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Trust is the backbone of all physician-patient relationships. Therefore, as a professional, you should be able to rely on your medical answering service to reinforce the trust you have created. Good medical answering services give you peace of mind with callers to create a seamless experience when they come into the office for a visit. Unfortunately, not all medical answering services are created equal. To find the best answering service for doctors to meet the needs of your staff and patients, there are several important factors to consider.
Availability
Around-the-clock services are what you want in the best answering service for doctors. Since illness does not follow a clock, you want your medical service to be available even after regular business hours to answer basic questions. The best services are a combination of online tools, live support, and other communication functions.
Customization
Since no two medical offices are the same, the best answering service for doctors cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution. Instead, they must collaborate with you to understand the demands and requirements of your practice and patients. Whether you are in a specialized medical field, prefer specific message formats, or need customized scripting, an answering service can provide these requests.
Experience
A highly trained staff is critical for a successful medical answering service so constant training and improvements are a requirement. Medical issues appear at all hours, so you want to know your patients are being cared for around-the-clock. Experience, courteous, and friendly agents will put patients at ease, thus further boosting the experience. Professional agents must be able to manage each call with empathy and can escalate the call when an emergency arises, based on the way you set up the account.
HIPAA Compliance
One of the most critical aspects of a medical answering service is HIPAA compliance. Since the service is an extension of your business and they are managing personal patient information, they must follow industry regulations. An answering service that does not protect personal health and patient records is one you should avoid.
Promptness
A superior medical answering service answers all calls within a few rings and attempts to eliminate or decrease hold times, even during peak hours. The best possible scenario for your patients is an answering service that fields one call by one agent at a time. The lesser quality answering services require their agents to maintain up to three calls simultaneously which provides poor customer service. You want your patients to be promptly taken care of as if they were in the office.
Finding the best answering service for doctors can be a daunting task since there are so many considerations to ensure they meet your needs. However, by following this list of the most important factors, you can narrow down your search to only the best!
