subject: Things To Check When Hiring A Telephone Answering Service [print this page] Telephone answering services are a specialty service, utilized mainly by individual medical practitioners and self-employed professionals. A majority of the clients of this service are medical professionals and small and medium level hospitals.
A doctors answering service offers a cost-effective way for healthcare professionals to keep in touch with the patients 24/7. This service helps the patients out whenever they require the advice or services of the doctor. How to hire an answering service
There are many factors to check thoroughly before hiring an answering service. The most common factors include-
reputation of the company
expertise of the call executives employed in the company
hardware features used by the company
software support provided by the company
There are some other factors, when hiring an answering service, which receive less attention. Lets deal with these since they too play a vital role in determining the performance of telephone answering services.
HIPAA compliance
HIPAA stands for health insurance portability and accountability act. The act has many aims. Its main objective is to protect the health insurance data. It also aims at preventing the misuse of electronic data containing personal information about an individual.
The call executives at physicians answering service ask for and receive many details of the callers. This data is stored in an electronic format, often for further reference and for the physicians information. HIPPA requires that the information is not transferred without authorized approval or sold for commercial purposes.
When selecting a doctors answering service, one has to make sure that the company complies with the HIPAA guidelines in action and spirit. A company that does not comply with the act should not be selected even if the company has a better rating in other aspects.
If an answering service sells the information of the callers to third parties, it would lead not just the answering service, but the clients of the service too into legal troubles.
Local call executives
Patients call a physicians answering service often to seek urgent action against medical complications. If the call executives can answer in the callers local tongue and accent, the caller would definitely feel more comfortable.
That is why many reputable physicians and hospitals prefer hiring answering companies that employ highly experienced local people as call executives. In this era of outsourcing, there are some things that are not ideally suited for outsourcing. High quality healthcare answering service is just one of them.
In addition, it is better to make sure that the employees are well versed with HIPAA guidelines. The doctors answering service should make them aware of the guidelines of the act and the importance of complying with the act in letter and spirit.
Successful telephone answering services provide continuous training to their call executives. The owners and managers of these companies know that it is the employees that determine the success or failure of an answering service.
