subject: Fostering Efficiency with a Medical Answering Service [print this page] Fostering Efficiency with a Medical Answering Service
The workload faced by healthcare workers can oftentimes be nothing short of exhausting. When patient care is taking up all of the time of an office staff, a medical answering service can be of great value. It offers offices the opportunity to get the high-quality service their patients expect without having to hire and train a new employee. Because the answering service has no other tasks put to them than answering the phone, they are never distracted from their duties and patients can always get through to a helpful, professional person.
A medical answering service differs significantly from other businesses that provide telemessaging and answering services. The businesses that offer these services are staffed by professionals with experience in the medical field. This allows them to handle complex requests and to differentiate between those calls that require the assistance of a doctor and those that do not. They are also quickly able to identify emergency situations and to let people know when they need to get to help or to have help get to them fast. For patients, the answering service is another resource that they can use to receive faster and more effective care.
A medical answering service is a very specialty business. They don't work with other businesses, in the best instances, and this means that other, less vital businesses aren't competing for the ear of the operators you contract. It also means that your patients have the advantage of never being sent to voicemail without first speaking to a live human being. Oftentimes, the fact that there is always someone there to speak with is a great source of peace of mind for the patient and that may result in fewer calls, but ones which are more purposeful for doctor and patient.
