Doctor, Heal Thy Practice — With a Physician Call Service
Patients rely on doctors to keep them healthy just as your practice relies on its receptionists to keep it healthy. Unfortunately, human beings cannot work 24 hours a day and voice mail is not always the answer. This is where a physician call service comes in to simplify make day-to-day tasks.
Implementing a physician call service maintains practice operations even after the office is closed. Physician call services offer seamless communication between doctors and patients through an affordable and organized middleman at all hours. When you are looking for a reliable physician call service, consider the following before making a decision:
Specialized, Highly Trained Agents — In order for a physician call center to be successful, agents must be highly trained in the area of your expertise. Doctors require precise information about incoming patients, as well as efficient after-hours communication with physician call service agents who handle the calls. After all, one of your main goals is for patients to feel that they are receiving optimal care when reaching your physician call service. Agents should feel confident when handling medical calls of all types, which can be achieved with thorough physician call service training. Agents should be aware of medical terminology and spelling that is commonly used in your practice. In addition to these technicalities, agents should be understanding of the caller’s needs and have the ability to stay on track to aggregate and relay patient information to the correct physician.
Confidentiality — Privacy is incredibly important in the medical field, which is why all physician call service agents should be trained to meet Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) privacy requirements. Make sure that you hire a physician call service that utilizes HIPAA-trained employees to avoid legal issues. HIPAA privacy requirements also include various mediums through which patients submit information, including electronic devices. To meet requirements, make sure that your physician call service encrypts patient information submitted via text message and email.
Tailored solutions — Physician call services should exceed the expectations of a traditional answering service. Tailored solutions make it possible to offer professional medical services that efficiently handle the needs of both the doctor and the patient. Customized scripting and comprehensive on-call routing are available for emergency and routine calls for this purpose. Specialized agents can determine the urgency of a patient’s call in order to provide on-call doctors with true medical emergencies only.
Disaster recovery strategy — A physician call service needs to be redundant 24 hours a day to prevent any service errors such as phone line problems, electrical outages, and software or hardware issues. Use back-up generators and alternative offsite strategies to ensure your physician call service is reliable no matter the circumstance.
Choosing a physician call service that fits your practice follows the same steps as evaluating a patient. Research the basics of all services offered, and then examine potential problem areas if not maintained properly; for example, using agents that are HIPAA-trained and arranging well thought out disaster recovery solutions. With the correct research, you can make an informed decision on the best physician call service for your practice to stay healthy.
