Tips in Selecting a Medical Answering Service: Not All Providers Are the Same

medical answering service

Don’t Shop on Price  

The cost of a product or service is something that everyone readily understands. It’s easy to ask and tangible. You can write it down or put it in a spreadsheet. You can run calculations and make projections. Price provides a straightforward way to compare the cost of two providers. It’s also a metric most apt to produce the wrong conclusion.

All medical answering services are not the same. Some are good, and a few are excellent, but too many cut corners so they can charge less. Do you want to trust your patients’ health and well-being to a low-cost provider that wants to do something cheaply instead of well? That’s exactly what you’ll get when you go about selecting a medical answering service on price.

Seek Specialists 

Most telephone answering services are client-agnostic. That means they’ll take any customer, from any industry, with any set of requirements as long as they can pay their bill each month. When you go the route of selecting a generic, all-purpose answering service your healthcare calls will be mixed in with a call about a leaking pipe, a lost order, or a stranded motorist. Don’t let your medical-related calls be intertwined with a financial services provider, entertainment company, or funeral home.

Your callers deserve better. 

They deserve the focused attention of a full-time, 100% medical answering service. These answering service specialists deal with healthcare and only healthcare. That means their staff who answer your calls are fully immersed in the needs of healthcare callers. They have the focus, the experience, and the knowledge to handle your callers’ needs with excellence on every call.

Quality Costs a Bit More 

Only a few of the leading medical answering services across the country take additional steps to ensure that you—their esteemed healthcare client—receive second-to-none service. Most answering services skip these essential items such as being multilocational, with redundant phone carriers, to eliminate a single point of failure. They couple their HIPAA compliance with data security that exceeds regulations. On top of this, they are US-based and work in centralized offices with on-site management, supported by a robust QA program that produces award-winning results.

Summary

If you don’t care about your patient-facing after-hours communications, go with the cheapest answering service you can find. However, if you want impressive outcomes that your patients will applaud and you will appreciate, focus on selecting a medical answering service that specializes exclusively on healthcare and takes the extra steps to provide an impressive service that is second to none.

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.