A healthcare practice and specifically a medical office is perhaps the most active of the working spaces. Tendering of services to patients, paperwork, phone calls, and other business activities are all taking place simultaneously. Assume that all the staff that is not involved in the actual care delivery has other useful roles to play. However due to several issues that remain unaddressed, stress becomes the order of the day.
This is where the help of answering services come in. A useful tool that allows medical office staff to relax further. It is not only about answering the telephone. It is about making a difference with the way in which the rest of the staff will function. A different world altogether. Let’s explore in-depth how answering services for medical practice slowdowns stress and improve the overall work experience of employees.
- Grappling With Making Calls and Answering Non-Stop Incoming Calls
meNobody understands this better than a person who has worked in a medical office. The phone is a complete menace. Appointments, questions, rescheduling, cancellations, it is never-ending. If you are already managing enough responsibilities, endless phone calls can be seen as an avalanche of interruptions.
General routine queries, requesting for appointments, even calling up after hours is done in a professional manner. This allows your team to concentrate on their core functions. The outcome is less chaos, fewer interruptions and greater productivity.
- Being Able to Offer Support Services Non-Stop without Overtime Costs
Medical conditions do not end at 5pm. Patients quite often require help when the office is closed. Normally, this would be the onus on internal staff which requires them to extend their working hours or keep an on call roster.
The use of an answering service allows you to provide uninterrupted support without subjecting your staff to fatigue. These services ensure that patients have someone to speak to even during the weekends or public holidays. In the meantime, your team can have their confined time off with the knowledge that patients’ wants are still catered to.
- Coping with High Call Volume During Certain Times of the Day or Month or Days of the Year
A Monday morning after a long weekend stretch, flu season, or any other reason. Whenever the number of calls surge, any well ordered office turns haywire.
During busy periods with increased call volume, staff members frequently have difficulties responding to all calls while managing the office workload.
An answering service can assist during busy times by serving as a second set of hands. It allows for every call from the patient to be answered. Therefore, making sure that people do not get upset or confused and lose their call in the mix. For the personnel, it means lesser stress and a better circulation of work.
- Optimizing the Appointment Setting Process
Setting up an appointment may seem like an easy task. However, fixing appointments for clients remains one of the most arduous tasks in a medical office. It involves a lot of communication. It includes sending messages, calling back for a request to change the appointment and absolute last-minute cancellation of requests.
An answering service can make an appointment, rescheduling or making a change of appointment without involving the staff in the process. A number of such services can even change any appointment in real-time. This reduces an anxiety inciting factor and enables the employees to concentrate fully on medical jobs. They do their jobs instead of trying to fit as many appointments open on the calendar as possible.
- Minimizing Errors and Miscommunication
It is bound that a mistake will happen when a hand is under pressure and a team is stressed. A message might not be relayed, patients may try booking simultaneously or an important call is missed. But just the slightest mistake could lead to major or even grievous issues in the medical field.
A professional answering service is trained to call professionally and accurately.
They put out a guarantee that messages shall reach their destination in the first place. Their systems, as a rule, provide recording of calls to eliminate vagueness. Such trustworthiness minimizes chances of mistakes thus more confidence is put in your staff.
The Bottom Line
It’s no easy feat managing a medical office and the weight can get to even the most passionate staff. Answering services are a good way to relieve that weight. They help in managing a flood of calls, automating many tasks and encouraging a sustainable culture.
Because of the reduced stress, these services are not only useful to your team but improve the overall patient experience. So if your medical office feels like it is perpetually short on energy, then perhaps it’s best to seek a helping hand. Install an answering service. Your staff and your patients will be grateful. You will also earn a good reputation in the industry. Patients will also learn to trust your office above any other.
