Medical Answering Service – Providing Inclusive Assistance To Doctors

It is well-known that the medical industry requires an answering service for rapid, accurate, and friendly responses to phone calls.

Doctors, after all, really lead busy lives. For them a reliable answering service is the only solution to streamline communication and maintain patient privacy.

With over 900 million visits to doctor’s offices in America, you can gauge the extent of health professionals’ overload.

“For me every phone call is important”, says a Chicago based physician. “My job entails proper patient care, giving prescriptions, and scheduling appointments. A reliable doctors medical answers service helps me a lot”.

First, let us get to know what a med answering service is.

It is a call center hired by doctors to handle medical related calls from the public

The basic duties include screening calls, providing the caller with key information, and relaying messages to the doctor.

Another basic job of doctors medical answers service is appointment scheduling.

This task entails:

•Providing patients with a choice to schedule doctor appointments and clinic visits

•Reminders to help in reducing no shows

Importance of adhering to the HIPAA Act

In the United States, patient information is safeguarded by the HIPPA or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. Medical professionals, because of the nature of their work, are very vulnerable to breaching this law.

A physician answering service, being a business partner to the doctor, is by law a covered entity.

If the answering service does not have a proper grasp of the HIPAA Act, it can inadvertently disclose confidential patient information to unauthorized people.

This can mean lot of trouble. HIPAA non-compliance can lead to a hefty fine (up to $50,000) and /or imprisonment.

It is for this reason any good medical answering service has personnel that undergo thorough training on an ongoing basis to update itself on the latest amendment to HIPAA clauses.

Calls Storage

A physician answering service must be able to provide its clients with a record of all previous patients’ calls.

You may wonder why this is necessary.

If a doctor for some reason is faced with a lawsuit a few years down the road, may need to provide evidence from one of the past calls from his/her patient.

A professional quality med answering service records and stores each call for a number of years.

Evaluating pricing

As with any services, doctors are always keen to know how much an answering service costs.

This depends on the packages offered.

The typical base cost includes 24x7 availability and appointment scheduling.

Bilingual services are provided if asked for.

There can be several plans on offer. It can be a flat rate package, pay as you use, or with unlimited call options.

A doctor will have to assess his/her business requirements thoroughly before selecting an appropriate plan.

By choosing the right doctors medical answers service, a medical professional will have much less things to worry about.

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The Doctors Answer is a leading medical answering services firm having a team of highly trained representatives providing services to clients 24/7 and 365 days a year.

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Created on Nov 14th 2017 03:59. Viewed 547 times.

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