly relaying chief complaints or presenting symptoms
  4. Calls are not triaged appropriately, with non urgent calls being lumped together with more acute calls, putting physicians more at risk for medical liability
  5. Patients and physicians are kept on hold for long periods of time
  6. Front office staff receive an influx of sick patient calls for appointments during the first hour of the practice being opened (the busiest time) from people referred from the answering service
  7. Cost of answering message service does not equal the quality of goods provided

Besides receiving after hour calls directly and never getting a break from patient care, another cost-effective option is to invest in a 24 hour, 7 day a week virtual answering service. These services cost a fraction of what traditional answering services cost minus the human error factors mentioned above. They have the ability to separate urgent from non-urgent calls and immediately connect calls without bundling them and relaying them at specific intervals. You won’t hear patients express frustration at being on hold for too long with these services because they handle multiple calls simultaneously and can even make appointments for the patient calling in. How is that for decreasing your front office burden in the morning, particularly on a Monday and improving your overall medical practice management?

Many considerations have to be put into your selection of an answering service. These include cost, efficiency, degree of worry, and the ability to care for your patients most effectively when you can not be there 24 hours a day, 7 days a week…just in case.

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The benefits of an automated virtual receptionist versus a call center live agent

Aubrey Andrews December 5th, 2008

Call center is one of the most frequently heard complaints by small business owners or medical practices these days. And one of the most frequently heard complaints about call centers is that you can never make yourself understood.

Whether the company you are trying to reach has made call center outsourcing to Scotland, or Mexico, or Bangalore, having a simple conversation such as making, checking or cancelling an appointment can sometimes become a real hard task. This is no reflection on the person on the other end of the telephone, as doubtless anyone would have the same problem if they worked for a foreign company whose customers were based abroad.

Even if the call center is based on home soil, there is the potential obstacle of regional dialects and accents confusing both caller and operator, or human factors such as the receptionist having a cold, or a sore throat that may make them less intelligible.

However, the fact remains that in the current financial climate, a centralised medical answering service is a viable and sensible way to save your practice money. So why not cut out the risk of your patients not being able to make themselves understood through an automated virtual receptionist?

A virtual medical receptionist uses Interactive Voice Response (IVR) software to speak to patients naturally, in their own language, and in a neutral accent. If you have used IVR in the past, you should know that speech-recognition technology has come a long way in the last few years in terms of the quality of IVR based self-service systems.

But perhaps one of the greatest advantages of a remote receptionist service is that it has back-up options.

If your patient calls a live agent call center and struggles to make themselves understood, they have little option but to get frustrated with the situation, slam the phone down and hope that when they try again – if indeed they do ever call again – they reach a different agent who might understand them better.

There is no such problem with a virtual receptionist, as they have a process to go through in the unlikely situation that your patient cannot make themselves understood.

On the rare occasion that the IVR software fails to communicate with a caller, perhaps when their medical complaint prevents them from speaking or hearing clearly, a virtual receptionist will firstly re-prompt the question and ask the caller to try and answer the question again.

If this fails, it will give the caller the option of entering the answer via the telephone keypad – something which in nearly all cases will solve the problem.

However, if for some reason they can still not get their message across, the patient will be immediately connected to a live staff person immediately.

There is even a backup to the backup.

Every call that is made to a virtual receptionist is detailed and recorded on the instant call log.

This log files all the details provided (name, phone number, time of and reason for call (i.e. emergency, appointment or voice-mail). Therefore if a patient is unable to be connected to live staff, someone can always call them back to resolve the situation.

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Dentists lose patients, turn to virtual answering service

Neil Kokemuller December 4th, 2008


Imagine the following scenario: You arrive home from work on a Tuesday at around 5:00 o’clock. You have been feeling a sharp pain in your tooth that continues to become more intense. Finally, you decide you cannot take the pain anymore so you call your dentist’s office. You know they are open until 6:00. The first two times you call, you get a busy signal. The third time, a receptionist answers and responds “Hold please”. After three minutes of waiting, you hang up the phone. Finally, you make a connection at five minutes until close only to have an abrupt receptionist tell you the office is now closed and to call first thing in the morning.

The aforementioned scenario happens many times a day in dentist’s office across the country. Why? Because overwhelmed and stressed receptionists, working with simplistic phone capabilities are unequipped to effectively manage the multitude of patients, phone calls, and other tasks that come their way. The solution? A virtual answering service that essentially serves as a backup receptionist can be the saving grace for a dental practice.

A virtual answering service is a high quality technology that operates as a backup call answering service in the event a live agent is away, on the phone, or unable to respond to a caller for some other reason. Many of the phone calls a receptionist receives are for routine needs, such as appointment scheduling. A call answering service is extremely well-developed to assist callers efficiently and accurately with scheduling an appointment. In fact, most people would agree that it is much better to work with a quick and effective virtual answering service than to face busy signals, delays, or abrupt receptionists. Keeping patients happy is obviously important to the long-term viability of any dental practice.

The best virtual answering service solutions are actually more capable in many situations at handling calls like the one described above. Whereas handling an urgent need call can be a challenge or a process for a receptionist, a virtual answering service can answer multiple calls at once and is designed to immediately connect the caller to the appropriate care provider in the event of an emergency or urgent need.

Does this mean a live receptionist is no longer needed in a dentist’s office? Absolutely not. Personalized care, completion of complex office tasks, and processing of insurance claims paperwork are among the many important jobs that receptionists must attend to on a daily basis. However, assistance in managing appointment schedule and immediate transfer of emergency calls are tasks that can be effectively performed by a medical answering service. This frees up the receptionist to focus on key responsibilities and give better attention to the needs of patients and more complicated situations. Plus, a virtual answering service can be acquired with a moderate up front cost and requires little to no ongoing maintenance, making it an excellent value as a backup receptionist. Receptionists are more than happy to have the support.

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Good telephone answering service a chiropractor’s must-have

Neil Kokemuller December 2nd, 2008


Chiropractic clinics come in all shapes and sizes. There are large practices that operate with several professionals and a few office staff members. Others may have one provider and one receptionist. Some smaller practices may just have a solo provider who operates as his own receptionist, multi-tasking between providing care and answering calls. Regardless of the setup, all chiropractic clinics can benefit from the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of a high quality telephone answering service.

A virtual answering service is an automated response system that quickly and accurately handles patient phone calls ranging from appointment scheduling to transfer of emergency calls. Why would a bigger practice need a virtual answering service if they have staff people? The telephone answering service acts as a perfect backup receptionist in the even live agents are busy with a patient, on another line, completing daily reminder calls, or engrossed in other office tasks. Whereas a live receptionist can only handle one call at a time, sometimes not very efficiently, a virtual answering service could potentially book several appointments at once in a matter of moments. This frees up office staff to fulfill patient needs, complete other important tasks, and process insurance claims paperwork.

A backup receptionist is especially important in those smaller practices where one receptionist or even no receptionist is on hand. Multi-tasking in a busy small practice can be stressful for someone flying solo. Plus, taking restroom breaks, lunch breaks, and others create a need for an answering service solution. Some small town chiropractors may even opt to operate without a full time receptionist with the ability to use a virtual answering service to manage basic calls for scheduling appointments and other needs.

Another excellent reason for any chiropractic clinic to use a call answering service is for the need to offer an after-hours answering service. Again, many practices cannot afford to pay someone to answer phones 24/7. However, the moderate up front cost for a call answering service program is even more worth it if the solution can be used as the after-hours answering service. After-hours call support is important as many people attempt to schedule appointments, or may have urgent needs after business hours.

The reality is that the virtual answering service just makes sense for chiropractors concerned with driving revenue and making profit. It is much more affordable to buy a virtual answering service than it is to pay someone ongoing to perform call answering duties. The virtual answering service also does not suffer from human limitations. Stress and fatigue are common place in many medical offices as receptionists are overwhelmed and overworked.

A quality technology solution quickly manages patient calls, something that patients appreciate, does not get irritable or short with callers, and never needs a rest. Maintenance of a solution is very minimal. All of these great benefits of the call answering service should impress any chiropractor who wants to focus his or her time on patient care and not on managing stressed receptionists and dealing with poor office morale.

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