Do You Need a Medical Answering Service or a Healthcare Call Center?

healthcare call center

A medical answering service answers phone calls for healthcare providers and takes messages from patients and callers. They hold routine messages for the office the next day, and they reach the person on-call with urgent situations. But what if your needs exceed the scope of your answering service’s capabilities? 

Then you need a healthcare call center. A call center can do more, much more, then answer calls, take messages, and handle on-call dispatch. Think of them as being an expanded medical answering service, offering a full range of healthcare call center services.

What Does It Matter? 

Most telephone answering services specialize in answering phone calls and taking messages. If you ask them to do more, they may say “yes” but will often struggle with it. This is because you asked them to do something outside of their wheelhouse.

The other scenario is that most call centers don’t understand the intricacies involved with providing basic telephone answering service support. They may say they’ll do it only to fail. Or they may have tried it in the past and are now smart enough to know to avoid attempting it going forward.

Pick the Best Provider

For the true healthcare communications service provider, however, these distinctions don’t matter. They excel in providing both standard answering service, as well as advanced call processing services. With decades of experience, they’ve encountered every type of telephone communication scenario. They’ve amassed the expertise in all ranges of telephone answering situations. And they’ll use this information to best serve you and the needs of your callers.

A Healthcare Focus is Key 

While many answering services can adeptly handle call center scenarios, there is one area of specialization that does matter—and it matters a lot. Don’t go with a generic, do-anything service provider that will accept any type of client regardless of the industry. 

Instead, select a medical answering service, a healthcare call center, which specializes in healthcare. Your healthcare organization and your patients deserve a service provider that is fully immersed in the healthcare environment and understands the medical community.

Healthcare Call Center Conclusion

For the ideal outcome, go with a full-service healthcare call center that handles medical accounts and only medical accounts. This is the ideal way to ensure that your patients receive the professional attention that they and their healthcare callers deserve. 

This is the best move for your healthcare organization to meet the communication needs of your patients and your community.

Learn how medical answering service from MedConnectUSA can help your practice, clinic, or facility. Then get a free quote to discover how affordable their healthcare communication services are. Peter Lyle DeHaan is a freelance writer and call center authority.