Don’t Neglect Your Phones

Medical practices large or small are busy. Every day you have patients on the phone, referring providers on the phone and those calling to ask general questions about your practice. Do not neglect your phones! It’s easy to neglect the phones when you have patients in your waiting room checking in, a line of patients waiting to check out and a pile of referrals to work on.

If you’re a mid or large sized practice it may make sense to identify and assign one person to just work the phones. Create a workstation in an area of the practice that is quiet and not patient facing. This will allow that staff member to essentially work as a one person call center where their entire role is answering phones, returning phone calls and scheduling appointments.

On of the greatest sources of frustration for a patient is them calling and not being able to get anyone on the phone. This is a shared frustration for referring providers who are trying to contact you to send you a new referral, follow up on a shared patient or get a medication request in. It doesn’t take long for a practice not answering their phones for these patients calls and new referrals to dry up, they have simply gone somewhere else. Answering your phones and replying quickly to messages will increase patient satisfaction as well as the satisfaction of your referring providers which will lead to higher patient volume and greater revenue for the practice.