Three Reasons why Automated After-Hours System is Patient Preferred

by Kristen White Blogger Personal health information is private and most often, individuals are hesitant to share this with anyone outside of their doctor and the nurse. Medical facilities that employ an after-hours answering service can experience frustration as patients may not give the individual taking the call all the information that is needed before contacting the physician that is on duty. This is because patients may only share the bare minimum to get a call back and then disclose more once the doctor is on the line, but with an automated service, this discomfort is avoided and the physician hears everything they need to have a plan of action when they call the patient back.

Another reason that patients prefer automated doctors answering services is the fast response time because the machine will pick up immediately so there is no waiting for someone to answer or being put in a queue that will get answered at some point. Whether the matter is urgent or non-urgent, patients want a direct connect so they can leave the message and then move on to their next task. They trust that the office will get back to them in a timely manner with the answer even if that is the next business day as the situation allows for that turnaround time.

Patients do not care about the direct cost of this type of service but the doctor does since it comes out of the budget. Automated doctor’s telephone answering service is cheaper and easier to implement especially when there is a flat rate charge instead of being based on volume. Indirectly, this affects what patients get charged because if the physician has to increase prices to account for overhead costs then that is passed on to the customer. Services that are automated are more reliable because they don’t have ‘bad days’, call in sick or have short-handed shifts which means that every call is answered in a timely manner so that patients can connect and leave their message.

While ‘live’ call takers provide the caller with someone to talk to instead of a machine, they do not have a medical background and cannot give any advice or recommendation on what to do so the patient still has to wait on someone from the office. They can only take the message and pass it to the doctor on-call and the patient has to rely that the correct professional will be called and the message will be delivered accurately with no interpretation or misunderstanding due to language barriers or other factors.

The last benefit of the automated system is the freedom it gives to staff members to focus on patient care with a personal touch while the machine takes overflow of calls or steps in when personnel are busy during office hours. This ensures that every patient need is addressed so that those in the office for appointments are seen on-time and individuals calling in can be assured that they will be called back quickly with an answer by the appropriate member.

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Created on Jul 25th 2019 06:59. Viewed 417 times.

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