Some doctors don’t care who’s answering their phone, as long as it’s answered. This view is shortsighted, as the doctor’s career and their practice’s success are at stake. That’s why it’s critical to hire a quality answering service. But beyond hiring a quality answering service is to hire a quality medical answering service.
Here’s why you need a quality medical answering service.
Laser Focus on Healthcare
An answering service that’s 100 percent medical (and doesn’t take any commercial accounts) as complete focus on the healthcare industry. That means they don’t have other types of work distracting them from communicating in the best possible way with your patients.
Just as many healthcare providers focus on a specialty, a medical answering service focuses on the healthcare industry. And if you care about your patients and your practice, that’s who you want handling your phone calls.
Working Knowledge of the Medical Industry
The staff at a medical answering service handles only healthcare related calls all day long. Those interactions quickly build up a working knowledge of the healthcare industry. Though this can happen at other answering services too, the reality is it takes much longer.
In addition, is there any reason why you want the person handling your phone calls to also have a working knowledge of electricians, property management, and taking orders? You don’t.
Those skills don’t apply to the healthcare industry. That’s why it’s best to go with a medical answering service.
Familiarity with Medical Terms and Spelling
To the uninitiated, medical terms and appropriate spelling make their head spin. Using the right word and spelling it correctly is critical to understanding the nature of the situation. And a misused term or wrongly spelled word could suggest something quite different from reality.
People who lack of familiarity with medical terminology will be prone to make mistakes and unlikely to even know they erred. But that’s the risk you take when you go with a non-medical answering service who isn’t familiar with the healthcare industry.
Provide Appropriate Empathy to Patients
Your callers have certain expectations about the treatment they receive when they call. Your patients anticipate someone who’s professional, listens, and offers appropriate empathy. They expect someone who will comprehend their situation and not disregard an urgent health matter.
What they need is a response that’s much different from a renter with a clogged toilet, a consumer irritated about their order, or someone who’s air-conditioning isn’t working. Asking answering service staff to switch between these different caller personas will likely cause the wrong type of reaction when your patients call.
Summary
Though any answering service can answer your practice’s calls, there are many benefits when you select a medical answering service. They have a focus on the industry, a working knowledge of healthcare, and familiarity with medical terms. Most importantly they have a high degree of experience in handling patients and healthcare related calls.
This is the high level of expertise that you can only get from a medical answering service.
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.