subject: Every Doctor Deserves a Physician Answering Service [print this page] Every Doctor Deserves a Physician Answering Service
No one goes to med school and becomes a doctor in order to spend their evenings and weekends answering the telephone. However, it's a reality of the job that a doctor rarely goes through an evening without an important client call that "just can't wait." If you're a physician in this situation, you probably wish that there was some way you could just hand those calls off to someone else, while still guaranteeing that your patients receive top-quality service and answers. Well, if that's the case, you're in luck. Physician answering services exist, and they can deliver exactly that level of quality that you're looking for. You can trust others to handle your practice when you're not present, allowing you to enjoy your evenings and weekends without fretting that you're needed elsewhere.
Medical tele-messaging companies (the organizations behind medical call centers) can be contracted to receive your calls for you when you're not on duty. Since 1996, with the enactment of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), new standards have come into practice surrounding the professionalism and expected ethics of medical call agencies. What this means in practical terms is that medical professionals can trust these services to support clients with even the most delicate cases, and that there won't be any indiscretions or breaches of client confidentiality.
A new option for a physician answering service is that of a nurse triage line. Rather than callers being connected with a telephone operator who specializes in medical call forwarding, callers are connected with a trained and certified nurse. Their questions can often be answered on the line, and since it's an actual nurse giving the answer, you can rest assured that the call is in the hands of a trained professional. This type of service is relatively new, but studies have proven it to be a safe and effective measure.
A physician answering service doesn't have to mean that you are never available for your clients, either. Many physician answering services include paging options. You can specify what situations you want to be called directly about, and what situations you want the operators to handle without your involvement. This degree of customization is important, as you don't have to compromise your professional standards or your free time - you can choose what you want to be paged about and what you don't, giving you the best of both worlds.
