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How can hospital contact centers benefit from physician answering services?  

Despite the best efforts of physician groups and practices, they might not always be available to answer phone calls and address inquiries—leading to frustrated patients and missed opportunities.  

In today’s fast-paced world of healthcare, providing exceptional care requires more accessible communication between patients, physicians, and non-clinical staff. With the help of physician answering service software, hospital contact centers can benefit from a streamlined flow of information.  

What are physician answering services? 

A physician answering service is a valuable tool that provides additional coverage for affiliate physicians and hospitals’ internal departments. It facilitates seamless and reliable communication and ensures no call goes unanswered.  

Designed for integration into operator consoles, physician answering software syncs with on-call schedules and supports multiple messaging functions, including paging.  
 

What are the benefits of physician answering services? 

Physician groups and internal hospital departments can stay organized and focused on patient care with a physician office answering service. This powerful technology helps your contact center become a better source of clinical information.  

Improve caller satisfaction 

With a physician call answering service, hospital contact centers can maintain the business continuity of affiliate physicians or their internal departments.  

Operators can receive calls after hours, making callers feel heard and confident that their clinicians can address their needs at any time. The increased availability of physician answering services helps enhance caller engagement, retention, and loyalty.   

Provide new revenue opportunities and reduce operational costs 

Physician Answering Service Workflow
Dr. Smith’s office forwards the phone to the hospital call center during after hours. Patient calls Dr. Smith’s office and is automatically forwarded to the hospital operator. Hospital operator gets a pop-up on their screen for Dr. Smith’s office, and the answering service window appears. Operator takes a message and determines if they need to page Dr. Smith’s on-call physician or if it can wait until the next day. If the message can wait until the next day, it can be auto delivered to the office. If it is an urgent matter, the message goes out to the proper person. Operator can set a reminder if Dr. Smith is supposed to call back to acknowledge the message.Hospital operator group can bill Dr. Smith’s office on a monthly basis for the answering service function rather than outsourcing it.

 As seen above, hospital contact centers can use their physician office answering service to generate revenue; they can bill local physician groups and practices on a monthly basis, rather than the affiliate physicians outsourcing the service.  

If your healthcare organization wants to implement physician answering software to answer calls for your internal departments, this communication technology provides another way to reduce overhead costs.  

Relieve employee burnout 

Physician answering services are valuable for tackling clinician burnout within physician practice groups and health systems. It reduces this professional problem by handling routine inquiries and non-urgent calls, freeing valuable time for more serious responsibilities.  

When healthcare workers feel they have the resources to handle their workload effectively, their job satisfaction and retention increase.  

Increase overall productivity 

As an automated system, a physician call answering service helps physicians and healthcare organizations be more productive.  

For example, messages can be sent to affiliate physician groups or practices without delay. If contact center operators are working with manual processes, they would otherwise waste their time and energy ensuring patient information is successfully delivered. 

Standardize contact center procedures 

Another advantage of physician answering services is the ability to consolidate into a single source: the hospital contact center.  

Calls can then be handled in an organized manner, reducing the risk of missed or misdirected information. This standardization is especially valuable for documentation and auditing purposes.  

With a physician office answering service, your healthcare organization can open new doors to opportunities that equally benefit physician practice groups and internal departments within your health system. Messages are not missed or overlooked, resulting in better patient experiences overall.

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