Virtual Medical Receptionist

It's highly likely that the number of medical practices will continue to shrink this year as fewer physicians open new practices and an increasing number of existing small practices become affiliates of larger practices.

* Fewer medical school graduates are opening their own practices and a greater number of graduates are joining hospital-based practices.

There are several factors driving this move to join larger practices. Experts speculate that medical school graduates are seeking a work-life balance and desire to pay off their student loans. The average student loan debt of 2010 medical school graduates was $157,944. Joining a larger practice provides a lower risk, less time intensive position.

Consistent with this trend, the number of part-time provider positions at larger medical organizations has increased. An American Medical Group Association (AMGA) survey of AMGA member groups in 2006 found that 20% of the groups' staff were part-timers, compared to 13% in 2005.


The benefits of owning one's own practice have declined with falling reimbursements, increased administrative complexity, and rising malpractice insurance and IT costs. 

With fewer new practices and the selling of existing practices, continued provider consolidation is assured. 

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. 

For additional information, please visit Webley. 

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:

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

With medical practices facing increasing competition from retail clinics, it's time for practices that are looking to boost demand for their services to develop strategies to attract and retain patients. 

The retail clinic advantage: Accessibility

Retail clinics are attractive because they are more accessible (e.g., open longer hours, no appointment needed). Remember to remain accessible after hours as well. Sell your after hours availability by instructing patients to call your practice after hours. This may save many from an unnecessary, expensive visit to an emergency room. A virtual medical receptionist may be very helpful to your after hours callers.

It may make sense for your practice to stay open longer hours and leave some unscheduled slots for drop-in patients. This is a common practice that should be fairly easy to implement.

Play to your practice's strengths 

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

* Source: 2009 MGMA cost survey

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.

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

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.

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. 

1. 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. 
2. Start by writing a script and practice until you feel comfortable with the script.
3. Identify your office first. The first thing callers should hear is the name of your practice. 
4. Include bypass directions that will take someone to the general mailbox or connect him/her to a live operator.
5. 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.
6. Let callers know that you value their call and will return it soon.
7. 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.

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. 

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

Several months ago, IBM's supercomputer, Watson, made headlines by defeating "human" contestants on the game show, Jeopardy. Watson demonstrated that "what it can do much faster than a person is collect...information, analyze it and use it."

IBM followed the win by announcing their plans to use Watson in the health care field. Watson represents the more sophisticated version of what's currently available to those in the health care field today, including mobile applications, self-serve check-in kiosks, EHRs, and more.

Scientists are currently working to develop "friendlier" robots to help look after the elderly, gather basic health information from patients, and more. Cameras, robotic arms and so forth help the remote patient gain access to a healthcare provider.

While some of these applications may seem pie in the sky, there are many healthcare technologies available today that can help practices increase productivity and decrease operating costs. 

Computers are an essential part of healthcare because when it comes to information retrieval and routine tasks, they are faster, more cost-effective and more accurate than humans.

Virtual medical receptionists are growing in popularity because they are inexpensive, easy to adopt and effective. The efficient use of communication technology - especially automated appointment reminders and after hours care - can help your one receptionist do the work of many.  For example, with automated notification technology, one person can send out hundreds of messages in just a few minutes - and those messages can be for more than just appointment reminders.  Automated messaging services can send out notifications for account balances, lab test results and more. Unlike their human counterparts, virtual medical receptionists can offer automated messaging services and answering services 24/7.  

Webley MD Refer & Earn gives you the chance to earn $100 for every referral to Webley MD. 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, therapists, and more) that could benefit from automating their patient communications.

Who's eligible to make a referral?

• All adults 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 only for the calls, the 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 and leave a copy with the person you'd like to refer. 

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

In San Francisco, signs for St. Mary's promise of an ER wait time will be 30 minutes or less plaster the side of buses and billboard signs. The campaign was launched in 2003 and it still runs 8 years later. Thinking back to the hours I've waited at the UCSF ER, I can see why the campaign has been a successful one. 

ER waits are the most stressful. You or your loved one is likely in pain or severe discomfort and so are the other wretched people around you. 

Looking back at that horrific UCSF experience, I realize now that my husband didn't need to go to the ER. I just didn't know where else to go. He didn't have a regular physician. He seemed to be extremely weak/ill with a high fever. I didn't know if he had caught something serious while we were abroad. 

Things would have been different if he had a regular physician with a clear after hours policy. 

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 or virtual office receptionist with call routing and message notification features.

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.

A good automated answering service can handle simultaneous calls, so each patient gets through without hearing a busy signal. It can also relay the message to the on-call physician immediately and the message can be repeated, saved to an electronic patient record or forwarded.

When patients need medical advice, you want them to think of your practice. It's important to make it clear that your practice can be reached after hours. Emphasizing after hours availability conveys the impression that your practice values their after hours calls. 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 do much to alleviate your patient's anxiety.

I wanted to give a shout out to a blog that I found that seemed particularly helpful for medical practice managers. It's called Manage My Practice and the author is Mary Pat Whaley, a practice administrator in North Carolina. If you're a practice administrator, you're sure to identify with her and if you're not, you can learn what the life of a practice administrator is like. 

One recent blog post contained many helpful pointers for practices that are struggling with answering patient phone calls. Mary Pat writes: "The only answer to understaffing is technology. Use a patient portal to allow patients to request refills, schedule appointments and chat with billing staff or nurses. Replace paper charts with EMR. Use efaxing to eliminate paper faxes. Use the cloud to store information and collaborate."

The key themes are (1) centralizing your information to make it easily accessible to others at your practice, (2) reducing paper - it's eco-friendly, saves money and makes it less likely that something will get overlooked/lost, (3) increasing the accessibility of your staff to your patients - maybe this means that it's time to let your patients email your staff, (4) offering self-service features for patients.

Automated patient messaging systems, aka reminder call software, save time and money for your practice. They make it easier for the practice to communicate with patients, whether it's sending appointment reminders or telling patients that their lab test results are available. They make it easier for patients to confirm their appointments. And the system tracks patient responses, creating an electronic report that can be accessed from any computer with an Internet connection. 

Automated voice answering services answer the phone for your practice and direct your callers - connecting them to the right person or organizing messages when no one can answer the phone. 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.

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.

The crisis with emergency rooms, where the average wait time is 4 hours, has spawned a new trend, making appointments for emergency room visits. The Los Angeles Times reports that 8 Southern California hospitals now offer ER appointments using a system called InQuickER. Patients pay $14.99 - $24.99 to make the ER appointment. They're guaranteed that if they show up at their assigned time, they will be seen in 15 minutes or get their money back. InQuickER says that 95% of these appointments have been kept. Hospitals may still ask that the appointment be made several hours in advance but the system reduces the amount of time spent in the waiting room.

Keeping with this week's topic, the future of small medical practices, I thought I would mention a 90 minute audioconference called Can Small Group Practices and Solo Doctors Survive in Today's Marketplace? What Are Your Options? The conference counts for 1.5 continuing education hours for the American Academy of Professional Coders (AAPC) and takes place tomorrow.

Conference description:

In a recent study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal, researchers found that physician displays of empathy in clinical settings led to higher levels of patient satisfaction with the care received, higher motivation to follow treatment plans and fewer malpractice complaints.

Another study published in the July/August 2009 issue of the journal, Family Medicine, found that patients with colds whose physicians showed empathy towards them during an office visit got over their cold one day faster than a patients with physicians who took a just-the-facts approach.

What is empathy? 
"Empathy is the ability to understand another's experience, to communicate and confirm that understanding with the other person and to then act in a helpful manner," writes Dr. Robert Buckman,  of Princess Margaret Hospital and the Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto. 

How do you display empathy in a clinical setting?

Understanding someone else's experience involves good communication skills, including asking the questions, listening to the patient, making the patient feel comfortable, communicating clearly and making sure that the message is understood. The empathetic physician shows care and compassion.

Empathy shouldn't stop with the physicians. The staff should show empathy as well. Has the patient had to wait longer than usual to be seen? Are you unable to see a patient right away because your schedule is full? Has the patient on the phone been unable to get through because the line is busy? Be empathetic and patients will be more understanding. Apologize for the delay. Offer alternatives if the patient can't be accommodated. Consider using an automated phone answering service (aka, automated virtual office receptionist) to field calls, eliminate busy signals, and direct callers to the right department.

* Canadian Medical Association Journal. "Showing empathy to patients can improve care." ScienceDaily 24 January 2011. 28 

Looking for a way to offer greater convenience to your patients, increase their loyalty and make life easier for the medical office staff? If you haven't adopted patient self-service features yet, consider this:

A consumer survey commissioned by NCR Corp., conducted in March 2010, found that 79% said they were "more likely to choose a healthcare provider that allows them to manage various elements of the healthcare experience over the Internet, on a mobile device or at a self-service kiosk."

The message is clear. Patients are interested in self-service features. The good news is that there are many inexpensive ways to offer self-service features to your patients. 

Your practice website can range from simple (e.g., a place where patients can access forms and directions to complex (a patient portal).

Potential patient self-service web-based features:

• Bill pay
• Directions to the business
• Appointment requests
• Forms (e.g., medical history questionnaire)
• Directions and hours
• Lab test results
• Send and receive secure messages with your physician

Hiring a virtual office receptionist can transform your phone to a self-service tool. Many calls that a medical practice makes and receives can be handled by a good virtual office answering system. 

Potential patient self-service features for callers:

• Get directions to the practice and hours of operation
• Request an appointment or prescription refill
• Check lab test results
• Leave an urgent message
• Access information on insurance, eligibility, and benefits

Self-service kiosks are also growing in popularity but they're usually not economical for smaller medical practices. 

For additional information on virtual office phone answering systems, visit Webley.

Everyone's busy these days. You, your staff and your patients all have too much going on in your lives. When your patients get sick or develop a chronic condition, it just adds more pressure. It's one more thing needing their attention, another distraction in life.  Does your system of handling after hours calls make things easier or worse for the patients who need you?   

Imagine that your patient is sick and calls in the evening when the practice is closed.  Do you trust your live answering service to handle that call with compassion and relay the message to you quickly and accurately?  Can your patient trust the person on the other end of the line to relay the message quickly and accurately?