Automated Answering Services

Dealing with the top challenges faced by medical practices today: Rising operating costs

Thursday, January 19, 2012 by Susan Linton

Continuing with the theme of the last post, we're taking a closer look at one of the main challenges faced by medical practices according to the 2011 MGMA member survey. For the past few years, operating costs have been rising faster than revenues for the average medical practice and this trend is expected to continue.

Cost cutting is a necessity for medical practices. Automation of routine tasks can help cut costs and boost office efficiency without compromising customer service. Let's look at three ways that automation decreases business operating expenses:

Incoming message management. An automated answering service can replace the more expensive live doctor answering services. A virtual office phone answering service records messages and sends new message notifications, providing greater message accuracy and greater speed and reliability than a live human operator can. The automated service can route callers according to their reason for calling and perform many of the functions of a medical receptionist when the practice is closed.

Timely responses to after hours calls from patients with the need for clinical advice are also an opportunity to increase patient satisfaction and look after your patient's health.

Outgoing automated messages that improve communication with patients. An automated notifications service can perform functions typically performed by a receptionist, including sending out appointment reminders, payment reminders, lab results availability, and more. Think of how many appointment reminder calls your office makes per week, per month, and per year. The cost of those phone calls adds up quickly, especially if you pay extra for long distance. With an automated reminders system in place, you can decrease your monthly phone bills. If you mail appointment reminders, shifting to automated phone reminders will save you about 35 cents per postcard or 85 cents per letter.

Offering greater convenience with self service tools. A new survey conducted by Intuit, the company behind Quicken Health financial management software, found that 72% of respondents said they would "use online tools to pay bills, send messages to physicians, make appointments and get lab results. Eighty-four percent would fill out forms online prior to an appointment if that option were available."

Cost cutting need not involve reducing staff but it should involve making better use of your staff and increasing office efficiency. Instead of paying your receptionist to make hundreds of reminder calls per week, why not have her use her time in a more valuable way? Let the service send out the reminders through an automated call system. Maybe your receptionist can spend that extra time on billing or something that raises your revenues. You won't have to hire someone just to help out with making phone calls.

Time to fire your answering service?

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 by Susan Linton

Keeping a personal touch vs. better triage

Some medical practices rely on a live healthcare answering service to handle their after hours calls to provide a personal touch. Callers may be in distress and they may appreciate the opportunity to talk to a live person. However, ask yourself whether your patients benefit by having a call center employee decide which calls are important enough to forward to the on-call physician.

A study published in the Journal of Family Practice had primary care physicians review calls deemed by the answering service to not be emergencies. These physicians felt that in approximately half of those nonemergent cases warranted their immediate attention. They recommend that all clinical after hours call be forwarded to the on-call physician. It is the on-call physician who is best able to triage the call and decide on the appropriate action to take.

The automated healthcare answering service puts the triage decisions back in the hands of the person best suited to make those decisions, the on-call physician, while saving the physician from dealing with callers who do not require clinical advice and whose needs can be met by the office staff the following day. The physician can screen each call, and decide to take the call or let the caller leave a voice message.

Automated answering services benefit patients in other ways

A good automated answering service can handle simultaneous calls, so each patient gets through without hearing a busy signal. The service can provide several self-service options (e.g., provide directions and office hours) and offer the patient the opportunity to leave a message for the practice.

Most patients are used to automated answering services. A good automated service can provide all the services of a live answering service (e.g., message taking, new message notification, on-call physician scheduling) with superior speed, accuracy, and consistency.

Your patient's safety is at stake. A virtual medical assistant that answers your calls can help you be there for them.

4 tips to reduce your patient no shows

Wednesday, January 4, 2012 by Susan Linton

It's a new year and the time we typically reflect on lessons learned in the previous year. Here at Webley MD, we deal with helping our clients with their patient no show problem every day. We've compiled a list of best practices that can help medical practices manage their patient no shows.

Tip #1: Send out messages when patients are likely to be home

If you have handled reminder calls from your office during regular business hours, you know that you reach an answering machine 80% of the time. You have a better chance of reaching most people at home by calling in the evening. By using an automated reminder system, calls can be made in the evenings and on the weekends, when patients are likely to be home.

Tip #2: Make the message personal and specific

Your appointment reminders are more effective if you can provide your patients with personalized information about their appointments. Always mention the date of the appointment, time of the appointment, and the patient’s name. Look for an automated reminder system that makes it easy to add personalized information for each call.

Tip #3: Be clear and offer to repeat information

Many reminder calls are made from a noisy practice by someone rushing to get through the reminder calls before the office closes. It’s better to use a pre-recorded message for appointment reminder calls. A good script for reminder phone calls keeps the message short and simple and minimizes background noise. Make sure the message is clear, slow-paced, and that the patients have the option to have key information repeated.

Tip #4: Automate to save valuable office time

At a typical practice, reminder calls can take several hours every day. Each call takes at least three minutes and it can take multiple attempts to reach a patient. Good appointment reminder software makes it simple to automate your phone reminders. When you do not have to make each call manually, you save valuable office time. A good reminder system also saves time on tracking appointment confirmations and cancellations.

Your appointment reminder service is a reflection of your practice. To help you make your choice, we've included our new article, Tips on Selecting an Automated Appointment Reminders Service.

For additional information, visit our website.

Send us your referrals & earn unlimited rewards

Thursday, December 22, 2011 by Susan Linton

Webley MD is looking for medical practices who could benefit from automating their answering service and patient notifications. Help us get the word out and you'll earn $100 for every qualified referral. It's called Refer & Earn and here are the details:

Who's eligible to make a referral?

Adults in the U.S. and Canada
Need not be a Webley MD Customer
No self-referrals please

What am I referring?

Our award-winning Webley MD Reminders patient notification service can send automated notifications for appointment reminders, account balance due reminders, lab test results, vaccines, and health screenings. Pay only for the calls, the email notifications are free. Our service saves practices money and improves patient-practice communication.

Webley MD After Hours is a virtual medical receptionist. Our service is more accurate than an answering service and more reliable and feature rich than an answering machine. Designed with after hours medical care in mind, Webley MD After Hours puts the triage decision back in the hands of the on-call physician. The physician decides on how to be notified of new messages and can change on-call status with a quick phone call.

How can I improve my chances of earning the reward?

You'll improve your chances to earn if you talk to the person you're referring about Webley MD. Print out our brochure and leave a copy with the person you'd like to refer.

Timing matters too. It's the end of the year and many practices start planning for the new year around now. It's a good time to talk to them about automating their patient communications.

What do I do?

Start referring and earning today. Learn more, read the rules, and find the referral form here.

The staff’s perspective: Front desk reminder calls vs. automated reminder calls

Tuesday, November 22, 2011 by Susan Linton

An automated patient messaging service can be just what your staff needs, if you find that understaffing and/or inefficiency are plaguing your practice. By automating time consuming, routine tasks such as appointment reminder calls, lab test results notifications, and account balance due notifications, reminder call software offers the following key benefits to your staff:

Reliability and tracking. The service automatically tracks when messages were sent and message outcomes (e.g., someone answered the phone, message was left on an answering machine). Because of this tracking, your staff will know with certainty whether the reminders and other messages were sent.

Time savings. Your staff can save hours a day by using this service and reducing the number of calls that they need to make. This is time that they can spend on other tasks, such as greeting patients.

Improved communication with patients. Your messaging service can use multiple communication channels (phone, email, text) to reach patients according to their communication preferences and it can do this when your practice is closed. Your staff will appreciate the ease and effectiveness of automating routine patient messaging.

Your staff may have some concern that automating calls will reduce their usefulness and possibly their job security. While this is a natural concern, a good manager will find better uses for his/her employees and since this should improve the overall health of the practice, this benefits all employees.

The patient's perspective: Front desk reminder calls vs. automated reminder calls

Thursday, November 17, 2011 by Susan Linton

A common concern that medical practices have when considering automated reminder calls is their patients' reaction. The staff may believe that patients prefer a call from someone they know at the practice and that these calls are more effective than automated reminder calls. While some patients will prefer the personal call from your practice, you shouldn't assume that they represent the majority of your patients.

Many patients appreciate the automated reminder call service for the following reasons.

Greater efficiency. The calls use custom scripts and provide useful, personalized information to patients. Patients may be able to interact and respond to the message by pressing a button to confirm or cancel an appointment. Patients with more complex needs still have the option to call your practice.
Greater convenience. The telephone reminder service isn't limited to office hours. The service can call patients in the evening and on weekends, when they are more likely to be home.
Personalized and customizable experience. Automated calls can easily be replayed or offer options such as delivering the message in another language.

Pre-recorded reminder voice messages are not necessarily more impersonal than a call from your staff practice. Your staff often reaches someone's answering machine or voicemail so there isn't much difference between the automated reminder call using a pre-recorded message and the call from a staff member.

Some phone reminder systems send pre-recorded voice messages. These are human voice messages. Sound quality and the clarity of the speaker may still vary but high quality pre-recorded appointment reminder messages are recorded with professional voice talent in a controlled studio environment.

If you're concerned about patient acceptance of automated calls, ask your patients for feedback on your service. If most hate it, you'll know that you either need to find a better automated reminder service or find another solution.

For additional information on automated reminder calls, please visit Webley.

Tips for reducing patient wait times

Tuesday, November 8, 2011 by Susan Linton

Wait times are a key source of patient dissatisfaction. Press Ganey, a health industry survey firm, looked at hospital satisfaction scores and found that keeping patients informed of delays can increase patient satisfaction. They also found patients were equally dissatisfied with wait time in the exam room vs. the waiting room. You can boost patient satisfaction by making a few changes that reduce wait times.

Phone wait times

Being placed on hold on the phone for a long period of time or waiting a long time for a call back from the practice can be incredibly frustrating for your patients. Busy practices can decrease call volume and keep phone lines free by using an automated patient notification service. The service can send patient appointment reminders, lab results notifications, account balance notifications and other messages without using the practice's phone line and with minimal staff effort.

An automated answering service works like a virtual office receptionist. When there is no one available to answer the call, the answering system will pick up and lead the patient through a menu that your practice has customized to its own needs. So for example, many practices will set up a phone tree that connects patients to billing, appointments, insurance, etc. By connecting the caller to the right department or person, messages are organized, saving response time and the potential for lost or incorrectly relayed messages.

Good phone coverage after hours is as important as phone coverage during business hours. Patients do not decide when they will become ill and they need to know that their physician's office is responsive to their needs at any time.

Your staff can now leave for lunch without worrying about phone coverage. The virtual office receptionist answers the phone during lunch, breaks and after hours. The automated answering service can be easily turned on or off whenever the practice feels it is necessary or when everyone is away from the office.

Office wait times

Practices that have adopted patient check-in technologies (e.g., electronic check in using a kiosk or tablet PC) have dramatically reduced check in times. For example, Vanguard Urological Institute in Houston, TX, a 4 member practice, adopted a check-in kiosk - the average wait time at Vanguard in 2010 was 2.44 minutes while the national average is 21.3 minutes.

Offering forms on your practice website that patients can print out and fill out ahead of time is convenient for patients, inexpensive for the practice and effective at reducing office wait times.

While few patients like wait times, sometimes they are inevitable. The best way of dealing with long wait times when they occur is to keep the patient informed and apologize for the delay. Also make sure you have a wide variety of current magazines in your waiting room to help pass the time.

Staff retention, workplace satisfaction and patient satisfaction

Thursday, October 20, 2011 by Susan Linton

I recently read a Fierce Practice Management article called Master the three A's of staff retention. The article identifies three non-financial reasons for staff satisfaction: (1) autonomy (empowering staff to make decisions), (2) action (feeling that they have helped a patient), (3) assessment (feedback on their performance but also allowing them to assess their managers). These three A's relate to having a sense of authority and competence and feeling valued by one's organization.

What it leaves out is the importance of the relationship with one's manager.

Surveys have shown that 39% of employees leave their organization because of their poor relationship with their supervisor. "What staff want in a leader is approachability; to work "shoulder to shoulder"; tools and equipment to do their jobs well; appreciation; efficient systems; and opportunities for professional development."

Managers have a responsibility to increase the efficiency of the organization.

While you may have an efficient, experienced front desk, your staff might spend too much time on routine tasks and not enough time on higher value, more complex tasks. Your staff might be spending too much time answering the phone, making routine calls and sending out routine correspondence. They may not realize that many of those tasks could be automated at a cost and time savings. It is the responsibility of the manager to learn about new methods of improving the medical practice.

Automated patient appointment reminders have been effective at (1) reducing no show rates, (2) decreasing the amount of time the staff needs to spend on making manual reminder calls - possibly saving hours a day, (3) increasing the reliability of reminder calls.

Automated answering services offer many of the same features of a healthcare answering service, including new message notification and call screening. Automated answering services have the important benefit of eliminating the middleman, so that the on-call physician can receive messages immediately.

Both of these technologies save your staff time, money and effort. Once you have a happier staff, you'll find that you'll have happier patients as well.

Email patient reminders make sense for patients and practices

Tuesday, October 4, 2011 by Susan Linton

Did you know that 77% of patients would like an email reminder?

Now guess how many actually receive email reminders. The answer is 4%, according to a Wall Street Journal Online/Harris Interactive poll.

I'm astounded by the huge gap between what patients want and what they're currently getting from their healthcare providers. Perhaps many providers don't know what patient preferences are...or they don't think that being more patient friendly will make that much of a difference, so there isn't a compelling reason to change their current practices.

Email patient reminders are not only easy but they save the practice time, effort and money.

Affordable automated patient reminder services can use existing information from your appointment files and customize reminder messages. The results of campaigns can be easily tracked. Some services let patients click to confirm or cancel an upcoming appointment.

You can manage your email volume by sending a "do not reply" email reminder. For patients that require additional assistance, the email body can provide instructions to call your practice.

Emails are seen as convenient and accessible to patients and practices should think of them in the same way. Patients do care. Multiple polls have shown that the majority said that having electronic access to physicians would influence their choice of providers. Offering email reminders can enhance the satisfaction of current patients and attract new patients.

Cut costs, grow revenues and streamline your practice by increasing staff productivity

Thursday, September 29, 2011 by Susan Linton

Do you wonder how you can grow revenues and save money without compromising patient care? Did you know that support staff costs account for 32% of operating expenses at the average practice?*

It makes sense that most practices are looking to save on staff salaries. Sure you can ask your staff to forgo a raise but there are better ways to increase staff productivity and reign in costs. Namely, smart practices are turning to technology to automate some of routine tasks around the practice and increase accessibility without compromising service. In fact, shifting the routine tasks to an automated system frees up time for your staff, allowing them to spend more quality time with patients and work on more complex tasks.

Appointment reminder calls and other routine correspondence (e.g., account balance notifications, normal lab test results reporting) with patients can easily be handled with greater reliability and at a much lower cost by a good automated telephone reminder service. Appointment reminders delivered by email and SMS text messaging can be effective as well. These services usually capture contact attempts and the results of each contact attempt. They can also offer multilingual messaging, custom scripts, and so forth.

Patients hate to be kept waiting, whether the wait occurs in the waiting room, on the phone, or after hours. An automated voice answering service or virtual office receptionist can direct callers to the person or department that they'd like to reach, take and relay messages, and put an end of unanswered calls and busy signals. The virtual office receptionist can field your after hours calls as well, and ensure that the on-call physician is quickly alerted when a patient calls looking for clinical advice.

For additional information on how medical office automation technology can help your practice, visit Webley.

* Source: 2009 MGMA cost survey

Send us your referrals and you'll be generously rewarded

Tuesday, September 27, 2011 by Susan Linton

Webley MD's Refer & Earn program gives you the chance to earn $100 for every qualified referral to Webley MD. And there's no limit to how many referrals you can send to us.

We're looking for "medical" practices (by medical, we use the term loosely, it includes dentists, vets, optometrists, physical therapists, chiropractors, and more) in the U.S. and Canada that could benefit from automating their patient communications.

Who can send us a referral?

All adult legal residents in the U.S. and Canada
Need not be a Webley MD Customer
No self-referrals

What am I referring?

Our award-winning Webley MD Reminders patient notification service can send automated notifications for appointment reminders, account balance due reminders, lab test results, vaccines, and health screenings. Pay for the calls and the patient email notifications are free.

Webley MD After Hours is a virtual medical receptionist. Our service is more accurate than an answering service and more reliable and feature rich than an answering machine. Designed with after hours medical care in mind, Webley MD After Hours puts the triage decision back in the hands of the on-call physician. The physician decides on how to be notified of new messages and can change on-call status with a quick phone call.

How can I improve my chances of earning the reward?

You'll improve your chances to earn if you talk to the person you're referring about Webley MD. Print out our brochure from our website and leave a copy with the person you'd like to refer and/or send them our website URL, www.webley.com

Start referring and earning today. Learn more and find the referral form here.

Another reason for patients to avoid the emergency room

Thursday, September 22, 2011 by Susan Linton

The median wait time at U.S. emergency rooms is 2.6 hours. The average wait time is 4 hours. Experts are predicting that wait times will only get worse. If those statistics aren't enough reason to avoid unnecessary ER visits, then patients should try, when possible, to go to the same emergency room.

A report published in the Archives of Internal Medicine found that adults in Massachusetts who visited ER at different hospitals paid almost twice as much than adult patients who went to the same hospital. By visiting multiple hospitals, patients were exposed to a greater risk of medical errors, delays in treatment and duplicate tests. Provider to provider communication across organizations, is still poor.

How you can help your patients avoid the ER

Practices should inform their patients of what actions they should take when they require clinical advice when the practice is closed. You can help your patients avoid the emergency room by being accessible after hours and encouraging them to call your practice after hours. Only a small fraction of after hours callers need immediate assistance and most people who wind up in ER could have been taken care of by a primary care physician.

A virtual medical receptionist (aka, virtual office phone answering system, automated physician call center), can provide immediate assistance to after hours callers, filter out non-urgent calls and quickly relay urgent messages to the on-call physician. With a quick call back to your patient, you can help your patient avoid unnecessary trips to crowded emergency rooms. For additional information on virtual medical receptionist services, visit Webley.

Tips for creating effective voice mail greetings at your practice

Tuesday, September 20, 2011 by Susan Linton

Your practice's voice mail greetings can help or hurt your practice. These tips can help you create effective greetings for your voice answering service.

Keep it short but informative. No one wants to listen to a message that's over a minute long. Try to keep yours to 30 seconds or less.
Start by writing a script and practice until you feel comfortable with the script.
Identify your office first. The first thing callers should hear is the name of your practice.
Include bypass directions that will take someone to the general mailbox or connect him/her to a live operator.
Vary your greeting depending on the circumstances. For example, someone who calls when your office is closed should hear a message with the hours of operation and instructions for what to do in case of a medical emergency. For smaller practices, you can help direct and pre-screen callers by listing the main departments and then allowing the caller to indicate which department he/she would either like to talk to or leave a message for.
Let callers know that you value their call and will return it soon.
Speak clearly, slowly and with minimal background noise. Your tone should be professional and upbeat.

For additional information on virtual medical receptionist services, please visit Webley.

Understanding the basics of automated appointment reminders

Thursday, September 15, 2011 by Webley MD

Driven by economic necessity, many physicians are seeing more patients than ever. Some are extending their hours to accommodate more patients. "According to the American Academy of Family Physicians, more than one in three primary care doctors now sees patients after hours, a figure experts say has surged among all specialties in the past 12 to 18 months."

This increase in patient load puts a greater demand on office staff as well. Over 75% of physician's practices use reminder telephone calls from their staff to remind patients about their appointment time and date. Even the smallest practice can benefit from automating appointment reminder calls.

Reminder phone calls from a phone dialer program help maintain peak patient flow. An automated appointment reminder system uses a computer software program to dial customers at a preset time before their appointment. A pre-recorded message provides a details of the appointment, including date, time and patient name. Even messages that are left on answering machines serve as effective reminders. However, the most effective reminder (i.e., the one with the lowest probability of a no show) is one where you reach your patient and your patient confirms the appointment.

Traditional communication methods have grown less effective

Many traditional patient appointment reminder techniques are no longer as effective today because lifestyles and communication preferences have changed. It's easier to reach many people on their cell phone and email than at home with a phone call.

Calling patients to remind them of upcoming appointments may take up several hours of effort. Dialing each person by hand and speaking with them, or leaving a message takes away from patients that are in the office. Using an automated phone reminder service can help to reach patients without the effort of a staff member. And the phone dialer can make calls during the evening, when the practice is closed and patients are more likely to be home.

Automated phone reminders are more efficient and more cost effective. The cost of making an automated phone call is typically 80% less than mailing a postcard and 72% less than making a manual phone call.

The same call reminder can deliver other routine messages, such as account balance notifications, lab test results, recommended health screenings, and more.

Automated phone calls have proven effective at getting the patient's attention and may offer interactive features that make it convenient for the patient to respond. This also makes it extremely easy for practices to track responses.

Understanding the popularity of retail clinics

Friday, September 2, 2011 by Susan Linton

USA Today recently published an article highlighting the popularity of retail clinics. There are about 1,250 retail clinics in the US. The largest, Minute Clinic, has 600 clinics in CVS stores. These retail clinics will continue to be popular because of their convenience and affordability.

Patients can't wait to see family physicians, if they have them. Not all patients can wait weeks for the next open appointment. They may not be facing a life threatening condition, but they may be in considerable discomfort.

A growing number of people do not have primary care providers. Half of those who visit Minute Clinics fall in this category. With the shortage of primary care physicians, many are not accepting new patients.

Retail clinics have better technology, affordable pricing, and increased convenience. The longer hours and greater number of locations make retail clinics a good, convenient choice for many. Most retail clinics use EHRs while the EHR adoption rate for office based physicians just crossed 50% in 2010. The per cost visit (typically under $100) appeals to those without insurance. Many insurance companies reimburse retail clinic visits, so they appeal to those with insurance as well.

While clinics can't provide the range of services of a family physician and they may see patients that otherwise would not have visited a family physician, they can handle routine acute conditions, as well as provide vaccinations and physicals. Urgent care facilities can take care of others, leaving complex, chronic conditions to family physicians.

For smaller family practices, it may make sense to stay open longer hours and leave some unscheduled slots for drop-in patients. Accessibility can also be increased by taking advantage of technology: offer self-service features on the practice website and be available to patients via email.

The most efficient way to deal with after hours care is to use an automated voice answering service, aka a virtual office receptionist.

With an automated system, physicians will no longer have to wait hours for the call center messages. They will have every patient's voice message and phone number right in front of them, with no middleman involved. The physician can click to hear messages online or listen to them from his cell phone. It's easy to replay messages and attach them to a patient's electronic medical record. When the situation requires an immediate response, patients can flag their messages as urgent and physicians can tell that a message is urgent as soon as the new message notification is delivered.

Speeding up after hours care by using an automated phone answering system and making other adjustments to increase the accessibility of your clinic to your patients will keep your patients satisfied and provide them with the best care.

Tips for keeping your automated calls respectful, personal, and effective

Thursday, August 25, 2011 by Webley MD

Automated telephone reminders can sometimes be perceived as impersonal. However, this misconception is easily corrected by working to improve your patient's experience with your new computerized system. Here are three easy ways to be respectful, personal, and effective with your automated reminder calls.

1. Be aware of your messaging schedule
Have your reminder service send your messages at times that people are most likely to be home (after dinner) and available to take your call. Many people will not answer the phone during dinner, so avoiding the 5:30pm to 6:30pm time frame is a wise practice. Also, be aware of holidays and weekends, especially high travel times like Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year celebrations.

2. Always be respectful
As you are well aware, medical matters require the utmost privacy. In your appointment reminder, don't reveal what the appointment is specifically for. Sometimes even mentioning that your doctor is the OB/GYN can be embarrassing for some. “Remember your appointment with Dr. Smith” is perfectly sufficient. Remember that just about anyone can be listening to the messages on an answering machine or taking the reminder call. Be respectful of your patient's privacy and they will be grateful.

3. Invite a two-way communication
One of the benefits of having your receptionist perform your reminder calls is that if the patient has any questions, she is already speaking with a live person who can answer them. In most cases, the patient doesn't have questions, so the pre-recorded message is sufficient. But sometimes the patient will have a question. To account for this possibility, be sure to include the practice phone number in your message script.

Your automated reminder may also be interactive. For example, the patient may be able to confirm the reminder by pressing a button. This type of message is superior to one that does not allow for two-way communication.

In the end, remember that automated communications can be just as personal and convenient as having your receptionist perform all the calls. It just takes the right combination of respect and usefulness to make the new system satisfying for your practice and your patients.

A cautionary tale: Choosing your answering service

Tuesday, August 16, 2011 by Susan Linton

The following is an excerpt from a review posted on Insider Pages:

"I tried calling but his answering service was the WORST! I tried asking a simple question about whether during business hours the service answered...the service wouldn't actually listen, kept interrupting, put me on hold, and was so condescending it was disgusting...I would never see someone who hired such rude people to handle his affairs."

The reviewer gave the physician one star because of her service with his live answering service.

The lesson to be learned here is that your answering service is a reflection of your practice. While some call center operators may show patients the compassion they need when they are experiencing discomfort after hours, some might not. And with high turnover rates, it's hard to be confident that your patients will be treated with respect on every call.

By using a call center, you place control in the hands of the call center. They are the ones that have immediate access to your patients and their calls, and they can do with them what they please. They're also in control of when the message is relayed.

An automated voice answering service can provide a good next best solution to having the doctor's home phone number. Unlike a live answering service, each call is handled courteously and efficiently.

How an automated answering service works

An automated voice answering service functions as a virtual office receptionist. When you think about it, most after hours calls are about a handful of issues, so an automated answering service can easily take messages, organize messages and send out message notifications, while offering the convenience of reliable, courteous phone coverage no matter what time of night the patient calls.

When you use an automated medical answering service to handle after hours calls, the on-call physician receives the message quickly and is able to listen to the patient's message, think of a response and call back.

Live vs. automated answering services

Automated answering services are superior to live answering services because they:

Immediately notify the on-call physician and offer the unmatched accuracy of hearing the patient’s recorded message
Let the on-call physician make the decision about which callers require immediate attention
Provide a consistent caller experience with no grumpy operators to contend with
Make it easy to save recording of call to patient’s electronic health record
Save money

For additional information on automated answering services, please visit Webley.

The rise of convenient care clinics and what it means for your practice

Wednesday, August 10, 2011 by Susan Linton

Last week MinuteClinic, the nation's largest provider of walk-in retail medical clinics in the U.S., announced that it reached the 10 million patient visit milestone. They opened their first retail clinic in 200 and now have close to 600 clinics in 26 states. The rapid growth of retail medical clinics has been driven by their ability to offer convenient, affordable care. And patients have by and large been satisfied with the services they've received.

Medical practices have several key advantages over retail clinics and one major disadvantage, accessibility. By emphasizing advantages and addressing the major disadvantage, practices can better compete with retail clinics.

Medical practice advantages:

Wider range of available services
Stronger relationship with existing patients
Physicians and the trust that people have for physicians

Emphasize those selling points on your practice website, blog, Facebook page, newsletter, etc. (your marketing materials). Strengthen your relationship with patients by improving communication with them. Communicate more often and use different communication channels. Try to involve your physicians and increase their visibility (e.g., for the ones that are interested, encourage them to get involved in online social networking).

Consider proactively communicating with patients using automated broadcast messaging. For example, helping patients keep track of when its time to come in for an annual exam by sending automated reminders is a valuable service that keeps patients healthy and strengthens the relationship between your practice and the patient.

Automated patient messaging services make it easy and cost effective for busy medical practices to reach a large number of patients with reminder calls and reminder emails. These services also make it easy to personalize and customize messages.

Addressing the key disadvantage of medical practices

Consider making a few changes to make your practice more accessible. Start by reminding your patients that you are available after hours, that you have self-service features and that you are available by email for non-emergency situations.

Let your patients know about your after hours accessibility. When patients need medical advice, you want them to think of you - but they might not do so unless you make it clear that your practice can be reached after hours. Post your after hours policy on your practice website if you have one. Let them know that your after hours calls are listened to and that they can expect a call back within a short period of time. Setting expectations will alleviate your patient's anxiety.

The best way to provide after hours care to your patients and to keep them from making unnecessary emergency room visits is to use an automated after hours answering service with call routing and message notification features. An automated answering service puts the triage decisions back in the hands of the person best suited to make those decisions, the on-call physician, while saving the physician from dealing with callers who do not require clinical advice. The physician can screen each call, and decide to take the call or let the caller leave a voice message.

Offer self-service features. If your practice has a website, you can provide basic information on the site (e.g., directions, hours of operation). Or more sophisticated patient portals offer access to medical records, online bill pay, refill requests and e-consults.

Allow patients to email your practice. Many patients would like to communicate with their doctors via email and this type of communication has been shown to increase effectiveness of care and reduce healthcare costs. Make sure you clearly state how patients should use e-mail (e.g., not to email when experiencing a medical emergency) and expected response time. Also make sure these communications are secure (encrypted).

It may make sense for your practice to stay open longer hours and leave some unscheduled slots for drop-in patients. Patients who are experiencing discomfort are naturally concerned and most cannot wait weeks for the next open appointment. Increasing your practice's accessibility will increase patient satisfaction.

Quick tips for reducing operating costs at your practice

Tuesday, July 26, 2011 by Webley MD

Medical practices of any size can reduce operating costs by adopting money saving technologies. Why? Typically the cost of support staff accounts for 32% of medical practice expenses. Because staffing is such a high cost area, shifting time away from routine phone calls is cost effective. It could save a larger practice from hiring an extra employee.

A file clerk is better utilized maintaining the charts than making reminder calls to patients. These calls often require callbacks and playing phone tag before the patient is finally reached. A system that can leave an automated personalized message reminder saves a significant amount of staff labor. If your practice still mails appointment reminders, the savings of adopting an automated patient notification service are even greater.

Replacing your live answering service with an automated answering service is another way that technology can save money for your practice. Most patients are used to automated answering services. A good automated service can provide all the services of a live answering service (e.g., message taking, new message notification, on-call physician scheduling) with superior speed, accuracy, and consistency.

Look for technology solutions that do not involved an expensive equipment purchase or require you to install software programs on your office computers. Equipment quickly becomes outdated, takes up valuable space, and requires costly maintenance. Software programs also become outdated, take up memory space, may charge extra for support and can be costly you are charged for each installation. Third party application service providers (ASPs) deliver services on demand, over the Internet. Because the vendor owns and maintains the software, users can access the service from any computer that is connected to the Internet and issues like compatibility, maintenance and upgrades are minimized.

A virtual healthcare call center at your fingertips

Thursday, July 21, 2011 by Susan Linton

Busy signals, unanswered phones, and long hold times on the phone can seem like an inevitable part of calling a medical practice and its after hours live answering service. However, those phone related inconveniences can be avoided with the adoption of a virtual medical assistant.

A virtual medical assistant offers many of the same features of the live healthcare answering service. Some key features to look for when choosing a virtual medical assistant include:

New message notification. While it make take hours for the on-call physician to receive his/her messages, the virtual medical assistant sends out new message notifications go out immediately after the patient leaves a message.

Custom greetings. Callers can still be greeted with a voice they know and trust by having your staff record the greeting message.

Easy access to messages. Your staff can access messages from anywhere, either by calling in or via email. And these messages can easily be saved to patient's electronic files.

Consistent, courteous handling of each call. Live agents can vary in their customer service skills. With a virtual medical assistant, you know that each call will be handled courteously.

For additional information, visit Webley.