The document discusses challenges with providing after-hours care and proposes a solution using technology. It notes that many urgent patient calls are not addressed after hours and most ER visits occur then. Current options are problematic as answering services are expensive and not always reliable. The proposed solution, Webley MD After Hours, would allow practices to provide better after-hours coverage through features like custom greetings, urgent call flags, message notifications, and call screening to route urgent calls to the on-call doctor. The service aims to improve patient care and message management compared to traditional answering services.

1. Providing Better After
Hours Coverage
Simplifying and Unifying Communications Through Technology

2. Some Callers Require Immediate Care
• Patients still require timely clinical advice
• Studies have shown that 22% - 44% of after hours calls
involve potentially serious problems.
• Urgent calls are not always forwarded to on-call
physicians
• According to a study in the Journal of Family Practice, 50%
of calls not forwarded by the answering service to the on-
call physician could be classified as needing immediate
contact with the physician.
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3. Most ER Visits Occur After Business Hours
Number of ER visits per 100 persons
47.4
50 42.3
39.4
40
29.4
30
20
10
0
Northeast Midwest South West
Most visits to ER occur after business hours (63% of adults, 72% of children) according
to the 2006 National Hospital Ambulatory Care Survey. In 2006, there were 119.2 million
ER visits in the US.
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4. After Hours Care Challenges for Patients
• Harris Interactive/Commonwealth Fund survey found that 60% of
respondents had difficulty getting after hours care without going to an
emergency room
• Rise of convenient care clinics
• Study found patient satisfaction with after hours care highest for those who spoke
or saw their own family physician or visited their own practice’s after hours clinic*
– Compared to patients who visited ER, a walk-in clinic or used a telephone advisory service
• Emergency room wait time averages 4 hours
• ER visit costs over $1,000
• Can be the only option for face to face care late at night/early in the morning
• Callers might not receive the proper attention they deserve
• Protocols not followed
• Poor customer service
• High turnover
* Howard M, et al. Patient satisfaction with care for urgent health problems: a survey of family practice patients. Ann Fam Med. September/October 2007;5(5):419–424.
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5. After Hours Care Challenges for Practices
Medical practices we interviewed expressed the following
concerns:
• Patients call looking for free advice rather than coming to the
practice
• Calls are uncompensated
• Most callers do not require an immediate response
• E.g., calling for information, refill request, etc.
• Being on call all the time is stressful
• Belief that callers like reaching a live person
• Live answering services staffed by medical personnel are expensive
and require detailed protocols
• Live answering services not staffed by medical personnel aren’t
much better than message takers
• Messages are faxed – cumbersome to distribute
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6. After Hours Care Challenges for Practices
Challenge: Uncompensated calls, most callers do not
require immediate assistance
• Call routing
• Self-service features
• Call screening
• Option for caller to tag message as urgent
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7. After Hours Care Challenges for Practices
Challenge: Perceived preference to reach a live person
• Answering service operators
• Require detailed protocols
• May not forward caller when the situation requires immediate attention
• Human error
• High turnover
• Variable customer service skills
• Perception vs. reality
• Callers are used to automated messages
• Privacy issues
• Accuracy
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8. Why Should Practices Care about After Hours?
• Your patients would like to reach someone who knows their
medical history
• Opportunity to strengthen your relationship with your patients
• Increase perceived accessibility and convenience
• Your practice can provide better care than the other alternatives
• Not everything can wait till morning
• Your patients’ health is at stake
• Can be a matter of life or death – patients may not realize they need to
visit ER immediately
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9. The Old Way of Handling After Hours Calls
Live answering service Answering
* Inconsistent customer service skills, high
machine/voicemail
turnover rates * Won’t work if there is an outage
* Inaccurate message transcriptions * Risk that box/machine is full & can’t record
* Offers little more than what an answering new messages
machine can provide * Providing another phone number to call
* Price typically includes fixed number of poses an additional obstacle for an anxious
minutes, additional minutes billed at a much patient
higher rate * No or limited notification of new messages
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10. The Better Way of Handling After Hours Calls
Webley MD After Hours:
• Faster, more accurate messages, notifications by pager, phone, e-mail – it’s up
to you
• Every call handled courteously and consistently
• Caller ID, call screening features
• Custom greetings allow you to greet each caller with a familiar voice, record
up to 9 greetings
• Lets callers tag messages as urgent
• Better call routing. Set up voicemail for different departments/functions,
physicians, etc.
• Change on-call status with a quick phone call
• Natural language interactions allow callers to state what they want the system
to do. It's as easy as having a conversation.
• Our hosted service is monitored 24/7 with backup and disaster recovery
services.
• Subscriber based, no equipment to purchase, nothing to maintain
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11. Key Benefits of Webley MD After Hours
Better Patient Care
• Improved communication with patients
• Quicker response time to after hours calls
• Eliminate inaccurate messages
• Hear the patient’s voice message including urgency conveyed in tone of voice
• Never miss or lose an important message
• Ensure continuity of care
Better Message Management
• Better call routing
• Easier, unified message management
• Change on-call status with quick phone call
• Screen all callers
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12. How Webley MD After Hours Works
Physician uploads profile
to Webley MD. She’s now
the on-call physician.
If on-call physician
doesn’t answer, new Office is closed. Calls are
message notifications are forwarded to Webley MD.
sent to on-call physician.
Urgent calls are sent to Calls come in. Callers are
on-call physician with call greeted with custom
screening features. recorded message.
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13. Webley MD After Hours Script
“You have reached the office of East Bay Family Medical.
Our office is open Monday through Friday from 9 AM to 4
PM. If this is a medical emergency, hang up and dial 911. If
you have an urgent medical problem and need to reach the
on-call physician, please stay on the line and the on-call
physician will be notified of your call. Thank you for calling
our office.”
Create your own messages for holidays, weekends, lunch,
and so on.
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14. Typical Mailbox Types
• Corporate 0 Mailbox
• Billing
• Profile login
• Not used to receive or transfer calls
• Department Mailbox
• Practice number is forwarded to this
mailbox
• Loading Doctor Profiles
• Message Notification
• Pager Re-Notification
• Profile Mailbox
• Doctor Personal Destinations
• Doctor Call Transfer Setting
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15. Webley MD After Hours Summary
What happens after your office closes? Webley MD
After Hours is there to:
• Replace or supplement your existing after hours service
• Lets you hear and save the patient messages, much faster
than an answering service
• Available any time (nights, weekends, holidays, lunch)
• Find and follow me feature to ensure you get the message
• Notify home, office, cell phone, pager, e-mail and more
• Call to quickly change on-call status
• Record your own custom greetings
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16. Webley Corporate Overview
• Founded In 1997
• Industry Pioneer in Advanced Speech Applications:
• Unified Communications
• After Hours Messaging
• Broadcast Messaging
• 7 Advanced Speech Patents
• 50,000 Active Customers
• Delivering 180,000,000 Transactions Per Year
• Fully Redundant Data Centers
• Numerous Awards For Technology Product of the Year
Webley Confidential

17. For additional information:
1-877-7-WEBLEY
info@webley.com
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