When you start shopping around for a medical answering service, you will quickly find that every company indicates they are the best. In fact, most medical answering services strive to provide prompt, effective and efficient communication between the patient and the on-call doctor.
However, when comparing different possibilities, the best medical answering services are often not those first companies that solicit your business. Instead, they are the services that offer a low-cost, flat-rate billing option and utilize technology to get the job done.
Some people are naturally worried about using technology in patient and doctor communication. If you stop and think about it is more confidential, more accurate and much more effective to have a system handling calls than an overworked and underpaid call center operator.
HIPPA Compliance
One of the first considerations needs to be the HIPPA compliance of the medical answering service. Should there ever be a complaint or an issue, all of your HIPPA Business Associates have to be fully HIPPA compliant, or you may be found partially or fully responsible for any breaches of regulations.
This can result in not just a mark on the professional reputation of the clinic or the office, but also significant fines should there be a violation. It is always the responsibility of the medical professional to ensure all their Business Associates are completely in compliance.
Most Efficient Communication
Having the patient communicate directly with the medical professional is a very big plus with the best medical answering services. By allowing the patient to indicate if the situation is an emergency or non-emergency, and then recording their message the doctor will hear in their own words, the chance for any miscommunication is reduced to virtually zero.
Additionally, through these answering services, the doctor can then simply press a button to connect directly to the patient through the system. The patient will see the clinic or office number on their caller ID, eliminating the concerns for the doctor about personal information getting to patients, and also ensuring the patient will pick up in a time of potential crisis.
It is also common that the best medical answering services available are also the most reasonably priced. With a flat monthly rate, regardless of the volume of emergency or non-emergency calls, it is also easy to budget and plan for the service, saving money, time and stress for both physicians and patients.
