Webley MD

The medical provider industry is moving towards the digitization of all patient information. With the electronic storage of patient information comes improved accessibility and the ease of automating certain routine processes. With ease and accessiblity come speed; patients will have access to bills, lab results and so forth faster than ever. Physicians can pull up a patients' history and lab results, easily access codes, and benefit from evidence-based medicine. 

The era of fully automated medical practices is not yet upon us, but most medical practices are able to take advantage of an extremely useful, low cost form of automation, automating patient communications. By taking your call reminders to automated and unlimited heights, your practice's efficiency, staff morale, and customer service will soar. Automated patient reminders can help your practice:

Unlimited messages

Automated call reminder systems are not limited by office hours or employee fatigue. It only takes a few minutes to set up a broadcast messaging campaign that can go out to as many patients as you'd like. The results are automatically tracked in helpful electronic reports.

Unlimited applications

Automated messaging systems are not just for appointment reminders. You can use them to send patient account balance due reminders, health screening reminders, and other important announcements. 

For additional information, please visit Webley.

Today is the time of the "net generation” and instant access to information, almost instantly. Take some time to consider how your patients might prefer to be reminded in this day and age. The day of sending appointment reminders by mail has long come and gone. It's simply too expensive and time consuming to send appointment reminders by mail. Next on the list of communication methods heading towards obsolescence are appointment reminder calls made by your staff. These routine calls are expensive and time consuming...and they can easily be handled by a reminder call service. 

Reminder call software programs have been around for some time and they are an effective means of reaching many patients. But consider how busy professionals often check their email more often than their voicemail. A recent study shows increased satisfaction levels of patients who were able to e-mail their physicians. Satisfaction increased because of to be improved communication. Receiving email reminders about appointments also improves patient-practice communication by providing patients with a convenient, proactive message.

By offering your patients choices regarding how and when they would prefer to be contacted and reducing your dependence on high cost, manual methods of communication, your office can be more competitive and less stressed your no-show rate.

Healthcare is an industry that struggles to meet the challenge of reconciling high touch with high tech. The essence of healthcare resides in the personal relationship between a patient and that patient’s physician. Technology, in many cases, appears to erode that sense of personalization that patients seek.

A virtual medical assistant can actually help strengthen the practice-patient relationship by providing both parties with timely, easily accessible, relevant, and convenient communication. Patients, like doctors and the front office staff, are busy and they appreciate phone reminders from their practice. Without a reminder, appointments are more likely to be missed and are often rescheduled much later or not at all.

Automated reminder calls that prevent a missed appointment may mean the difference between the early detection and treatment of a life threatening disease or a serious illness that is detected too late.

An automated call service not only increases the probability that a patient is seen and issues diagnosed as early as possible but it also ensures higher revenues for the practice. From the practitioner’s perspective, this type of medical practice support optimizes a doctor’s time so that he or she can help the greatest number of patients in a day without having to experience ebbs and flows in the daily appointment schedule. That proves to be healthy for the physician, both physically and mentally, and it also ensures a steady flow of paying patients so that the practice can continue to employ other physicians, nurses, technologists, back office staff and the like.

A reminder call service is a win/win for doctor and patient. The technology will both reduce costs and increase revenues, thereby providing the means and the incentives for physicians to continue to deliver quality health with greater efficiency. Patients experience continuity of care and better health.

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.

There are very few medical practices out there that would not benefit from using broadcast messaging to automate routine outbound patient notifications. If you're not convinced, check out our top 8 ways that all medical practices can benefit from automating patient communications. 

1. Attractive to new patients, aids in retaining existing patients - Studies have shown that 1/3 of patients are more likely to choose physicians who use email to communicate. In other words, using new communication technologies can be a source of differentiation, one that appeals to new patients. According to a Harris Interactive Poll, 77% of adults “would appreciate” an email from their doctor. Some patients have expressed that they are likely to change doctors just to get their preferred form of communication. Patients like the greater convenience of automated communications.
2. Better tracking - With electronic messages, you can easily track whether the message was received. When you make manual calls, tracking is still possible but much more effortful. 
3. Relieves stress on office staff - How relieved would your receptionist be if he/she didn't have to make hundreds of reminder calls every week? Automation frees up your staff's time to do other important tasks.
4. Gives the image of progressiveness - Automating communications shows that your practice keeps up with the times. 
5. Saves the environment - Keep electronic records on your computer instead of hard copies on paper. You can now recycle your hard copies and save paper.
6. Eliminates the need to overbook - Many practices feel they must overbook to make up for potential no-shows. Automated reminders are proven to reduce no-shows by 30% so you won't have to overbook again.
   
7. Increases patient satisfaction - By providing your patients with the communication they want, you are being responsive to their preferences and also increasing your chances that they will receive your messages. This increases satisfaction with your practice..
8. Saves an enormous amount of money - The cost of phone calls and labor are greatly reduced by automating routine messages, saving your practice thousands of dollars a year. 

These are only a few of the many benefits of automation. To learn more about the benefits of automation, please visit Webley.

How do you reduce the number of no show patients and use staff time more efficiently?

A phone appointment reminder service can improve the financial well-being of your practice and reduce the number of no shows by an average of 30 percent. An appointment reminder call made be voice and email after hours, on weekends, and during office hours generates better results than a busy staff person leaving messages on patients' answering machines and voicemail. In addition, a phone reminder service has several other compelling benefits:

1. Gives staff more time for patients. A patient appointment reminder call allows overworked staff members to redirect their efforts from time-consuming reminder calls to less routine tasks, including assisting patients. 
2. Improves communication. Your staff may not have the time to make calls to patients. Patient reminder services can strengthen the rapport between your practice and your patients by using electronic communications to deliver messages such as account balance notifications, preventive health reminders, appointment reminders and more.  
   
3. Improves patient health. Reducing no shows will improve the patient's continuity of care, thereby improving patient health. Reduction in no shows will also reduce the need for overbooking, which can lead to longer wait times and lower patient satisfaction. Reducing patient wait times will definitely reduce stress, not just for the patient but also for the staff.

As a busy medical practitioner or office manager, you realize the importance of sending your patients reminders for their appointments. If you completely eliminated your reminders, you can expect your no show rates to increase immediately. So, you have your receptionist sit down with the list of patients with upcoming appointments and she makes phone calls for several hours. She does the same thing the next day, and the next day after that. Yet you may still find that your no show rates aren't as low as you'd like them to be.

It's not that your office doesn't make the effort to remind people to come in. The problem could very well be that the way you are approaching your reminders is ineffective.

Telephone calls to someone's home during the day are becoming an obsolete form of communication. That's because 80% of people are at work, school or out and about during the day. When your receptionist leaves a message on an answering machine, if there is an answering machine, there is no confirmation that the reminder has reached the intended patient.  If there isn't an answering machine or the line is busy, your staff tries to call the person again (if there is time to do so).

Most people are home during the evening, but your staff doesn't make calls after your practice is closed.  If you want to increase the effectiveness of your appointment reminders, you should make the calls when you're more likely to reach your patient and also listen to how they would like to be reached.  

Some of your patients want to receive emails from your office. That is what is most convenient for many people today. While that may sound like more work than making reminder calls, in truth, it is much simpler. With an automated notifications service, all your receptionist does is generate a report with a list of patients that need appointment reminders and upload that report to the service provider. It takes her minutes, not hours. The messages reach your patients in ways that are convenient for them and the system automatically tracks the success of reminder attempts, appointment confirmations, appointment cancellations, etc.

The end result is that your no-show rates begin to decrease, your revenue increases, and your receptionist has a little extra time on her hands. It really is that easy.

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?  

Did you know that your practice could be losing up to $180,000 per year? As shocking as that seems, it is very likely to be true. Most practices suffer from a steady percentage of “no-show” rates that take great chunks out of their annual income.  If your practice sees 1,000 patients a  month, has a no show rate of 20% and earns $75 per visit, no shows cost your practice $180,000 a year in lost income.

It is easier than you think to get most of that money back.  There are three simple steps to regaining lost revenue by reducing your no show rate:

Step 1: Get Answers

Ask your patients how they would prefer to communicate with your practice. How can your practice most effectively remind him or her of an upcoming appointment?  For many patients, the most effective appointment reminder is going to be something other a call to a home number during the day or an appointment reminder card.  Plus knowing how your patient would like to be reached will also come in handy when you need to reach him or her for lab test results, account balances, etc.

Step 2: Be Flexible

Being flexible in your communication is going to reap multiple benefits for your practice. Not only will your patients be pleased with your technological savvy, but it's going to keep them from forgetting appointments, thus keeping them healthier. Plus, you will be able to count on patients coming in. You will even attract new patients who want to be able to communicate efficiently with their doctor; studies have shown that 1/3 of patients are more likely to choose a practice with electronic communication systems over one that does not offer this convenience.

But how can you increase your flexibility when it's already a challenge to make telephone calls?

Step 3: Get Technical

Automated patient notification systems make it quick and easy for you to communicate with patients using multiple channels.  For example, reminder call software can handle routine appointment reminder calls for your staff.  This means that your staff will have more time for other tasks around the office including spending time with patients at the practice or who require assistance over the phone.  When your staff has more time for patients, your patients will be happier.  

Missed appointments are a significant problem for most medical practices.  The average no show rate is 20% according to MGMA and that's a percentage that's far too high for most practices to live with.

Initiating an effective two-way communication system between your office and patients is the number one way to battle no-shows.

The first step to improving communication with patients is to consider what's convenient for them and realistic for your practice to provide.  An automated communication system can provide multiple channels of communication to accommodate your patients communication preferences. Whatever is most convenient for them, whether it is the standard telephone call reminder or an email, or both, the system can handle it.  If you have your patient's email address and phone number(s) and an automated multi-channel electronic communication system, you'll have more chances to connect with your patient.

Automation is important because it allows your practice to quickly send messages to patients using multiple channels of communication.  If you had your staff make phone calls, it could hours a day and tie up at least one phone line.  

The next step is to automate your appointment confirmation process. The traditional postcard reminder made it difficult for a patient to confirm or cancel an appointment and phone call reminder made during the day usually reach an answering machine.  Automated reminder services can make reminder calls during the evening - and thus are more likely to reach a live person who can then easily confirm or cancel the appointment during the call by pressing a button.  Or with email appointment reminders, the patient can click to confirm or cancel an appointment.  The system captures these responses and allows them to be easily viewed in an electronic report.

Patients who confirm appointments a day or two before the scheduled appointment are far less likely to miss their appointment.  

The top medical practices run like award-winning cars. They are streamlined for reduced air resistance. They are well-oiled for frictionless performance. They are fuel efficient. 

Take a look at your practice. Is it running the way you'd like it to? Have you changed the oil in the last thirty-five years? If you haven't, the engine could be on its last legs. 

You want your practice to run like a well-oiled machine. Let's take a look at the mechanics of the top medical practices. What is underneath the hood that makes them so great?

In short, it's the technology. Top medical practices have adapted their communication systems to integrate the most updated medical technology available. One of the major upgrades they've made is automation, especially for their appointment reminders. Receptionists no longer waste time manually calling patients one by one. Instead, they let an automated appointment reminder service to do the work.

The automated system can also communicate through multiple channels. Depending on the patient's preferences, the computer can send a telephoned voice reminder by phone or send an email. They can send reminders in the evening, when the practice is closed and the patient is likely to be home. Appointment reminders are more convenient for the practice staff and for its patients. 

The modern patient has evolved right along with the technology. They've become used to a more convenient forms of communication. And it's not just a few whipper-snappers who have mastered the art of mobile communication. “According to AARP, 82 percent of baby boomers use the Internet for everything from e-mail to managing their finances and playing online games,” writes Rosemarie Nelson, a health care technology guru and writer for Physicians Practice.

It's time to make the all-important oil change, shake the dust off your tires, and come out of the garage with a revitalized practice. 

Automated patient messaging systems make it easy to send large volumes of messages to patients by phone and by email.  Automating patient messages also have other benefits that go beyond the ability to send volume messages and save time.  There are seven major benefits – that conveniently begin with the letter "C" – that can adequately begin to describe such a powerful system.

Consistent
Often when performing reminder calls, receptionists can come across as tired and bored. Automated reminders send pre-recorded voice messages that are consistently pleasant and professional.  The automated service sounds as good on the first call as it does on the last call.  

Customizable
Every reminder can be customized to the specific patient with his or her name and the date and time of the appointment. Automated messaging systems may also offer other types of customization to meet the needs of each practice, including, for example, adding special instructions to arrive 15 minutes before the appointment and bring proof of insurance.

Content
Automated notification services can be incredibly versatile.  While the most popular script is appointment reminders, many practices use automated patient messaging to send out account balance due notifications, lab results, vaccine reminders and more.  

Clarity
While calls from humans may suffer from background noise and interruptions, automated notifications systems use pre-recorded voice messages.  These messages may be recorded in a recording studio using professional voice talent.  The message quality of a recorded message is often higher than a call from an operator or staff member.  Recipients can replay the message as often as they want, so it's highly likely that the message will be received and understood as intended.

Channels
Similarly, automated reminder messages don't have to be restricted to the telephone calls alone. They can accommodate patient communication preferences by sending email notifications.  

Confirmation
One of the most important C's, automated appointment reminders are interactive.  They make it easy for patients to confirm or cancel the upcoming appointment.

Conclusive
After the day's calls and emails go out to patients, an automated notification system generates a detailed report.  A call report may show how many people picked up, how many messages were left on answering machines, and more.  Practices will know which patients confirmed or cancelled appointments.

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

An effective appointment reminder message is concise, clear and personalized.  When reminder calls are made by the front office staff, the message is personalized but highly variable.  Automated appointment reminders allow for easy mass customization of appointment reminders.  While the core script stays the same, the message can be customized by adding the patient's name, the date and time of the appointment, the practice name, the practice phone number and other custom elements, such as special instructions for patients (e.g., arrive 15 minutes early for the appointment), the ability to confirm or cancel the appointment, etc.

When appointment reminders are effective, you will see an immediate change in your no-show rates. That's not all though. There are three other important benefits of automated appointment reminders.

Comfort

Often a trip to the doctor's office is a stressful event, especially when a patient is in poor health. It's important that a practice make efforts to put the patient at ease.  The style of your waiting room, the manner of your receptionists, and even your appointment reminders can make a difference. When the personalized appointment reminder is delivered by a cheerful, professional voice rather than a tired receptionist, the patient is reassured.

Convenience

Personalized appointment reminders are no longer have to be restricted to telephone calls. Patients can also receive appointment reminders by email. For patients who desire email reminders, offering this option increases convenience and makes it more likely that the patient will receive the reminder.   

Confirmation

Automated appointment reminder systems typically offer a variety of "scripts" or patient message types.  One script that can increase your confidence in your patient's likelihood of showing up for the appointment is the appointment reminder with confirmation.  This message is interactive.  Patients can easily respond to the phone message or email by confirming or cancelling the appointment.  

To learn more about automated appointment reminders, visit Webley.

The decision to overbook your practice's appointment schedule is not one that should be made lightly.  A successfully overbooked schedule is one that reliably predicts that a certain number of patients will fail to show up for their appointments. A failed overbooking schedule means a day of panic, stress, and long wait times for patients – both in your lobby waiting room and in exam rooms. Patients who show up on time out of respect for the practice's schedule are punished for their good behavior.

Achieving successful overbooked schedules is very difficult.  It's difficult to predict who will and won't show.  Looking at their past behavior can help when someone is a habitual no show - but your practice may be better off ending its relationship with the habitual no show rather than continue to tolerate such behavior.

You want to avoid a failed overbooking schedule at all costs. Not only are those long periods of waiting time inconvenient and inconsiderate of your patients' valuable time, they also prolong anxiety. Long wait times reflect poorly on your practice and are resented by patients.

Using automated appointment reminders is a practical solution to combat no show rates. Automated reminders systems are more effective, reliable and less expensive than manual reminders.  The technology also makes it easy for a patient to confirm or cancel an appointment.  Appointment confirmations increase the confidence a practice has that a patient will show up and it also identifies the patients who would like to reschedule.

For more information about appointment reminders and confirmations, visit Webley.

You have undoubtedly heard the proverb, “Less is more.” Less is more can mean many things.  For medical practices it means operating lean and getting the most out of your investments and staff.  It's about productivity and cost efficiency.

Switching to automated appointment reminders can help practices achieve more with less.  Here are just a few ways that using automated reminder calls can lead to spending less and getting "more" in several areas:

Less call volume = More patient satisfaction

With an automated reminder call service, your office staff will no longer tie up phone lines for hours. Even if you have more than one phone line, if one receptionist is tied up making reminder calls and the other helping another patient, that still means putting other patients on hold, constant busy signals and unanswered calls. Patients hate being put on hold and the longer they're on hold, the more they resent it.  When your patient can speak with a staff member quickly every time they call, patient satisfaction will increase dramatically.

Less overbooking = More individual time

When a practice overbooks to compensate for the high no-show rates, it will certainly have days when just about everyone shows up. The end result is long wait times and chaos in the office.  Physicians feel the pressure to get through the visits quickly, and the staff has a waiting room filled with unhappy patients to deal with. When you don't need to overbook because your no-show rates are low, your patients won't have to deal with long wait times.  Patient satisfaction will increase and physicians won't feel quite so rushed.  They'll have more time and energy to focus on patients.  

Those are just two ways that automated appointment reminders can bring more to your practice than manual appointment reminders while saving the practice money on appointment reminders.  

You've considered upgrading your practice's communications system, but you're wary of the extra time that installation and training could take. It might take a few weeks, you think, and that is time you just don't have to dedicate to a new project.  Maybe you're concerned that none of your staff has IT expertise and that you'll be stuck paying expensive annual maintenance fees.

With some automated patient notification systems, your fears would be well-founded.  These systems are complex and involve installing equipment and software.  However, hosted, on demand, automated patient notification systems do not require installation and are extremely easy to adopt and use.  They are also lower in cost than the older, more complex turnkey systems of the past.  

Send automated notifications without purchasing equipment or installing software

A hosted automated patient notification service does not require any equipment and the software is not installed on your practice's local computers.  The service is delivered online.  Because the software is maintained by the application service provider, subscribers are ensured of having the latest updates.  Integration issues, if there are any, are taken care of by the application service provider.

Fast implementation and customization to your needs

Switching your communications regimen to an automated service is simple. There is typically a short and simple implementation period.  During implementation, the notification service is customized to your practice's needs. It is during this period that the practice selects its scripts and other options.  Testing and training also occur during this period.   

After implementation, a good patient notifications system can save hours of manual phone calls a day, including appointment reminder calls, account balance notifications, lab results reporting and more.  

As a busy medical practice owner or manager, you spend most of your time just trying to keep up with the day-to-day goings-on of your clinical practice. If you keep doing things as you always have, you may be missing out on opportunities to significantly improve the performance of your practice.  It could be time to take a coffee break and to think about the efficiency – or inefficiency – of your front desk routines.

There are very few medical practices out there that would not benefit from using broadcast messaging to automates routine outbound patient notifications. If your receptionists seem stressed out from long hours of making reminder calls, if your no-show rates are causing you to worry, if you worry about revenues, if you wish you could improve communications with your patients - your practice can benefit from automated patient messaging.

Automated patient messaging makes it so easy to send routine messages, such as appointment reminders, that your practice will even have time to send messages that it long concerned nice to have but unrealistic.  The same notifications service can easily send account balance notifications and lab results.  It can be used to promote preventive care by suggesting vaccines and health screenings to your patients.  

When your receptionist no longer has to spend hours per week making phone calls, you'll see increased productivity in other areas.  The job will be more enjoyable.  

When your no-show rates drop by 30% or more by using automated reminders, your practice will benefit by seeing an increase in revenue.  

When your patients are happier and all of a sudden things seem to be just a little bit easier in your medical world, you will realize that everyone has benefited from automated patient messaging.

The typical medical practice is extremely inefficient when it comes to reminding patients of upcoming appointments. Using the front office staff to make reminder calls is expensive and not the most effective way to make reminder calls.  Calls are limited to office hours and many times the staff member reaches an answering machine.  There will be days when the reminder calls are overlooked or the staff simply doesn't have time to make the calls.  

Using an automated appointment reminders system is a powerful way to improve the performance and efficiency of appointment reminders.  While a list of appointment reminder calls would take your receptionist hours to complete, telephone dialer software calls the list in minutes.

It's difficult for a practice to understand the impact of automated reminders without signing up for an appointment reminders service.  It's also difficult for practices to judge which automated appointment reminder services are easy to learn and use.

We'll use Webley MD's automated appointment reminders service as an example of how easy an automated appointment reminder system can be to use.

Step 1: Configuration

Some phone dialer vendors require you to install software on your office computers and possibly buy equipment.  Webley MD Reminders is a software on demand service and it's accessible by any computer that is connected to the Internet.  There is no software installation step.  However, the service is customizable to the practice's needs, so step 1 involves determining the needs of the practice and configuring the service to meet those needs.  Some options include capturing appointment confirmations, sending email and voice reminders, and offering reminders in other languages.  The only technical know-how needed is the know-how every practice already possesses.  

Step 2: Send Appointment Information

Practices don't have to adjust a wide range of settings in order for appointment reminders to go out. All that's needed is the patient appointment information. Once the appointment information is received, the service automatically generates personalized appointment reminders.

Step 3: Make calls

It will take just a few minutes for the automated appointment reminder service to make all the appointment reminder calls and send out email reminders. The system is able to track the outcome of each attempt to reach a patient and it records the outcome.  Practices can easily monitor the results of each day's campaigns by viewing detailed reports.  

Steps 2 and 3 are repeated every day.  It's as easy as that.  

Many medical practices simply accept the pains of after hours call coverage and live call centers because they're used to the suboptimal and don't realize that things can be better. Call centers can be rude or untrained at times, forward too many messages or not enough, and take hours to send important messages. Unfortunately, this means that the on-call physicians sometimes are the ones to take the heat from patients when they don't return calls in a timely manner, or the feel guilty when the situation has turned into an emergency and the message wasn't received in time.

The after hours experience doesn't have to be so horrific. Making a change for the better can be as easy as "A-B-C" when you use a virtual answering system to take care of your office phones.

Answer

When a patient calls in, there is no disgruntled, exhausted call center employee to take down her message. Instead, her call is immediately answered and a custom greeting created by the practice is played. She then is guided through a simple menu that helps determine the reason for the call and separate the messages that can wait till morning and the calls that require immediate attention.  She can even tag the message as urgent.  Calls that require immediate attention can be automatically forwarded to the on-call physician.  The on-call physician can answer or let it go to voicemail - or choose to have all calls go straight to voicemail. 

Beam

As soon as the patient successfully leaves her message, the virtual answering machine “beams” a message to the on-call phone number. The physician can pick up his messages through his phone or online from his office computer.  He can consult medical references before responding. His response is on his terms.

Complete

When the physician has gathered his thoughts and constructed an answer, he can complete the cycle by returning the patient's call in a timely manner.   The patient is satisfied that her message was received and responded to with the attention it deserved.

It's simple and efficient. Using a virtual office answering service to man your phones once your office is closed for the day will turn your nightmarish after hours service into a sweet dream. 

Automated answering services aren't free but they are worth far more than their cost because of the compelling benefits they provide to patients and physicians.

Benefits to patients
With live call centers, operators decide which calls to forward to the on-call physician and which messages can wait till morning.  Customer service skills can vary and the operator may not be the reassuring voice your patients need when they call after hours looking for clinical advice. 

An automated answering service basically mimics the phone answering, call forwarding and message taking abilities of a live operator, only it reduces the number of steps it takes before the message or call gets to the on-call physician.  And it handles each call courteously.  End result?  The patient feels "listened to" and reassured that he was able to leave a message that will go directly to the on-call physician. 

Benefits to physicians
Making the after hours experience less stressful for on-call physicians helps them enjoy their work more.  An automated answering service can weed out calls that can wait till morning from urgent calls that require the on-call physician's attention.  

If you use your own staff to handle after hours calls, it also makes their lives easier.  They can take evenings off rather than answer patient calls.  

Benefits to the bottom line
How much are you paying the call center you hired ten years ago? Has the price you originally signed on the contract gone up, and you weren't even aware of it? Do you get nickel and dimed?

It doesn't cost thousands to sign up for an automated answering service. It's much less than what you'd pay for a live call center. To find out more about automated after hours answering services, visit Webley.