First generation medical answering services were capable of little more than taking messages and paging clinicians for emergencies. But a lot has changed with the introduction of digital technologies. We can do so much more in the 2020s, including tailoring answering services to assist a busy practice throughout the day.
Yes, you read that correctly. Medical answering services are not limited to meeting after-hours needs. Apello can provide customized services that are active throughout the day. During slow periods, your staff can handle a low volume of calls without our help. But when things get busy and your phone lines are tapped out, incoming calls can be forwarded to our call center.
Call Forwarding Busy Line
Forwarding calls when office lines are busy is made possible by a feature with a simple name: call forwarding busy line (CFBL). The name is self-explanatory. With the feature enabled, your patients never hear a busy signal when calling in. If all your lines are currently connected to other calls, your current call is forwarded to our service.
The feature is automatic. In other words, it is not something you have to activate when you suspect the office is about to get busy. Call forwarding is completely automated. Even better, modern medical answering services have the capability of connecting with your existing office management software. Caller information can be input in real-time, so that your office staff is always up-to-date even if we are answering calls for you.
How It All Helps
Now that you know how CFBL works, the more important question is how it helps. First and foremost, it takes a ton of pressure off your staff. They can continue to handle calls as the workload allows. When things get busy, they are not under pressure to jumble a boat load of calls while still handling the other tasks they are responsible for.
Need more? Here are some other ways CFBL helps:
1. No Busy Signals or Voicemails
Automatic call forwarding means no busy signals or voicemail messages for your patients. That’s huge. When patients call your office, they do so with the expectation of speaking with a human being right away. When that expectation is met, patients are happy.
Partnering with a medical answering service makes for better customer relationships. Your patients feel like you care about them – at least enough to answer the phone when it rings.
2. A Better Reputation in the Community
So much of medicine has become so business oriented that it’s easy for consumers to get a bad taste in their mouths. It only takes one bad experience. For example, leaving a voicemail that is ultimately not returned can really upset a patient. If it happens too often, a practice’s reputation can be irreparably harmed.
On the other hand, answering every call as it comes in does wonders for improving a practice’s reputation. Patients trust offices that answer their phones. They trust operators who are ready to answer questions, handle inquiries, schedule appointments, and offer triage.
3. Improving Office Efficiency
Every missed call represents follow-up work that needs to be done. Eliminate missed calls and you eliminate that work. In essence, partnering with a medical answering service can improve office efficiency by ensuring things are handled right away.
There is plenty more to discuss on this topic, but we can leave that for a future blog post. We would be more than happy to discuss medical answering services when you call to speak with our team. Needless to say, we can help you better manage your busy office phones.
