Being a doctor, it’s important to ensure that every patient gets the required care and attention whenever they visit or call. But, finding the right receptionist who will answer every call with proper attention and care is a pretty tough task. Also, for a doctor, it’s barely possible to answer the large influx of calls even after the clinic hours. Not only the doctor has to bear with the phone calls, but also has to reply to the emails, make appointments, and whatnot. All this makes the entire task more intricate and time-consuming. However, there’s an alternative way which is called the doctors answering services that help the doctors with all the miscellaneous yet important tasks. Nowadays, a majority of the medical offices are adopting these services as there are innumerable benefits one can yield from these answering services. However, there are a few qualities that need to be checked prior to hiring them to avoid facing any unfavorable incidents in the future. Let’s take a look at the following,
1. The Staff Should Know More Than Just Answering Calls
The responsibilities of the doctor answering services aren’t only limited to answering the incoming calls of the patients only. Rather they are entrusted with additional responsibilities to keep the patients connected with their doctors round the clock, manage all the inbound calls, remind patients about any future appointments, schedule an appointment, help doctors to acquire new patients, figure out the emergencies and non-emergencies, register patients, and most importantly provide 24*7*365 availability. Therefore, the staff should be trained and qualified to conduct such a large number of responsibilities with perfection. So, doctors need to verify the skills and knowledge of the staff before hiring them.
2. They Must be HIPAA Compliant
It’s important for the doctors to ensure that the answering services have HIPAA compliance. It means the staff knows the rules of answering patient’s calls, and they never reveal any information related to the medical office. After all, there are patients who may feel embarrassed talking about their diseases or symptoms to anyone other than the doctors. So, the medical office may have to bear huge losses if they are found leaking such sensitive information to their patients. However, if the service is protected under the HIPAA law, there will be no chances for such misconduct.
3. They Must Have the Relevant Experiences
Without expertise, none can ensure in providing quality backed services. Generally in medical offices, each and every single call is important, both for the patient and for the doctors. Having experience in the industry means that the staff will have a built-in understanding of answering etiquette, and they can meet the satisfaction level of a patient when he is in critical condition. Experienced medical answering service has the potentiality of making the entire process of running a medical office much smoother for a doctor. These are some of the qualities one must check in a professional answering service before they hire them.