The entire world is enduring COVID-19, one of the harshest and most critical pandemics of the 21st century. The public life has almost come to a standstill as the cultural, political, societal aspects of daily life have been abruptly hampered. The economic and healthcare ecosystems are experiencing the brunt of it all.
With the number of positive cases on an exponential hike and death toll also outnumbering its past record, COVID-19 has been declared as an international emergency. National and international governments, leaders, and authorities are putting forth their best strategies into action to combat and contain the spread of coronavirus. And, strengthening and expanding their healthcare infrastructure and facilities have been at the fore.
The COVID-19 crisis presents an overwhelming situation for healthcare facilities and providers. A massive number of healthcare professionals are in the field combatting the virus, diagnosing patients, and offering necessary treatment. The healthcare facilities are also swamped with a never-ending stream of calls from patients and their care providers. Mild symptoms of flu can also be confused with COVID-19 and the general public is under distress and function in a panic mode.
Leveraging a medical office answering service is not altogether a new concept as it has found its way into the healthcare ecosystem in the past. Given the current pandemic scenario, the significance of it has been multifold. Medical answering service will assist the healthcare facilities to address the calls from anxious patients on time and offer the best possible solution. Besides, it will assist the general public with necessary appointment scheduling, spread greater awareness pertaining to COVID-19, its causes, symptoms to watch out for and requisite preventive measures to be administered.
At such trying times, healthcare answering service rises to be a robust, cost-effective solution for manning the phone lines. It offers a cutting-edge, robust, and seamless solution to the healthcare facility providers for better patient engagement and care by adhering to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA).
Are you still unsure why and how a medical after-hours answering service can be a valuable addition for your healthcare practice and facility? Let’s have a look at some of the key aspects.
Round-the-clock Answering Service
With the coronavirus outbreak, the healthcare service providers are expected to be available 24/7. There is no such thing as working hours, lately, as healthcare professionals have to be at the fore to combat the spread of COVID-19. Considering all of this, is available to field calls from anxious patients and their family members might be taxing for the medical staff. Here comes the role of the best medical office answering service provider.
They can employ empathetic experts to address patient calls and offer the necessary solutions. Most of the third-party medical office answering service providers offer round-the-clock assistance to the patients. By being available at all times, they ensure that the patient’s expectations pertaining to the call are met in an efficient manner. This will go a long way in reinforcing medical facility-patient engagement and trust.
Appointment Scheduling
Scheduling appointments is easier said than done. Given today’s fast-paced lifestyle, carving out time for appointments is a daunting task, for both the patients and the healthcare providers. Here, the third-party medical answering service providers come to the rescue.
They have robust processes in place for seamlessly scheduling, customizing, and even cancelling appointments with a best-in-class calendar management application. Reminder services and notifications as warranted are the icings on the cake provided by these medical offices answering service providers such as Expert Callers.
Staying Prepared for the Massive Unfolding Demand
Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare providers are the frontline warriors. And, however fulfilling it may sound, it’s rather overwhelming. They are almost at their capacity at offering necessary care for the exponentially rising identified COVID-19 positive cases.
Due to the lockdown and social distancing measures to contain the further spread of the coronavirus, healthcare facilities are already operating with a skeletal crew. Managing a massive amount of calls from patient communities is tasking. Here, leveraging a medical office answering service from a credible service provider such as Expert Callers seems the best course of action.
Enhancing Customer Support
The difficult times call for special measures. Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare facilities are entrusted to go above and beyond in offering necessary care and services to the general public. Though lockdown and social distancing have encouraged the public to stay at home, healthcare centres can stay connected with their patients in a more robust way than ever. By leveraging medical answering services, they can make sure that they are just a call away from their patients. Answering services will play a pivotal role in strengthening healthcare centre-patient relationships and trust.
Boosting Professional Reputation
The COVID-19 scenario is growing grimmer with each passing day with the greater number of positive cases and deaths across the globe. While the patients are facing the extremes of lockdown and stay-at-home measures, healthcare facilities can leverage the answering services to boost patient engagement despite the declining physical footfall. The experts from the answering service providers can be there for the patients 24/7, schedule appointments, and send out reminders and notifications to all the concerned parties as needed.
Ensuring Cost Efficiency
Ensuring cost-effectiveness has always been a prime goal for businesses, be it healthcare or otherwise. At the first glimpse, leveraging a third-party answering service may seem pricey. Still, it has its own perks. Often, healthcare providers spend a giant amount of resources on training and equipping the personnel as customer communication is rather sensitive. A single inappropriate response or inadequate service may prove to be absolutely detrimental for their reputation and service portfolio. However, with medical office answering service in place, healthcare organizations can avoid expenses on account of salaries, personnel training, benefit packages and not to forget the cost associated with maintaining an in-house workforce.
Third-party service providers such as Expert Callers is a HIPAA compliant offshore medical answering service provider with 12+ years of experience and domain expertise. The team at Expert Callers has proven experience in holistic management of doctor-patient communication be it appointment scheduling and answering queries pertaining to medical practice.
