subject: Everything You Need to Know About Nurse Telephone Triage Services [print this page] A call center can do more than just answer phone calls and take messages. Indeed, some offer additional help such as disaster recovery and nurse telephone triage services. If you run a busy medical office, your staff will really appreciate all the help they can receive. Your patients will also appreciate the fact that your staff has more time for them. It can be hard on nurses to multi-task. Trying to care for patients and answering calls all at once can lead to confusion and mistakes.
This is where telephone triage services come in. When you choose a company that offers such assistance, you need to make sure that the representatives it employees receive the right training and knowledge. They need to also have good communication skills. Thus, you need to choose a company that operates entirely in the United States, and doesn't outsource the work to other countries.
Another reason this kind of service can be beneficial is because it's always available. The patients can still contact someone with the skills to help them, even after the nurses go home. Some medical calling centers are even open on holidays. The operators undergo HIPAA training so that all legal requirements are met. Your patients won't have to worry about their privacy if you choose to work with a good medical call center.
Operators who undergo HIPAA training do have the knowledge to answer patients' questions. However, they cannot make a diagnosis over the telephone. What they can do is determine whether or not a caller truly has an emergency, and will thus direct the patient to where he or she needs to go.
Using a nurse telephone triage service to handle your patients' calls will give your nursing staff more time to spend with the in-house patients. They will be able to provide better care. This will increase the level of service your patients receive. Indeed, it could even save lives! Since your nurses will be less busy, the overall quality of the workplace will improve.
There are two ways you can obtain this kind of service. First, you can contract with an actual nurse triage. However, this method is rather expensive nurse triage companies charge up to $20 per call. Plus, you will be restricted to only working with one company. The second option is to choose a gateway service that will connect you with telephone triage companies. This is a better, flexible option. Furthermore, going through a third party is a lot less expensive than directly contracting with one company.
Everything You Need to Know About Nurse Telephone Triage Services
